Recent Blog Posts

Today?s Workers are More Concerned about Privacy Than Ever Privacy has reached an unprecedented level of public awareness, so while not everyone is up to speed on all the best practices they should be, the concept of privacy is at least still held in high regard. As a result, some people may bristle at the thought of their boss digitally checking in on them?particularly while they are working from the presumed privacy of their own home. Of course, there are some protections in place in terms of personal privacy, like the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA), but the context matters greatly. Furthermore, some of these protections shift where employment is involved in the interest of the business? protection. Why a Company Would Monitor its Employees in the First Place There are countless reasons that a business might want to keep an eye on its employees as they are using company technology, from security concerns to compliance needs to plain old distrust? despite feelings like ExpressVPN recorded in a survey of 2000 workers: 59 percent of those surveyed felt increased anxiety and stress when being digitally monitored by their organization 43 percent saw this kind of monitoring as a violation of trust 36 percent attributed feeling pressure to work longer hours due to it 28 percent claimed monitoring practices made them feel underappreciated Make no mistake, this kind of monitoring is not a new thing. However, when remote work sent so many back home, away from the office, many supervisors simply did not feel comfortable losing their eyes on their team. This is why 78 percent of employers are tracking their employees, with 73 percent using recordings collected during this tracking to inform the performance reviews they would conduct on their team members. Does an Employer Even Have the Right to Monitor Employees? Well, here?s the thing: even if an employer doesn?t have a valid reason to monitor an employee?s device, there?s an excellent chance that they don?t need one. Consent to monitoring is frequently included in employee handbooks, meaning that many employees agree to it as a condition of their employment (whether or not they read the handbook and realize it). How Can an Employer Balance How They Monitor Their Team? So, while we?ve established that an employer has the capability to monitor their remote workforce, we haven?t touched on where the line might be. Various tools are available right now that offer different levels of oversight, from collecting keystrokes to screen captures to application monitoring. If it proves necessary, you can use these tools to help evaluate your team?s performance. Communication is Essential The crux of this issue is?particularly when remote work comes into play?that monitoring your team can feel isolating to the very team you?re keeping an eye on. Instead of checking up on them in the background, you can help improve their feelings by communicating with them more directly. At the End of the Day, It?s a Question of Trust The extent of the monitoring you undergo really comes down to how much you believe that your team will stay diligent, even with nobody breathing down their neck. We can help ensure your team members are equipped with the tools they need to do their jobs. Find out more about the solutions we offer by […]

Let?s compare some of the relative strengths and weaknesses of wired and wireless connections to see what we can learn. The Benefits of a Hardwired Connection Speed Wired connections are far faster than wireless ones. With the advantage both in terms of transferring data within your network as well as to the Internet, an Ethernet connection is clearly the more efficient means of doing so. Stability As the cable literally needs to come unplugged (or another part of your infrastructure needs to fail) in order for you to lose a wired connection, it is also safe to say that they are also far more stable than a wireless connection is, which means that devices using a wired connection have more consistent speeds with the reduced risk of external influence. Security A direct connection between two network points is going to be more secure than wireless signals broadcast through the air, ready for anyone to potentially intercept them. The Benefits of a Wireless Connection Mobility When using a Wi-Fi connection, there are no wires connecting a user in one place. While this may be an obvious point, the practical benefits of implementing this can make a great difference in the workplace, enabling productivity and collaboration from effectively anywhere. With the right workstation, your staff could conceivably work from their desks, a conference room, or even the break room if need be. Scope Wireless Internet also enables your team to work from a wider variety of devices, a big help in today?s increasingly mobilized business environment. Wi-Fi can also be used to enable those external to your business to access the Internet on their own devices, so public-facing businesses often make this a perk for their clients. Convenience When you don?t need to be tied to a network port, accessing the Internet is far more convenient than the alternative. Not only are there fewer cables to deal with, on-the-go work is much more possible. As a result, communication and collaboration are usually improved by their increased accessibility. A Hybrid Approach May Offer Maximum Benefits There is nothing that says that a business can?t embrace both means of connectivity to get the most out of its network?s capabilities. In doing so, you would cancel out the weaknesses that either option presents with the advantages of the other. With most of the connections fueled by wires, your employees could use the wireless tools to openly collaborate. White Mountain IT Services can help you with your business? IT, from your connectivity to the components you?re connecting. If you would like to learn more about connecting your business for maximum benefit, give us a call today at (603) 889-0800.

Major technology companies like Apple have delayed the return to the workplace, whereas others have completely removed the commute to the office, choosing instead to embrace fully remote operations for the foreseeable future. The traditional office environment, once a staple in the workplace, is slowly giving way to these more flexible operations. Employers may have vehemently opposed the idea of remote or hybrid working conditions, but they have since warmed up to the opportunities they represent. The shift in employer mindsets is showcased in the rates at which companies are paying their office leases. For example, ComputerWorld writes: ?In early May, just one in 20 office buildings in the US had occupancy levels above 10%, and as recently as last month occupancy rates averaged just 16%. Looking ahead to 2022, about one in five offices are expected to be empty, according to Moody?s Analytics, a consultancy.? This hesitancy to renew leases on office buildings likely stems from the fact that businesses are unsure of how much space they actually need to keep operations running. This doesn?t mean there is no demand for offices, just that the office layout is changing. Businesses are shifting more to a hybrid model, where employees spend some of their time working in the office and the rest of it working remotely. Some businesses are wary of implementing such a model, but it can cut costs for them if implemented correctly. Technology ensures that this new concept of hybrid operations is achievable for all types of businesses, allowing them to break down the boundaries that previously prevented them from making it happen. We understand that some businesses might not have thought hybrid operations were possible before the pandemic, but nowadays, with technology solutions more accessible and hyper-focused on communication than ever before, we think remote or hybrid operations are possible for all types of companies. If you think you lack the budget or knowledge to implement the necessary tools, we urge you to contact us at White Mountain IT Services to discuss your options. If nothing else, it pays to have a plan for remote or hybrid operations, even if temporary, as the pandemic has proven quite painfully. If you are one of the companies that originally struggled with the pandemic and your response to the new normal, we can help make sure that you have a more flexible response system for the next time something happens which forces your employees to work while out of the office. To learn more, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.

