The Importance of Email Security The reason you?ll want to invest in your email?s security is best summed up by the fact that your business faces near-constant threats. The fact is that all it takes is one malicious email to get into the wrong inbox and your business is dealing with a full-on catastrophe. If your business has unsecured email accounts, it is basically an open invitation for malicious entities. What can you do to enhance the security of your email accounts? Let?s look at a few things: Identifying Phishing Attacks The first thing you can do to secure your business? email accounts is to properly train your employees about how to identify phishing attacks. A phishing attack is when cybercriminals send deceptive emails that are built to seem authentic, and by design, get people to act. They typically do this by having them click on a link in the body of the email or download an attachment to the email. Typically, these attacks are simply phishing for access to a network attached account where the cybercriminal can steal data or deploy malware.  You need to train them to: Check the sender – Do you recognize the sender and the address that the email comes from? If not, you will want to verify with the would-be sender before interacting with the email.  Check the links – By hovering your mouse over the links in the email, you can see the URL that the hyperlink goes to. If you don?t recognize it or it doesn?t match the text of the email, don?t click on it.  Check punctuation and grammar – Phishing emails tend to have grammar and punctuation issues that you would never see in professional correspondence. Many attacks come from foreign countries where English isn?t the first language. Take it slow – Phishing emails tend to create panic for users and that leads to impulsive action and then disaster. Train your employees to take it slow and if they find anything that doesn?t make complete sense in an email to report it to the IT staff. Better safe than sorry.  If your employees know how to spot probable phishing attacks and when to report suspect emails, you will be far ahead of most businesses when it comes to email security. Securing Your Email Backup If you didn?t know already, the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (STMP) server enables the sending and receiving of emails. When someone in your organization sends an email, it is stored in the STMP server in plain text format. These backups are typically unprotected and available for access by anyone. That?s why it is important to add a layer of security?typically through encryption?to your email backups to ensure they are locked down.  Tighten Down Email Security There are sophisticated tools that help secure email servers with layers upon layers of security. These solutions, including dynamic spam filtering, can detect and block malicious emails. Tools such as password-protected attachments scans, page impersonation attack detection, and domain background checks can keep your organization?s email solution secure and mitigate the risks it could have to your network.  At White Mountain IT Services, we can help you get the secure email solution you need, help you plan your training, and much, much more. Give us a call at (603) 889-0800 today to have a conversation […]

What is a Note-Taking App? A note-taking application is any lightweight app that gives users the ability to take notes on a mobile device or workstation in the absence of a pen or paper. They are particularly helpful for those who might litter their workstation with countless notebooks or sticky notes with important information jotted down on them. These applications have been developed with the intention of replacing these inconveniences, but whether or not you?ll get value out of them will depend on the individual. This isn?t just some watered-down version of Microsoft Notepad; it?s a full-fledged application to help you stay organized. Modern note-taking apps have plenty of familiar features and similar functionality, like typing, drawing, or capturing notes, all with the ability to organize and track your thoughts, documents, personal notes, and pictures. Some even offer voice integration to dictate notes in real time. The applications themselves are designed so you can keep yourself organized while providing a robust array of features. More applications will save the files directly to the hard drive, but these apps also offer cloud syncing so you?re never out of luck when accessing a file on whichever device you would prefer to use. Where Do You Get Them? There are so many different types of note-taking apps out there, all from a variety of developers. The most popular are Evernote, Microsoft OneNote, Dropbox Paper, Apple Notes, and Google Keep. You can acquire these applications by downloading them from the various app stores for your device. Most of them are free to download, but certain functionality might be locked behind paid services for either the individual app or as part of a productivity suite. OneNote is a part of the Microsoft Office 365 suite, for example. If you are ready to change the way you take notes for the better, White Mountain IT Services can help. To learn more, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.

