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Productivity is the lifeblood of any business, and understanding what it entails is paramount for every decision-maker in the corporate world. The concept of productivity is highly contextual, as no two businesses operate in the same way or are managed identically. Today, we present a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) that you need to consider. These twelve metrics will assist you in gauging whether your business is meeting productivity expectations or falling short.
Keeping a close eye on your revenue and sales figures is a fundamental productivity gauge. Monitor trends, compare them with previous periods, and establish attainable sales targets.
This metric calculates the percentage of revenue that remains once you deduct the cost of goods sold (COGS). A higher gross profit margin signals superior productivity in generating profits from your core operations.
Net profit margin measures the percentage of revenue remaining as profit after all expenses, including operating costs, taxes, and interest, have been subtracted. A higher net profit margin indicates a higher overall business efficiency.
Calculating the cost of acquiring a new customer is crucial. Divide your marketing and sales expenses by the number of new customers acquired. A lower CAC suggests improved productivity in gaining new customers.
CLV determines the total revenue a customer is expected to generate during their tenure as a customer. It helps in evaluating the long-term productivity of your customer base.
Assess the productivity of your workforce by tracking metrics such as sales per employee, revenue per employee, or units produced per hour worked.
The speed at which you sell your inventory is vital. Calculate this by dividing the cost of goods sold by the average inventory value. A higher turnover indicates efficient resource utilization and enhanced productivity.
Monitor how employees allocate their time, and consider employing tools like time-tracking software to identify areas of inefficiency and optimize resource allocation.
Evaluating how well your team executes projects and meets deadlines is particularly critical for service-based businesses or those engaged in project-based work.
Regularly monitor your cash flow to ensure you have sufficient liquidity to meet financial obligations. A positive cash flow is indicative of efficient financial management.
Assess employee morale and satisfaction through surveys or feedback mechanisms. High employee engagement is often linked to increased productivity.
Calculate the percentage of customers who continue to do business with you over a specified period. A higher retention rate underscores the effectiveness of your customer relationship management.
By tailoring these metrics to align with your unique business objectives, you can gain a perspective that guides you in making necessary adjustments to meet your specific needs. Regularly reviewing these KPIs is essential for continuous improvement. By embracing data-driven decision making, you can empower your small business to enhance its overall performance. To discover more about how our services can assist you, don't hesitate to reach out to us at (516) 403-9001 today.
Let me ask you: how confident are you that all of your data is in your control? How confident are you that you have access to it as you need it? How confident are you that it is properly secured, wherever it is being stored?
These are all important, arguably critical, questions to know the answer to. They are also all questions that are best answered by storing your data centrally.
Let’s explore why centralized data storage is so important for today’s businesses and their success.
Centralized data storage is pretty much what it says on the box. Instead of keeping your business’ data spread out amongst disparate devices, it’s kept on a central, shared device. There are a lot of reasons that this is the better option, particularly where your business’ data continuity is concerned.
How much control do you have over your employees’ personal devices? If yours is like most businesses, very, very little. Therefore, any of your business’ data that makes its way to one of these personal devices is effectively lost to you. Using a centralized storage space that your team can remotely access if needed makes it far, far easier to keep track of your data.
On a related note, by ensuring all of your data is in a centralized location, it becomes far easier to put all the proper security in place to keep it safe. It also makes it easier to keep your data properly backed up, as again, it’s easier to keep track of it and protect it.
Thirdly, by keeping all your data in a single, safe place (outside of your backups, of course), it is easier to properly manage your team’s ability to each access the data needed for their roles—and just as importantly, restrict team members from accessing the data they have no need for, following the principle of least privilege.
Long story short, centralized storage space is just the better option for businesses, particularly those that rely on collaboration. We can help you set up your business to utilize such a storage strategy. Give us a call at (516) 403-9001 to learn more.
The threats for businesses to get hacked or deal with data breaches of some type are more pressing now than at any other time in the digital age. It’s as if there are thousands of cat burglars on the prowl looking for a way into your business. If one of them is successful, it can bring some severe consequences for your business including financial loss, reputational damage, and even legal issues. In this week’s blog we will go through some of the actions you need to take in the case of a network breach.
The first step in responding to a data breach is to identify and contain the incident. This involves promptly reaching out for help. This means contacting IT experts, legal advisors, and public relations representatives. The team should work together to investigate the breach, determine the scope of the incident, and take immediate action to stop any further unauthorized access.
After containing the breach, it is crucial to secure the affected environment to prevent any additional damage. This may involve isolating affected systems, changing passwords, and implementing stronger security measures. Businesses should also ensure that all software and systems are up to date with the latest security patches to minimize vulnerabilities.
Once the breach is contained and the environment secured, businesses need to assess the impact of the data breach. This involves identifying what types of data were compromised, how many individuals or entities are affected, and evaluating the potential risks associated with the breach. This assessment will help in determining the appropriate steps to take next.
It may seem like you are shooting yourself in the foot by doing so, but ethically, businesses have a responsibility to inform individuals or entities whose personal or sensitive data may have been compromised. The notification should be clear, concise, and provide relevant details about the breach, including the types of data exposed and any actions that affected parties should take to protect themselves. Consult legal advisors to ensure compliance with applicable data breach notification laws and regulations.
Maintaining open and transparent communication with stakeholders is crucial during a data breach. This includes informing employees, customers, partners, and other relevant stakeholders about the breach, the actions taken to address it, and any ongoing efforts to prevent future incidents. Clear and frequent communication will help rebuild trust and maintain a positive reputation.
