There are many ways that data loss can take place. Malware can permanently delete your data, and ransomware can do the same (we aren?t even entertaining the notion that paying the ransom will return your data to you). Accidentally or intentionally, your end users could be the cause of data loss through deletion or overwriting data. Physical devices can be damaged and fail. When all is said and done, if your data is only stored in one place you will eventually lose it to some degree. Data Loss Does Considerable Damage At any scale, data loss can negatively impact your business and its operations. Consider what could happen if just one sales proposal was lost. If the salesperson who was working on it had no means of restoring it, they would have to go back and do it again. As a result, that?s time that could be spent on sales calls or even making more progress on the sale in question (lest you miss a deadline and lose the sale in its entirety). Now, what if it was more than just an individual file, what if it was an entire server hard drive? That could mean the loss of an entire database, years of client records and data, or months of planning and preparation for the future. In other words, your entire company would feel the impact of this one event. Going further, some data loss events (based on how much data was lost and what kind of data it was) legally require you to officially report them. This is particularly the case when a data breach is involved, but even that can lead to your data being damaged in some way. Any devices that are lost or stolen also need to be treated as data loss, with your business working to minimize the damage and make all the proper notifications. Preventing Data Loss By now, it should be obvious that data loss is something to avoid, as its ramifications are thoroughly negative. The nice thing is, preventing data loss isn?t all that complicated?and, when compared to the alternative, far less costly. All it takes is a secure and reliable backup. To accomplish this, every bit and byte of data you have needs to be stored in a minimum of three places. One copy is the original, the one saved on your workstation or for extra credit, on your network server. Technically, even this ?one? copy of data should be duplicated across multiple server drives in a configuration known as a RAID array, which can lead to improved performance and security. The second copy of your data (again, all of it) should be on another network device, whether that?s another full server, a NAS or Network Attached Storage device, or a dedicated backup device that takes an ongoing record and duplicates it to an offsite location. This offsite location is where your third comprehensive copy of your data should be kept, ideally in the cloud. This copy serves as your insurance policy should some event create wide-spread data loss within your business and will enable some level of functionality to continue in the face of a disaster. For our business, we handle all these steps with the help of a device known as a BDR, short for Backup and Disaster […]
Get Enough Rest There have been numerous studies done that suggest that the best way to maintain focus and productivity is to get enough sleep. Getting between seven-and-eight hours and going to sleep early will allow you to get a fast start on the next day. Peak productivity typically happens about 150 minutes after a person wakes up, so the earlier you start, the more productive you can be. Keep Your Schedule Generally, you will have a good idea of what your responsibilities are before you get started, but priority can change. If you have the flexibility to do so, setting your schedule up to get the most crucial things completed when you are the most alert makes sense. Arranging your assignments into a schedule that will allow you to be the most productie can be a big benefit for you and for your company. Multitasking Doesn?t Help Many people claim to be master multitaskers, while others claim that multitasking isn?t even possible. Studies show that the latter is closer than the former. Focusing on many different tasks at once makes it difficult to proficiently complete one. Selecting the task that has the highest priority and committing to that task gives you the best chance to build a task list that can be completed satisfactorily and efficiently. In business, productivity is essential, so how to go about it is important. White Mountain IT Services can help you implement the solutions to help support your productivity strategies and help you get your business find the success it is looking for. To learn more, reach out to our team by calling (603) 889-0800.
Small Business During COVID-19 When the first stay-at-home order was issued in March of 2020, small business owners were less phased than their employees. Some maintained that they would defy the order because they simply didn?t think they could trust their workers to be productive at home, and some weren?t set up for the type of extended remote work. Two weeks later, however, there was a completely different song being sung. Governors were serious about closing businesses to protect the health of workers and to ensure that the healthcare facilities weren?t overrun with sick people. The small businesses that were able to move their operations offsite quickly realized the benefit of having solutions in place that allowed for remote workers. The ones that didn?t either scrambled around to try and get digital or had to suspend operations. Unfortunately, some of those companies will never reopen. Relying on remote productivity was the only way forward, and for the past three months, business owners have reaped the benefits of this technological shift. Many workers have been asking to have work-from-home flexibility for years. Employers, up until the beginning of May, weren?t really that receptive. In fact before the pandemic hit, just under five million–or 3.4-percent–workers in the United States worked remotely for one company. 