One particular service offered by managed service providers is vendor management, and it will save you a huge amount of time in the long run. Instead of you having to deal with this time-consuming process, vendor management allows your IT services provider to directly manage your business?s vendor relations. Basically, you can think of White Mountain IT Services as your single point of contact for all of your technology vendor needs. This is especially important for problems that might not be covered by your vendors. White Mountain IT Services can help your business communicate with vendors for technologies like: Printers Copy machines Telephone hardware Your Internet service provider Ask yourself if you have the time to deal with communicating with vendors for all of your technology needs. This includes emailing them, making phone calls, and generally contacting them for everything you would need regarding your product or solution from them. Dealing with vendors in this sense can cost way more time than it?s worth, especially when you?re in the midst of finishing a project, which is one of the best arguments for vendor management services: you don?t lose time and you gain all of the benefits. Consolidate Technology Vendors into One Phone NumberWhen it comes down to it, you?re wasting valuable time that could be spent working on other initiatives for your business. This could be a time-sensitive project or important operational procedures. Outsourcing vendor management frees up all of this time to devote to keeping your organization operational, consolidating all of your vendor communications into one point of contact. To learn more about vendor management, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.
The challenges of regulatory demands Regulatory compliance is challenging for any kind of business, but small businesses in particular can find it daunting. A limited budget and a lack of in-house IT personnel make it more difficult to adapt to changing security requirements. Also, the regulations themselves present difficulties in how they’re written. Sometimes they’re spelled out clearly, with specific steps that businesses should take and specific requirements to meet. Other times, the language is more vague and open to wider interpretation. For example, Massachusetts law demands that businesses come up with “administrative, technical, and physical safeguards” for their data; the specifics of these safeguards depend on a number of factors, including the company’s size, nature and resources. It’s often unclear to business owners if they’re acting appropriately to meet regulatory demands; each business is unique and so are its cyber security solutions. It doesn’t help that the law uses expressions such as “reasonable steps” without always detailing what these steps are. So what does compliance mean? Ensuring compliance means carefully reviewing the law, following the relevant specifics, and doing one’s best to keep in the spirit of the law when the wording becomes more vague. A key part of the law demands that businesses write out a comprehensive data security plan, implement it and maintain it. This plan must encompass major aspects of security, including the following: Technological strategies and defenses against data breaches. These include the use of encryption for stored and transmitted files, firewall protection, anti-malware programs, security updates, and strong password selection. They also involve monitoring your system for unauthorized intrusions. Administrative controls and employee training. You should carefully determine who has administrative privileges when it comes to knowing passwords, downloading software and performing system maintenance. You should also have protocols for different situations involving employees; for example, when employees leave your company, how do you prevent them from accessing sensitive data? Furthermore, part of your data security plan should include employee training and strategies to ensure their compliance with cyber security measures. Physical security. Businesses need to protect their offices and other work spaces from theft. Could a criminal easily break into your office and make off with a laptop or a folder full of printed files containing sensitive information? Could someone stroll in during business hours and sneak onto a computer when no one notices? Another concern is if your employees use a mobile device that gets stolen; are you able to remotely wipe the data from it if the device goes missing? Complying with Massachusetts data privacy law poses challenges, whether it’s meeting the specific terms of the law or interpreting its generalities and more vague instructions. Regardless of whether or not your business has hired in-house IT personnel, you should consult with experts who can help you bring your data security program up to regulatory standards. When you contact us, you’ll receive advice and assistance in developing a comprehensive plan to protect your data and comply with the law. Beyond legal compliance, your plan will help prevent the significant financial losses and diminished customer trust that accompany a data breach.
