Generally speaking, allowing your employees to use their own mobile devices does have its merits. In terms of morale, they?ll be happy that they can use their familiar devices rather than the provided workstation. Furthermore, having access to your company?s data while in the comfort of their own home might encourage them to work after-hours and accomplish more. However, this doesn?t come without its risks, as any business owner must know. As shown by a recent study from Flexera and IDC, many businesses are on the fence about how to keep their organizations secure from potentially malicious applications: 71 percent of enterprises will have a BYOD policy put into place within the next two years. Therefore, it?s safe to say that it?s a growing trend that will quickly overtake your industry. 69 percent of enterprises will put security measures into place to block risky application behavior within the next two years. 71 percent of enterprises claim that security is at the top of their priority list for BYOD. Despite this, having intentions and integrating a proper plan to assess the risks associated with BYOD are two entirely different things. Also revealed during the study was that many businesses aren?t exactly handling the risk assessment of BYOD particularly well: 55 percent of enterprises don?t have a set-in-stone list of applications that they consider risky for their business. 61 percent of enterprises don?t know what type of application behaviors they should deem risky. 16 percent of enterprises report that their current BYOD policies result in a lower level of application risk. Clearly, there seems to be a deficit in terms of actual practical knowledge of how to protect your business from rogue employee devices. All it takes to bring down a network is one infected device, so the responsibility for protecting your business?s network and data infrastructure falls on your shoulders. One of the best methods of handling BYOD is with a mobile device management solution from White Mountain IT Services. Some of the features include a comprehensive mobile device security solution, as well as the whitelisting and blacklisting of specific apps that might spell trouble for your business. We can limit which apps have access to sensitive corporate data, so your company?s private data can stay that way. For more information about BYOD and how to protect your company?s mobile devices, give White Mountain IT Services a call at (603) 889-0800.

One major benefit of outsourcing your IT is that new people are overseeing your company?s technology. With the addition of new professionals comes new perspectives and new skillsets. These new skillsets allow your business to do more than it previously could, and perhaps even catch and remedy inefficient ways of doing things. This is a classic example of why it?s good to have more eyes on a project; only, these aren?t the random eyes of strangers looking at your technology. Instead, you?re getting trained IT professionals who possess unique skills that you may not have access to through your current internal staff. As a bonus, these skills that are newly afforded to your company will serve as a valuable asset that your business will gain automatically, just by signing up for White Mountain IT Services?s managed IT services. Compare outsourcing IT to the traditional way of gaining new and professional skills for your business, which involves the hiring of a qualified worker with education (more experience will cost you more salary dollars), and then training the new worker in the specific needs of your business (another major expense). When you outsource your IT with White Mountain IT Services, you automatically gain the skills and training of our crack team of IT technicians, without having to deal with the hassle of hiring, training, and managing in-house staff. In fact, as soon as a new business signs on with White Mountain IT Services?s managed IT service, we take the time to assess the needs of your company so that we can serve your IT needs to the best of our ability. Essentially, outsourcing IT is like the reverse approach to what it typically takes to gain new skills for your business; this comes from us taking the time to interview and listen to you. Of course, during this assessment process, you?re welcome to ask us questions too regarding the specific skills that we bring to the table. This back and forth is characteristic of something deeper than what you will get with a break-fix IT service: A relationship. When working with an outsourced IT company, your business will automatically gain the skills and resources needed to find success with your technology, which will translate to finding success in every area of your business. To have your organization benefit from White Mountain IT Services?s technical expertise, outsource your IT today by calling us at (603) 889-0800.

What?s Your Current Backup Solution?Even if you?ve never really considered your backup solution, you probably have some sort of measure taken to protect your data. One particular method is tape, which has been a commonly-used backup storage medium for quite some time. This consists of backups being taken manually, usually once a day. These backups can take a long time and are usually done after hours. Other businesses might keep their files backed up using some sort of external storage device, like USB drives or external hard disk drives. These might be useful for personal use, but they certainly aren?t compliant with data backup best practices for business. The main question to ask here is whether or not your backup solution is up to the standards that you want for your business. Tape backup, while certainly better than no backup at all, can have its limitations. If the backups are stored on-site, a disaster that destroys your office could lead to permanent data loss. Also, a thief or rogue employee could easily make off with your tape storage should they desire to. What Can You Do?So, what can you do to resolve this problem? You can start by considering a new backup solution; one which backs up to the cloud multiple times a day with minimal downtime. This same backup solution should also store backups in a secure off-site location that?s easily accessible when the data recovery process begins. It might sound like a lot to ask for, but there?s a solution out there that handles all of this, plus some. White Mountain IT Services?s Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) solution was created to address all of these common issues with tape backup solutions. With our BDR, your business can take advantage of multiple backups throughout the day; since only the data that?s been changed since the previous backup is being backed up, the time spent recovering this data is especially lessened. This allows for a more comprehensive backup compared to tape, which is more often than not from the previous day. Your data is backed up both off-site and in the cloud, meaning that you can use it to recover quickly and efficiently. Furthermore, our BDR device is capable of replacing your server in a pinch. This is exceptionally useful if a disaster, like a hacking attack or hardware failure, were to strike. With the BDR acting as your server, you can minimize downtime and get back in the game while considering how to replace or repair your hardware. For more information, give us a call at (603) 889-0800.