Today, we?re focusing on how businesses prove their compliance through the process of compliance reporting. Understanding Compliance Reporting Imagine that your organization is required to adhere to various standards and regulations. If you were to be audited, a compliance report would help establish that you are doing what you are supposed to. It?s an easy way to prove to governing authorities that you have done your due diligence and that your company is taking its data seriously. You can think of a compliance report as a progress report for your level of compliance. The report itself basically gives your business a frame of reference to ensure that its decision-making process is in line with what the auditor expects. As a managed service provider, we are mostly concerned with compliance standards that are directed toward your company?s IT and the data contained within. Standards that Compliance Reporting Could Benefit There are several industry-specific standards that your organization might need to report on, including the following: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)HIPAA sets the standards for how a person?s health information must be protected and safeguarded. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity FrameworkThe framework established by NIST provides businesses with established security best practices that can help them minimize risk. Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)Businesses accepting card payments must ensure they are following the data security standards associated with this form of payment. These standards are also required for applications to accept transactions in this way. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)Any business collecting data from citizens of the European Union must abide by the regulations set by the GDPR. Of course, there are other regulations too, but these are some of the more important ones to keep in mind. Each of these impose fines or other penalties on businesses that fail to comply, so it?s your duty as a responsible business owner to ensure you meet these standards and adhere to these regulations. Are There Compliance Standards You Need to Meet? We Can Help! White Mountain IT Services can help your business with maintaining compliance with the various standards and regulations you might be expected to adhere to. To learn more, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.

First, let?s define exactly what zero-trust security is, and looks like in practice. Zero-Trust Security Appropriately Means That You Trust No One In the past, security focused on keeping threats out of a given area. The idea was, if you managed to bypass a network?s protections, you must be trustworthy? right? There are many reasons why this approach is no longer effective?cloud computing, mobile solutions, cyberattacks being crafted more carefully being just a few examples?but the main reason we’ll be focusing on this is because business networks are no longer needed in a single location. Remote work?s rise may have allowed many businesses to adapt to the tumultuous times of the past few years, but it is important that we acknowledge the plain and simple fact that it greatly expands a business network?s footprint. In doing so, it inherently increases the surface area that could be targeted by threats. With the increased number of threats that businesses now need to contend with, in addition to the other issues we discussed above, you can?t rely on the aforementioned, old-fashioned way of doing things to keep your business secure. Why is Zero-Trust Now So Necessary? There are a few reasons. First, we again have to point at the expanded network profile that remote work creates and the inherent insecurity it causes. More connected endpoints equals more potential inroads to your business network, so verifying the legitimacy of everything attempting access is important. This only becomes more important when you also factor in the fact that a lot of attacks now resort to fooling the user, and not the security systems protecting them. This approach is called social engineering, and can be a serious problem if your team isn?t prepared to spot and handle it. Zero Trust Practices to Bake Into Your Processes This is the crux of reducing and eliminating many of the threats that could otherwise derail your business? processes (or worse). By shaping your standard operating procedures around some tenets of zero trust, you can significantly reduce the risks that you face. Here are some of the basics to get you started, but don?t forget that we can always assist you in adding more safeguards and protections to your network. Verify, Don?t Trust It is critical that your team members take the proper steps to confirm the legitimacy of any communications coming in, particularly if these communications present some sort of request. All such communications need to be verified through a secondary means. Training your staff members and evaluating your team?s preparedness will be crucial to accomplishing this. Require Stringent Authentication While it may be a slight inconvenience to you and the rest of your team, stricter authentication requirements at all levels can help to minimize the chance that your processes are infiltrated. Any and all requests for access should be checked, double-checked, and checked again by tested systems and review. Reinforce the Importance of Zero Trust Adherence Finally, for these measures to have any effect, it is important that your entire organization commits to them fully. Otherwise, these threats will have a far easier time making it into your operations and impacting them unduly. Remind your team members repeatedly about the processes they are expected to follow, simply to ensure they stay top of mind. We?re here to help you […]