HIPAA compliance demands a comprehensive, multi-faceted security plan. As discussed in an article from Health IT Security, healthcare companies and providers face challenges on multiple fronts when it comes to remaining HIPAA compliant. What are some key tips for meeting HIPAA standards? 1) Take advantage of technological developments Rapid changes in technology offer both challenges and opportunities for easier compliance. On the one hand, these changes mean that companies need to devote resources to regularly updating their IT set-up and fighting against new threats. On the other hand, new technologies can offer cost-effective, reliable improvements in cyber security, making it easier for companies to safely store and transmit patient data. For example, companies can rely on HIPAA compliant cloud servers to store data instead of using a relatively less safe local server. And even though mobile devices have introduced new compliance issues, companies can adopt strong mobile device management strategies. 2) Conduct thorough employee training Even if you’re using top-notch technological solutions to comply with HIPAA regulations, you’ll remain vulnerable to data breaches and audit failures if you don’t train employees properly. Employee training should cover a variety of bad habits, such as thoughtlessly emailing patient information, sharing passwords openly or failing to log out of software programs containing patient information. Furthermore, employees should have levels of access to information commensurate with their position and responsibilities. Even after employees undergo training, it’s imperative for management to keep monitoring for unsafe behaviors. 3) Keep an eye on businesses you work with Healthcare companies and medical practices often collaborate with a variety of third-party vendors and other businesses. Depending on the data you share with them, you need to know if these businesses adhere to rigorous cyber security standards. Otherwise, they can potentially compromise your patients’ private information and undermine your HIPAA compliance. It’s critical that you coordinate your compliance with other businesses. Make sure that your partners are aware of HIPAA regulations and have a strong handle on them; you can outline steps for them to take and provide clear guidelines for HIPAA compliance. 4) Don’t neglect routine tests and internal audits Whatever tools and strategies you use to comply with HIPAA regulations, you’ll need to supplement them with routine monitoring, tests and internal audits. For example, if you set up a seemingly powerful system for detecting and blocking unauthorized access to your company’s network, how do you know that it works? Furthermore, are you keeping detailed and accurate records of failures in your system or lapses in security? You should regularly review your cyber security risks and adherence to HIPAA standards. Don’t wait for an external audit or an embarrassing data breach to alert you to problems developing in your company. Maintaining HIPAA compliance may seem daunting, and it does present various challenges requiring a comprehensive plan. However, you can work with IT experts to help ensure compliance and safeguard your company against security breaches. Don’t hesitate to contact us to discuss HIPAA regulations and come up with solutions tailored to your company.
The New ?Buzz? Phrase is “Contextual Data? One dominant force in 2016 will be contextualized data analytics, as the spotlight is being shined on the need for more precise decisions made possible by bringing relevant data into important contexts. In a simpler sentence – the right source for the right analysis. Data points – device, social network, location, influencers, language – will help businesses develop improved customer insights, and, in turn, more personalized products or services. For instance, telematic data will help automobile manufacturers improve the durability of vehicle components and pinpoint potential problems ? they are then able to notify drivers well before trouble occurs. This technology will also provide insurers with better information for managing risk, thus enabling them to offer drivers a better product in the form of more usage-based, personalized policies. To take this a giant step further, this kind of data revolution could eliminate the concept of risk pooling as it would enable insurers to underwrite down to the individual level. There Will Be More Cybertargets More contextually-rich data is more valuable ? to businesses and, unfortunately, also to cybercriminals. Increasing risks of cyberattacks will push the development of next-generation technologies for risk and information management, network security, and identity access protection. Public clouds will become more and more involved in the integration of contextual data and will need to be included in security system architectures. APIs Will Continue to Gain in Importance Businesses of all kinds have already discovered the power of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) and will continue to utilize them. Through APIs, different systems can access and exchange information, and they often serve as ?wrappers? around legacy systems. APIs will increasingly play a key role in providing contextual information and will cause a move away from an in-house IT mentality. Instead, there will be an increasing embrace of off-site infrastructure, cloud computing, and ?as-a-service? options offered by IT services firms. The Role of the CIO Will Continue to Develop The Chief Information Officer will increasingly take on the task of enhancing the value of technology and information to their company. The CIO is uniquely positioned to head up the development of appropriate digital business innovations which will then lead to improved decisions and the introduction of competitive products quickly and at scale. Consolidation of Enterprise Platform Players Will Continue As the recent news of a Dell/EMC ?mega-merger? illustrates, there will continue to be convergence and consolidation of enterprise infrastructure competitors. This is being propelled by the demands of the market which wants more complete, standardized, and agile solutions. Because converged infrastructure is trending toward public cloud solutions, look for more specialization to create specific workload approaches in specific industries. For instance, new telematics platforms will arrive on the scene to collect and manage data from connected automobiles, financial services platforms will integrate to create core banking services, and social and mobile platforms will converge Conclusion The only thing you can say for certain about the future of IT, is that some previously unthought-of innovations will appear in 2016 or beyond. This makes IT an exciting and stimulating field to be a part of. To help you make sense of all these new developments and to stay ahead of your competition, please contact us.
Does your IT services department have an IT recovery plan in place? If the answer is yes, is it adequate? To create a solid plan these steps are recommended:Look at your current plan (if any) and assess what level of protection is needed. Determine the length of time your business can afford to have its system(s) be non-operational. Determine how much data you can afford to lose. Identify all critical servers, applications, and related software. Document the process necessary to bring your server(s) back online in the event of a failure. Assess the availability of your IT personnel should an unpredictable disaster occur. If you have an outside consultant, how fast can this person get to your premises? Testing: It?s not enough to just have a plan in place, it must be tested to make sure it works, and it must be updated at least once a year. If your recovery plan has never been tested, how do you know that it will even work? You don?t want to wait until your first recovery attempt to discover its weaknesses. Be smart and test your current system as soon as possible. Find out how long it takes to recover, and what problems occur during the process. Recovery Plan Help: If the above sounds a little overwhelming, we can assist you to design a backup and recovery plan. Our expertise will minimize your downtime and have you back up and running in a very short time. Please contact us for more information.