Like this:   When looking for an IT provider, it?s important to look for one that can deal with your unused technology. Most of the electronics that get thrown away are taken to foreign countries where they take up space and harm the environment. What?s even worse is that these are third-world countries which often lack the means necessary to properly recycle these materials. Electronics are made up of useful metals that can be used to manufacture new electronics. Here are some options you have when it comes to recycling your old tech: Some of Your Old Junk Might be Worth SomethingYou generally have three options when it comes to getting rid of your old tech: you can recycle it, reuse it, or you can resell it. The choice depends on how old the electronics are. Kyle Bittner, a business development manager for Exit Technologies, says, ?If it?s junk from 1985, it would be a waste of time to pursue reselling the product. If its decent stuff from 2004, it?s probably still worth thousands of dollars that could return capital to the budget.? If you aren?t sure how much your old tech is worth, White Mountain IT Services can provide you with a good estimate. If you feel you?d rather just get rid of it and call it a day, we can do that for you, too. Either way, White Mountain IT Services can help you get rid of your unwanted technology. Make Sure the Recycling Agent Knows What They Are DoingDepending on what your technology is, you might need to handle it in a different manner than paper or other recyclable material. If your electronics had sensitive information stored on them once upon a time, you should consider destroying that material separately rather than risk letting it fall into the wrong hands. Data Destruction? Wait, What?Normally, companies are thinking about the opposite; how to preserve their company?s data rather than destroy it. But when you are getting rid of hardware for good, you should really consider how you want to go about getting rid of it and make provisions to delete your data from your hard drive. When deleting your data, ask yourself, ?Do you want on-site destruction or off-site destruction?? If you would rather watch your data get destroyed with your own two eyes, it provides you with a peace of mind, knowing that your data is gone from this world. However, if you would rather let someone else do the dirty work, off-site destruction is an option. Just keep in mind that the information will be passing from your hands into someone else?s, and you want to make sure that you can trust those hands. The bottom line is that you need to know, with confidence, that your tech-recycling provider can destroy your old hardware with minimal risk. White Mountain IT Services can do this for you, and we can also advise you on whether you should upgrade your technology or not. You can count on us to keep both your wallet and the environment clean and green.

Forbes magazine provides us with some great insight as to what happens to your personal information once it?s posted online. Computers Know You Better Than You ThinkWhen it comes to marketing, no one can anticipate your needs quite like the shopkeeper at the corner market that you frequent. Because you come in almost every day, he knows how you like your coffee, as well as which periodicals you’re interested in. This makes for a pleasant shopping experience, due in part because he will have all of your goods set aside for you. This is a rather old-fashioned way of doing business, and today, it?s been replaced and enhanced by the data-crunching power of computers. A marketing world that?s driven by computers, collecting and crunching data was foreseen by Lester Wunderman, the ?father of direct marketing.? Way back in 1967 a young Lester stated, ?A computer can know and remember as much marketing detail about 200,000,000 customers as did the owner of a crossroads general store about his handful of customers.? Today, all it takes is just a few pieces of your personal information to be run through a computer marketing algorithm in order to produce a frighteningly accurate profile that anticipates a consumer?s needs, much to the chagrin of kindly shopkeepers the world over. Your profile can include personal information about such things as your religion, political loyalties, marital status, sexual orientation, along with other personal details about your life that you would perhaps never divulge to someone like a random cashier or even a trusted friend. Don?t Underestimate the Value of Your Zip CodeYour zip code is one example of how a seemingly innocent piece of personal data can be quite valuable to a marketer. In fact, according to Harvard professor Latanya Sweeney, once a marketing institution is able to associate your name and date of birth with your zip code, there?s an 87 percent chance that the marketing company can not only identify you, but also place you on some very accurate lists for future campaigns. In fact, the United States Postal Service fully understands the value of basic personal information like your name and zip code, which is why they regularly sell this information to marketers whenever the information is updated. According to Forbes, selling customer information like this generates around $8 million per year for the USPS. Facebook: Where Marketing Magic HappensOf course, knowledgeable shopkeepers and the USPS don?t even come close to what happens to your personal data that you?ve willingly made available over the Internet, with social media platforms like Facebook taking the virtual cake. Essentially, the more transparent you are on Facebook by doing things like tagging yourself in photos, ?liking? pages and posts, and other normal Facebooky activities, the more in depth your marketing profile becomes, making your data even more valuable to marketing institutions. Every wonder why social media platforms like Facebook are free to use? It turns out that they?re making money off you whether you boost your post or not. In fact, even if you minimally post and interact with the content on Facebook, Facebook can still generate enough personal information about you to create a profile that?s valuable to marketers, just by connecting the dots with the likes and interests of your friends. This is why many of the […]