Let?s examine what Google said in their announcement, and what it means your business should be doing. Google is Going After Scammers Trying to Charge Businesses for Business Profiles First of all, a Google Business Profile is completely free for business owners to claim and use to share information about their organization. That?s just a fact. Therefore, if someone calls you and claims to be Google, offering to assist you with your Business Profile for a fee, they are attempting to scam you. This problem has gotten bad enough that Google is actively stepping in as a part of its ongoing efforts against scams. Their theory is that, by publicizing these scams and taking legal action against them, they are both deterring would-be scammers and raising awareness with the public about these threats. According to Google?s blog post about these kinds of scams, they were able to stop 12 million scammers from creating fake Business Profiles, and another 8 million attempts to fraudulently claim Business Profiles. Let?s be clear?Google charges you absolutely nothing to create a business profile on their search platform. Why would they? Creating one is mutually beneficial for you and them. On your end, you make it easier for clients to find and learn more about your business, and on Google?s end, their search engine becomes that much more useful for searchers. That?s a win-win! So, if ?Google? ever reaches out to you and attempts to sell you a Business Profile, it?s pretty clearly a phishing scam?a scam where an attacker pretends to be someone else. How to Spot Phishing Scams Make no mistake: phishing scams can appear to come from anyone?Google, your mother-in-law, one of your vendors, the government. Fortunately, there are a few core best practices that you can follow that help you to catch these attempts. Watch for Urgency: Keep an eye out for emotional language, particularly when it supposedly comes from a business entity. Urgency is a basic tool that a scammer will use to put you in an emotional, irrational state. Don?t let them fool you. Check the Details: So, ?Google? reaches out to tell you that you should pay for their assistance in setting up your Business Profile. Don?t hesitate to look up the Google Business Profile page (which, incidentally, clearly states that the Business Profile is free) to confirm (or, in this case, deny) the claims you?re being pitched. Don?t Give Them the Satisfaction: If you?ve confirmed that a message or a call is a scam, just end the conversation. If it was legitimate, the person will probably understand that you were just doing your due diligence for cybersecurity. We?re Here to Help Your Business Securely Reach Maximum Productivity Reach out to White Mountain IT Services at (603) 889-0800 to find out what we can do to help your business accomplish more.
Save An Outlook Email as a PDF The key to this trick is to use the virtual PDF printer available through Windows devices. You?re not actually printing out the documents; really the feature is just going to save the page as a PDF file. It converts the page into a downloadable PDF file. You can, of course, print it out later if you want. The first step is to find the email that you want to save as a PDF. Open your Outlook app and find the message you want to download. You can use the web-based application or you can use the desktop app. Next, you?ll go to the Print options. You can use the File > Print method, or you can just use Ctrl + P to open them up. In the Print window, you should see Microsoft Print to PDF in the list of destinations. You should then be prompted to Save Print Output As, so just select the location to save your PDF. Once you?re ready, click Save and you should be all set. For the web browser, the process is quite similar. Once you have your message, you just click on the three-dot menu in the corner of your message and select Print. Then follow the same steps outlined above. That?s all there is to it! You can now open your PDF file and do what you will with it. For more great tips and tricks, be sure to subscribe to our blog and check back. You can even use this trick to save them as PDFs and save them for later!
How to Enable Energy Saver in Chrome First things first?you need to make sure that you currently have version 108 of Chrome installed. Checking is simple enough. In the triple-dot menu at the top-right of your browser window, go to Settings. Once there, select the About Chrome category from the list at the left of the window. There, you?ll find information about your browser, including the version you have installed. There, you can push an update to Chrome 108. If you?re nervous about doing this (or anything we reference in this blog), don?t hesitate to reach out to us! From there, accessing the energy saving feature will take a little bit of work, too. Chrome has a hidden area where features being developed are shared for those who like to tinker. As of this writing, Energy Saver is one of these features. In your browser?s address bar, type in chrome://flags and hit Enter. You?ll see an extensive list of available and unavailable features?called ?Experiments??that you can search through. Search for ?battery? and you?ll get two options (as of this writing), the first of which being Enable the battery saver mode feature in the settings. Set this to Enabled. Once you?ve done that, you?ll need to relaunch Chrome for the changes to take place. Click the provided button to relaunch Chrome. Afterwards, if you go to your Settings, you?ll see a new tab in the list at the left: Performance. Access it, and you?ll see your new Energy Saver setting. Once activated, this setting will allow you to limit certain aspects of the user experience to save a bit of battery. As the setting says: ?When on, Chrome conserves battery power by limiting background activity and visual effects, such as smooth scrolling and video frame rates.? Once activated, you can decide whether to have this option Turn on only when my battery is at 20% or lower or Turn on when my computer is unplugged. Again, for assistance with this or any other IT question you have, please reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.
