Let?s discuss why VoIP is phasing out traditional telephony, particularly for businesses. VoIP Offers Improved Flexibility One of the biggest problems with your office landline is the fact that you need to be in the office in order to use the phone?something that takes away from your capabilities while working remotely. VoIP uses the Internet to transmit the call data, which means it can be hosted on your workstation and your mobile phone, allowing you to answer calls wherever you happen to be working. As you might imagine, this heavily influences your productivity. VoIP Offers a Comprehensive Collection of Features While most additional features and capabilities that traditional telephone services offer come at an additional cost, VoIP includes them?and adds more than traditional telephony is able to. You get instant messaging, video conferencing capabilities, and dozens of other baked-in features by adopting VoIP?with no extra charge for services you don?t need or want, or for long-distance calls. VoIP Offers Precise Scalability Traditional telephone systems are challenging to scale, simply because of the need for ports and lines to connect across the office and the limited space available to do so. Plus, there?s only so much room in the office for people to set up their desks. VoIP helps eliminate these challenges, again, by utilizing the Internet and making it far simpler for new extensions, accounts, and hardware to be added Interested in Trying Out VoIP? Reach Out to Us! If implemented correctly, VoIP is a hugely beneficial technology to introduce into your business. We?ll help you manage it to pull even more benefits out of it, while you?re able to focus on your day-to-day tasks. Learn more about our various services by giving us a call at (603) 889-0800.

Cyberthreats Can Masquerade as Cybersecurity Companies Believe it or not, hackers have the gumption to impersonate cybersecurity companies and trusted resources in an attempt to subvert even the most careful employees. One such phishing campaign has been detailed by the security researchers at CrowdStrike, a company who has had their name dragged through the mud by cyberthreats impersonating them. This particular campaign had users calling a fake helpline to get support, which in this case means that the hacker remotes into a victim?s computer while the user is helpless on the other side of the line. The worst part is that for someone who isn?t necessarily scrutinizing the message, it could be seen as legitimate. The email contains language about outsourced security providers, something which is increasingly common nowadays, abnormal activity, and potential compromise, all of which could be misconstrued as true if you aren?t careful. The phony email contains a case number and contact information to address the concern. When the victim calls the number, the hacker installs a remote access tool onto their device, allowing them to gain access to the device at their leisure. What?s the Motive? As for the motive behind such an attack, it?s not necessarily clear at the moment. It could be that the attackers simply want to infect systems for later remote access. It is also possible that they want to profit off these infections by selling access to infected devices to the highest bidder. In any case, it?s a dangerous situation to be in, and certainly one that you should be wary of. What Should You Do? In just about all circumstances, your security company or department is not going to contact you in the way addressed above. It?s incredibly important that your employees know this, too. To keep you from making the same mistakes outlined above, we recommend you do the following: Verify the sender?s identity through secondary methods Look for spelling errors, grammatical issues, or inconsistencies Contact your own IT department, not the one in the email White Mountain IT Services can be your trusted IT resource, and we promise we won?t have you call some phony support line to get the help you need to secure your infrastructure. We?ll take care of the details behind the scenes so that you barely have to worry about it in the first place. To learn more about what we can do for your business, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.

What is Sova? As an Android banking malware, Sova can provide criminals with back-end access to devices so they can cause all kinds of problems later on. Although it was originally released in September 2021 in an incomplete stage, it was still able to steal usernames and passwords through tactics such as keylogging and false overlays atop popular mobile applications. Sova is more dangerous nowadays, as it is capable of deploying malware to infected devices, along with having a whole other lot of nasty features. It is remarkably flexible in that it can replicate over 200 banking and payment applications, as well as target cryptocurrency wallets. Sova is also able to take screenshots of infected devices and record audio through their microphones. So, yeah, Sova is just a little scarier now. Security researchers at Cleafy state, ?The ransomware feature is quite interesting as it’s still not a common one in the Android banking trojans landscape. It strongly leverages on the opportunity that arises in recent years, as mobile devices became for most people the central storage for personal and business data.? Furthermore, Sova can weasel its way past multi-factor authentication measures by intercepting MFA tokens, even if the user has deployed multi-factor authentication to protect themselves. How Can You Avoid This Threat? Sova and other Android malware variants typically spread through fraudulent applications hosted on the Google Play store. If a user downloads the app, they are infected by Sova. We encourage all users to practice a certain level of caution and scrutiny with any downloadable applications, and you should never download an app from anywhere other than a trusted first-party source. It helps to look at reviews and descriptions of applications as well. With mobile device management tools at your disposal, you can protect your business from mobile threats like Sova. With powerful enterprise-level security, you can whitelist or blacklist applications, remotely wipe infected devices, and so much more. With these solutions in place, you won?t be afraid of mobile threats. To learn more, contact White Mountain IT Services at (603) 889-0800.