13 million total (including gig economy workers) worked remotely at least one day at the end of February. By April 31, however, 63-percent of eligible workers had worked from home for at least two days. That number continues to climb. Some would say that the stigma that went along with it is all but completely lifted and expect that work-from-home flexibility will be here to stay. That, of course, remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure, employees are generally staying productive during this crisis. Why Was There a Stigma on Remote Work? In the early 2010s there was a major shift towards allowing remote workers, but it was stigmatized when productivity figures for companies that embraced the policy were down. About the same time Yahoo!, which at that point was a failing Internet behemoth, decided to recall their remote workers after it was found out that remote executives were outsourcing their work offshore and collecting large paychecks. Other notable Silicon Valley firms followed and startups, not wanting to waste on unproductive remote workers, created their own policies with this very public scandal as the impetus. If you take the very public stigma and you add in the fact that employers have more control over their staff if they are working on the same computing network at the same location, it was a perfect storm. Coupled with the possible distractions people have while they work from home, you can?t really blame employers for making the decision to not offer remote work to their employees. Now, having been forced into it by the COVID-19 pandemic, the stigma has all been lifted. Some people work better remotely, and while it may have taken your staff a little bit of adjustment, after some time, most businesses are seeing that their operations can work, and often excel with the use of remote workers. On the other hand, the workers themselves, after the initial adjustment period have met the challenge head on. Whether they will be as productive when society reopens […]
Defend Your Staff Regardless of where your employees are doing business from, having the protections in place to cover your data and infrastructure is important. Since data security is extremely important for almost every business, it won?t hurt to remind your team how they fuel data and network security. Here are some practices you should consider training your staff on: Maintain password hygiene: Passwords and passphrases need to be unique and complex enough as to not be guessed by hackers. Best practices for password hygiene include: Not reusing your passwords Updating your passwords frequently Not sharing your passwords Using a password manager Only use secure connections: Data can be intercepted and stolen when sending it from an insecure connection. Be sure to have the tools, like a VPN, that will allow for reliable and secure data transmission, regardless of what network it is on. Push software updates: You?ll want to update and patch software regularly. Use MFA: Multi-factor authentication gives authentication a second step, further securing your data behind an alternate, randomly-generated passcode. Secure Your Business? Physical Assets You would be surprised how much digital theft is done by someone who gained access to credentials in person. To secure your place of business, you will want to: Control access: The best way to secure physical access to your hardware is to control who has access to what. By requiring authentication to get access to physical assets, you won?t have to worry as much about theft and user-based catastrophe. Keep an eye on your business: Monitoring your business using digital cameras, and access logs is a great way to both deter people, and allow for quick resolution if something were to happen. Insulate Your Data Storage Systems Possibly the largest risk to continuity that your business will face, your data isn?t inherently resilient. It can be damaged, deleted, and manipulated. That?s why you will want to: Track your data: Knowing where data is, how it is being used, and who is using it are important considerations. Restrict access to those who need it: The less exposed your data is, the less that can go wrong. To protect your data from loss, you should be diligent about controlling access to it. Maintain a data backup: You will need to keep your data secured by backing it up. Using the 3-2-1 rule is a solid practice here. That is keeping three copies of your data on two separate types of media, one of which is offsite. There is a lot to take in here, but we think that once you understand, your data will be safer than ever. Call the IT professionals at White Mountain IT Services today at (603) 889-0800 if you need more information.
What Is Involved in a Security Audit? The goal of a security audit is to determine that your security solutions are doing their job, but it doesn?t just stop with hardware. Some security audits can test the strength of your network policies, your overall infrastructure, and even your employees. The point is to determine if your overall security strategy is adequate. Sometimes the end result might be decommissioning or consolidating security hardware and software, and other times it might require additional solutions to be installed, or additional configuration to your current environment. At the end of an audit, you should have a clear understanding of what vulnerabilities were detected, and how to deal with them. Since technology changes so fast, especially in a business environment, it?s important to run regular security audits, as even process changes and software updates could result in new vulnerabilities that weren?t there before. Documentation is key here. A proper audit will result in very extensive, very clear documentation on what was discovered, how business objectives related to security were (or were not) met, and the steps or tools required to meet those goals. Sometimes this might mean breaking down objectives to individual departments – your HR department might have more stringent requirements than your sales floor. The end result should be clear, prioritized action items to resolve issues all across the board. Some Things an IT Security Audit Might Discover This isn?t a comprehensive list, as there are hundreds of issues that could be flagged in a thorough audit, but these are some of the most common items that are often discovered: Poor password hygiene Data retention/backup policies not getting followed Granting permissions to users who don?t need them Misconfigured or outdated security software Inconsistent access control levels on folders on the network Non-compliant, unauthorized software installed on workstations Sensitive data being stored incorrectly Undocumented, outdated, or untested incident response plans Insufficient (or non-existent) activity auditing …and many more. Security Audits are Required for Compliance If your business needs to comply with one of the many types of regulatory compliance standards, you need to perform regular audits in order to stay compliant. Here are just a few of the more common types of compliance audits. SOC 2 type I SOC 2 type II ISO 27001 GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) SOx (Sarbanes-Oxley Act) HIPAA PCI-DSS FINRA FISMA …and many more. If any of these apply to your business, then regularly scheduled security audits are required in order to maintain compliance. If you aren?t sure, or you need to have your security checked, reach out to the IT security experts at White Mountain IT Services. Give us a call at (603) 889-0800 to set up a consultation to discuss your cybersecurity posture.
