Feb 11, 2016 | News, SMB Technology, Technology News
Should you care about how your employees protect their personal passwords? Depending on your password protection policy in the workplace, your employees may create passwords based on familiar passwords they use for personal use. Cybercriminals often hack personal websites for privacy information, including username and passwords, so they can gain access to internal systems. Offering tips to your employees on creating strong passwords may help you protect your valuable corporate data. Passwords are essential for keeping information safe. Since they are a fact of life, we need to know how to keep our systems secure. This takes individual and corporate responsibility. First, individual responsibility. What best practices can individuals establish to keep login credentials safe? Start with a Strong Password Create a strong password, instead of using easy guesses: Though they may be hard to remember, they are also hard for someone else to guess—and hack. Use combinations of capital and lower-case letters; if possible, include numbers and other special characters if your system allows. Numbers can replace letters (3 for “e”, @ for “a”, etc.). Avoid passwords using names of family members, pets, employers or favorite bands. Completely avoid default passwords like “password” or “admin.” Change Your Passwords Frequently Just like you change your smoke alarm batteries, you should change passwords even more frequently. According to a 2014 CompTIA Network+ training blog, change passwords every 30, 60 to 90 days or so. Even if a hacker or malicious site (“malware”) gets the old password, that password cannot be used. Tagging a number to a previous password or using a similar password isn’t safe enough; the new password needs...
Jan 19, 2016 | News, SMB Technology, Technology News
Data protection isn’t just about reliably backing up your application data and files. It is also important to be able to rapidly restore data in the event of data loss. In addition to natural disasters, cyberthreat and human error drive the need for a solid data protection plan and reliable network performance. There are many aspects to keeping your data protected and your Network in compliance. Here is a short list of considerations: Networking and Broadband Connectivity Having a fast, reliable network and broadband connectivity helps you gain access to your online backups for rapid recovery of your application data and files in the event of a data loss. Without a reliable network, your time to recover may go from hours to days. There are many affordable ways to avoid unnecessary downtime, including Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) and Software Defined Networks (SDN) options for Wide Area Networking (WAN) and connecting to the Cloud. Without reliability your network may be the weakest link in your data protection plan. Network Security and Compliance Keeping your network security up to date is a critical component of your data protection plan. Making sure all endpoints and servers are protected with Antivirus and Anti Malware threat detection with up-to-date threat definitions will help avoid loss of data due to cyberthreat. Consider routine monitoring of your network to ensure your network is secure. Not only will this help prevent and detect any security breaches, monitoring your network will keep you in compliance with industry regulations including the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), a standard for credit card processing. Employee Awareness of...
Jan 11, 2016 | News, SMB Technology, Technology News
Migrating to the Cloud can be bumpy if you are not prepared. Chances are you have already started migrating to the Cloud. Without realizing it, you may be accessing the Cloud by using mobile and web based applications and services that store and share your data from the Cloud. According to International Data Corporation, (IDC) public IT Cloud services (SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS) spending will reach $127 billion in 2018. The Cloud will outpace the total IT market at a rate of more than five times. With this shift, companies are migrating to the Cloud at a rapid pace, so it is important to plan your Cloud migration to avoid any unnecessary turbulence. Low Hanging Fruit for Cloud Migration Many applications lend themselves to Cloud migration. Communications and collaboration applications including Email, Voice and Web conferencing are great places to start your Cloud Migration. The Cloud can offer a secure, reliable and affordable alternative to maintaining these systems on premise. Along with providing additional capability, such as, File Sync and Sharing, previously unavailable from premise based solutions. Many companies have started their Cloud migrations with these subscription services to gain quick benefits from Cloud Computing. Planning Your Cloud Migration Moving your applications and their data to the Cloud, along with reliable data protection and online backup, should be carefully planned. First, determine which applications are candidates for Cloud Computing. When moving files, applications and back ups for data protection to the Cloud, consider your data volumes and network bandwidth. When this business infrastructure is in the Cloud you will need reliable connectivity to access critical information. Maintaining Security in...