What is a Business Backup? Let?s respond to this question with a few of our own: how reliant are you on your business? data, and what would happen to your business if you were to lose that data? The answer to the first question should be a very obvious ?very.? The answer to the second is equally obvious: ?nothing good.? Your backup is meant to prevent you from ever having to find out that second answer firsthand. The idea of a backup is simple: with an extra copy of your data squirreled away for safekeeping, you don?t need to panic if something happens to your original copy. What that something could be, we?ll touch on later. What Does a Proper Business Backup Look Like? We always recommend that a business? backup be considered redundant?in a good way. Rather than something being unnecessary due to its repetition, its repetition is its strength. In this context, having a redundant backup simply means that you have multiple copies of this backup. We always recommend that you have multiple copies of your data backup, stored in numerous different places, in different formats. This is commonly summed up as the 3-2-1 Rule:  At least three copies of your data, stored on at least two types of storage media, with at least one copy stored in the cloud. This helps protect your backup from any event that might impact your local files. So, if your office experiences some kind of disastrous event, you won?t find all your backups destroyed or damaged as a result. To truly be redundant, it also helps to keep multiple versions of your data, just in case an attack of some sort manages to infiltrate your data and you want to restore your data from a clean version. These kinds of backups should be taken periodically?ideally, every 15 minutes or so. That way, you?ll lose a minimal amount of data should a disaster take place between backups. Why Might a Business Need a Backup? There are a great many reasons that a backup could prove useful. Naturally, your mind might go right to the largest disasters: fires, floods, and other such things that would completely wipe a business off the map. However, disasters large and (relatively) small can all result in data loss?data loss that your backup can help you avoid. Whether a device fails, ransomware encrypts your entire network infrastructure, or a disaster occurs, a proper data backup can do a lot to resolve your potential data loss issues. Whether It?s World Backup Day or Not, We?re Here to Help Backup practices are important all year round. That?s why White Mountain IT Services is here to help you prepare a data backup or review your existing strategy. Give us a call at (603) 889-0800 to get started now.

How Does the Cloud Enable Cybercrime? The cloud has seen its usage rise greatly in recent years, even before the pandemic sent so much of the workforce home into isolation. While this has given great utility to businesses, it has also given cybercriminals a lot of opportunities, simply based on the cloud and how it works. Let?s go over a few ways that the cloud can provide an opportunity for cybercriminals. Complicated Configurations Depending on the cloud you?re using and what you?re using it for, your cloud service or solution may need to be configured in certain ways?and, if not done correctly, these configurations could easily leave a business and its data vulnerable. This makes it crucial that you have a professional involved in the setup to ensure that all goes according to plan. Inherent Insecurity Whether it’s the interface that a user interacts with or the application itself, any insecure system present in the cloud could render your entire business vulnerable. This makes it all the more important that you protect your data in other ways?for example, encrypting any data you store in the cloud. Denial-of-Service (DoS) Attacks A DoS attack?or an attack where numerous computing resources are leveraged against a target to overwhelm it with traffic?is an effective strategy that cybercriminals have used time and time again. Cloud computing now enables cybercriminals to effectively rent these resources for use in their botnet, allowing them more flexibility and capability? a bad combination where cybercrime is concerned. How to Secure Your Cloud Solutions There are a few ways that you can make your use of the cloud more resistant to attacks. Adopt Appropriate Authentication and Access Management Care to take a guess at the way many cybercriminals make it into the cloud in the first place? Insufficiently secure passwords. In light of this, adding more authentication requirements to your cloud access and restricting what a user is able to access based on their role can help to minimize the damage that any individual user?s account can do. Secure Your Endpoints Your network endpoints?the computers, peripherals, and other hardware that connects back to your larger infrastructure?are essential to your business? processes. However, this interconnectivity can easily lend itself to a threat infiltrating your network through one of these endpoints. Securing them with the requisite protections is essential, particularly if your team members are to work remotely at any time. Leverage Encryption Encryption allows you to secure your data by?and this is a vast simplification of the process?scrambling it and shuffling it to be unrecognizable without the proper decryption keys. Adopting this safeguard and encrypting all data that is to be stored in the cloud can help protect the data you are relying on the cloud to store. Backup Your Data We cannot emphasize enough how important it is for you to always back up your data? and while we?re talking about potential cloud security issues, the cloud is still the best place to do so. Fortunately,  most cloud providers have their own security safeguards and protections in place to ensure that the data entrusted to them remains safe. Teach Your Team to Be a Security Asset Finally, we come to a practice that is good for your security in general: turning your employees into an asset, rather than allowing them to […]