Video Conferencing Video conferencing tools were useful before the COVID-19 pandemic caused the implementation of stay-at-home orders. Now, it is a tool that everyone uses to catch up with people in all types of situations. For the business, it is a huge benefit to be able to meet from anywhere at the click of a button. Since commercial-grade video conferencing solutions need a little more than your individual-license ones, it is important to find one with the features a business needs. They include: Screen sharing Instant messaging and group chat features HD Video Recording Multiple-webcam options Encrypted file sharing The quick innovation of video conferencing tools makes them an integral part of your business? software roster going forward.  Collaboration Apps Now there is software being developed that is specifically designed to enhance an organization?s collaborative abilities. They are part online forum, part instant messaging platform, but what they really provide is the ability to integrate dozens of useful management and productivity applications into the conversation. Productivity Suites The productivity suite is a computing staple, but today?s productivity apps require a bit more. The modern productivity suite offers secure email, cloud storage, sharing, sync, and applications designed to get things done. What?s best is that today, they give individuals the ability to work with their contemporaries in real-time in documents, spreadsheets, and on presentations?solutions that are pretty useful for any business today. If you would like to talk about today?s most dynamic collaboration technologies, call the IT experts at White Mountain IT Services today at (603) 889-0800.

You Don?t Have to Take Our Word that Forcing In-House Work Doesn?t Work: ?But from my experience, if you are counting on forced hours spent in a traditional office to create collaboration and provide a feeling of belonging within your organization, you?re doing it wrong.?? Michael Dell, of Dell Technologies  That?s right, the CEO and Chairman of Dell Technologies is on our side, too. Where Did All This Come From? A bit of background might help a bit here.  A few months ago, accomplished author Malcolm Gladwell?of Outliers, Blink, The Tipping Point, and many other works?sat in on a podcast. From there, Gladwell tore into the concept of remote work. A few choice soundbytes include: ?I know it?s a hassle to come to the office. But if you?re just sitting in your pajamas in your bedroom, is that the work-life you want to live?? “We want you to have a feeling of belonging and to feel necessary and we wanted you to join our team, and if you’re not here it’s really hard to do that.” “If we don’t feel like we’re part of something important, what’s the point? If it’s just a paycheck, then what have you reduced your life to?” ?It could have[sic] a really lovely thing where, if you preferentially select people based on their desire to work in the office, that?s a really wonderful way to build a really nice office culture, right? For the moment, you can just cream-skim all the people who believe in the value of that.? Now, we don?t want to take too much time going over the flaws in Gladwell?s argument (who, by the way, does the majority of his work from his home office or in local eateries, has no dependents he is responsible for caring after, and collected all his observations from his own audiobook and podcast company), so we?ll instead turn back to Michael Dell. Dell directly referenced Gladwell?s ill-received comments in a blog post he shared on LinkedIn?which is where his above quote came from. Dell Cites a Very Different Experience with Remote Work According to Dell, his company started incorporating remote work years ago, to the point where over half of Dell Technologies? team (65%) was working remotely between one to five days a week before the events of 2020 made them necessary. Dell also cites the Dell Technologies Breakthrough study that his company and U.K.-based technology market research company Vanson Bourne produced by surveying 10,500 people around the world. While perhaps not the largest sample size considering the scope of the survey, it still revealed that 80% of respondents foresaw remote work offering significant benefits, including improved financial independence, more time with loved ones, and increased time to spend on personal endeavors. According to Dell, 88% of the team members his company has hired since March of 2020 report their plans to stick around. He does also share some less-promising results?like the fact that 58% of survey respondents still struggled with their work/life balance and 41% still reported burnout amongst their staff?along with his belief that Gladwell was observing these trends in his own workforce. Dell goes on to state something that we perhaps agree with the most: that ?…you have to supply your team with the right tools and processes.? The Right Technology Makes […]