The Skinny on the Penetration Test The penetration test is effectively a controlled hack completed by a security professional that tries to find potential vulnerabilities. Your IT is a vast series of connected pieces of software and hardware. Any one of these applications or machines can have outdated components or holes that can allow hackers to squeeze into your technology and then wreak havoc. A penetration tester will do exactly what a hacker would do and is typically trying to get specific knowledge about the strength of your network defenses. This is called ?ethical hacking?. You might discover during the test that a system you thought was impervious is not-so-safe after all. Penetration tests are important because it is much easier to prevent data breaches than it is to respond to them?as is the case with technology problems in general. It?s better to keep them from becoming problems in the first place by taking preventative action before that can ever happen. Penetration Testing is More Than a Vulnerability Assessment Sure, the main reason to get a penetration test on your network is to find vulnerabilities, but it provides a lot more information than just your potential vulnerabilities. When you have a penetration test done, it puts stress on your system to see how it responds under pressure. Let?s take a look at three types of penetration tests and what they do for your business: Black box testing – The tester goes in blind. They know nothing about the network or what to target. This type of testing might be used if there are no specific problems that need to be addressed. White box testing – The tester goes in with full understanding of the network, often looking for specific problems that need to be addressed. Gray box testing – The tester has partial knowledge of the network. In other words, they don?t have the whole picture, but they have some of it. Depending on the results of the test, a report can be generated detailing just how far along the simulated data breach got, what was stolen, and so on. It is then up to the business to course-correct, taking all of the appropriate measures to ensure that the attack cannot happen for real. Reach Out to Us Today! White Mountain IT Services knows that cybersecurity can be a challenge for small businesses, especially those with limited resources at their disposal. This is why we offer comprehensive IT solutions, chief among them cybersecurity, to aid you in your mission. We want to make it as easy as possible for your business to operate in an efficient and safe manner. To this end, we can help you with building robust cybersecurity, including scheduling your business for a penetration test. To learn more about what White Mountain IT Services can do for your business, give us a call today at (603) 889-0800.
There are three big ways that AI will likely continue to be hugely beneficial to businesses in the near future: automation, decision making, and generative AI. Why AI-Powered Automation Isn?t Going Anywhere Let me ask you this: is it more worthwhile to have one of your team members spend their day sorting data into a spreadsheet, or for them to spend their day actively engaged in profit-generating activities? Take your time. I?ll wait. All offices have those rote, menial tasks that?while necessary?do little more than take up valuable time. Many of these tasks can be quite effectively addressed through automation, particularly when that automation is guided by artificial intelligence. A great example of this is the customer support chatbots that can be found on more and more websites nowadays. By automating a time-consuming aspect of customer service, your employees can start their interactions with your clientele from a much more knowledgeable point?and again, this is just one example. Why AI-Supported Decisions Aren?t Going Anywhere Let me ask you something else: would you rather make a decision based on your gut instinct, or one based on hundreds and thousands of compiled data points that have been condensed into clear and actionable insights? Again, I?ll wait. With so much data generated nowadays, it is almost becoming necessary to use artificially intelligent tools to give you a bird?s eye view of it all. Using AI, identifying business opportunities and other recognizable patterns becomes far easier and faster, allowing you to better optimize your business? time and efforts. Why Generative AI Isn?t Going Anywhere You?ve probably heard about the things that people have managed to do with generative AI platforms in recent months. A piece of artwork generated by AI won a prize at the Colorado State Fair, social media has been filled with people uploading images generated by AI, and AI-generated text is better than it has ever been. While it isn?t quite time for creatives to start looking for alternative employment opportunities (or, better yet, educate themselves on using these kinds of tools to their own advantage), this use of AI isn?t going to go away. Investments are already being planned for these kinds of technologies, and as the capabilities of these platforms scale up, its use is only set to expand further. So, What Does This Mean for Your Business? Simple: start looking for opportunities to use AI to your advantage, starting now by automating what you can. Getting used to this technology?s potential and applying it to today?s workplace will only leave you in a better position when it eventually becomes the norm. We can help you implement the solutions necessary to put automation to work for you. Give us a call at (603) 889-0800 to learn more.