Dec 14, 2015 | News, SMB Technology, Technology News
Are your IT Systems on the naughty or nice list? Do you proactively monitor your networks for compliance, cyberthreat and performance? Are your data back ups up to date? Have you begun your migration to the Cloud? Are you getting the most from your broadband network? Have you trained your employees on the risks of cybersecurity attacks and do they change their passwords regularly? Here is a list of things to add to your list of New Year’s resolutions for 2016. Proactive Network Monitoring Your networks shouldbe periodically monitored to ensure application and operating system (O/S) patches are up to date. In addition, you should maintain your anit-virus definitions and keep your malware threat detection up to date. By doing so, you could prevent an unwanted cybersecurity breach and data loss. Worse, loss of reputation resulting from data leaks or loss. Beyond Backup There are a variety of remote back and data protection solutions to ensure you can recover your systems to keep your business running. It is a good idea to test those backups periodically to ensure you can restore your data quickly. May older tape backup solutions can be slow and unreliable. What’s more, there are many new file sync and sharing solutions allowing your employees to securely access information anywhere. We put more and more reliance on our applications to run our daily operations, so make sure your data is protected in 2016. Lift Your Business to the Cloud Cloud Solutions offer many advantages over premise based systems. Using subscription based services help ensure you are always on the latest version, what’s more, you can shift...
Dec 8, 2015 | News, SMB Technology, Technology News
Having a Business Continuity Plan is an important way to ensure your company can operate during and after a disaster. By assessing your business risk, you are able to protect your company and minimize downtime that may occur from unplanned business interruptions. Natural disasters including fire, earthquake, flooding and snowstorms can slow or halt operations. In addition, other threats including cyber attacks and data leaks can cause unplanned disruptions to your business. The impact of prolonged unplanned downtime can be reduced and or eliminated, but at what cost? Here are three things to consider when developing your Business Continuity Plan. What is Your Cost of Downtime? To develop a Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan it is imperative to evaluate your risk of loss from downtime and business interruption. There are many factors to consider when calculating the risk of loss due to downtime. How much revenue would you lose per hour, day or week if your business was off line and you were unable to process orders? Could your inventory lose value if your factory, warehouse or retail operation were shut down? If you suffered a privacy breach what would be the impact to your company’s reputation? The risks and costs are different for each company based on industry, size and other factors. Start by assessing the risk to determine how quickly you need to react during and after a disruption. How Fast do You Need to Recover (RTO vs RPO)? The cost of downtime to your business is expensive. It is important to evaluate which applications and data are critical to your operations. During or after a...
Nov 17, 2015 | SMB Technology, Technology News
What drivers will shape 2016 technology trends? Businesses using customer facing technology for competitive advantage will fuel demand for Cloud Computing, in particular, Software as a Service. The Internet of Everything will amplify the number of connected devices in our world leading to additional needs for data protection and CyberSecurity defense. Mobile computing and Cloud Computing adoption will increase the adoption of fast, affordable and secure broadband networking. Here is the short list of what to expect from the biggest trends in technology for 2016. Cloud Computing Adoption Remains Strong Cloud Computing adoption is expected to continue throughout 2016. Software as a Service (SaaS) applications are expected to lead the way. Migration to Cloud based email, sales and customer management applications and other SaaS solutions will drive Cloud growth in 2016. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) will continue to grow, however demand will be driven by backup and disaster recovery, single sign on, file sync and sharing, application hosting and other core IT services. With this increased demand for Cloud Solutions, migration and integration services are expected to also be in high demand. Greater Need for Fast, Affordable and Secure Broadband Mobile Computing and Cloud Computing will put additional demands on network infrastructure. With the additional need for SaaS applications, remote backup and file sync and sharing applications, companies will upgrade business Internet technology for fast and affordable broadband options. Companies will pay particular consideration to available, reliability and security as they adopt broadband network technologies. Internet of Things (IoT): More Devices, More Security Tablets, Laptops, desktops and smartphones are expected to continue to grow. Now Smart Devices or...