Data breaches are a significant threat to businesses, but by following these best practices, organizations can effectively respond to such incidents. By prioritizing data security and implementing robust preventive measures, businesses can protect their sensitive information and maintain the trust of their customers as well as employees and other stakeholders. If you would like help setting up your business’ cybersecurity policy, give the IT professionals at MSPNetworks a call today at (516) 403-9001.
For the small business, technology is an issue; and reasonably so. For something that holds so much importance for an organization, there are bound to be problems attached. These problems can disrupt efficient workflows and ruin some situations. In this week’s blog, we will take a look at four things you can do to cut down on your technology troubles.
One of the simplest yet most effective ways to minimize technology problems is by keeping your software up to date. Software updates often come with bug fixes, security patches, and performance enhancements. By regularly updating your operating system, applications, and antivirus software, you can ensure that your devices are equipped with the latest features and protection, reducing the likelihood of encountering technical issues.
Data loss can be a nightmare, especially when it comes to important files, photos, or documents. To prevent the devastating consequences of data loss, it is crucial to establish a robust backup system. At MSPNetworks, our BDR service not only provides you with network attached storage that is updated as data is added and changed, it also pushes that backup to the cloud so if something were to happen to your hardware, your data is safe.
The internet is full of potential threats, including malware, phishing, and malicious websites. To cut down on technology problems, it is important to adopt safe browsing habits. This includes being cautious of suspicious emails, avoiding clicking on unknown links, and refraining from downloading files from untrusted sources. Additionally, installing a reliable antivirus software and keeping it regularly updated can provide an additional layer of protection against online threats.
Sometimes, technology problems can be extraordinarily complex. They are often well beyond our expertise. In such cases, seeking professional assistance can be a wise decision. Enlisting the help of IT professionals can actually save your business time and money rather than wrestling with an issue and sustaining your organization’s downtime.
Our team of IT experts can provide the proactive management and comprehensive IT support your business needs to ensure that your information systems stay up and run optimally. Give us a call at (516) 403-9001 to talk to one of our knowledgeable consultants.
There are quite a few platitudes that we support, in terms of business IT. Some that we haven’t really touched on, however, are Schofield's Laws of Computing. Let’s fix that today by reviewing where they came from, and what these laws entail.
Jack Schofield, born in Yorkshire on March 31, 1947, spent decades writing for The Guardian until his passing in 2020. His work appeared in numerous tech-centric media outlets throughout his tenure, but his best-known contribution is the collection of best practices that he published while working for The Guardian, which he referred to as his Laws of Computing. While the first of these laws is about two decades old at this point, they still offer critically valuable advice for businesses.
These laws are as follows:
Let’s take a closer look at each of these tenets.
Let’s say that Jane Q. Businessperson works with Initech for her business’ cloud services, which help support her organization’s extensive data storage and software needs. However, one day, Initech is bought out by ACME, resulting in changes to the terms of service and the pricing structure. According to Schofield’s First Law, Jane Q. Businessperson should have no issue migrating her data out of Initech if she does not accept ACME’s new terms.
This principle of ensured data portability covers any reason a company would want to remove their data from a given software or service, from end-of-service events to those we highlighted above.
While “redundant” isn’t usually seen as a positive attribute, Schofield posits that your data absolutely needs to be—and for more reasons than we would normally emphasize, too. Naturally, data that is redundant means that you have at least one other copy to fall back on if something were to happen to the original data…and that “something” could be caused by an alarming variety of circumstances.
There’s the usual suspects, of course—lost or malfunctioning devices/infrastructure, user error, and criminal activity—but Schofield also referenced other possibilities, such as issues on the provider’s side. What if the cloud provider hosting your data goes out of business?
All of this is to say that the more copies of your data you have in different places, the better.
We’re not going to pretend that today’s necessary cybersecurity measures are any fun. They aren’t. However, with alternative means of storing data now available, and more data than ever presenting value for cybercriminals, it is important to keep in mind that the easier you find it to access your data, the more likely it is that someone without authorization will be able to as well.
Are the countless multi-factor authentication prompts annoying? Absolutely—but “annoying” doesn’t begin to describe how a successful cyberattack against your business would feel.
Through the managed services that we here at MSPNetworks offer, we can ensure that your business’ technology follows all of these laws, along with many different compliance requirements and otherwise sound business security and productivity practices. Give us a call at (516) 403-9001 to learn more, and to set up a complete technology evaluation.
If your time is anything like mine, you often find it taken up by task after task, with all these responsibilities fighting for your attention. You’ve probably found yourself staring at your to-do list, trying to figure out what to tackle next, more times than you’d care to admit.
To help prevent this from becoming an ongoing issue, I wanted to share a tool that can help you sort out your priorities called the Eisenhower Matrix.
Let’s take a few moments to delve into the history of the Eisenhower Matrix, and how it can be used to assist you in managing your responsibilities.
Back in 1954, President and five-star general during WWII Dwight D. Eisenhower made a speech where he said, quoting a university president who went unnamed:
“I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.”
Three and a half decades later, author Steven Covey used these words to create a task management system called—amongst other things—the Eisenhower Matrix, which appeared in his renowned book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
The system breaks tasks down into levels of relative importance and urgency. Important tasks are those that contribute to your long-term goals, while urgent ones are those that demand your attention at a given moment. By combining these aspects in different ways, you can assign different levels of priority to different tasks and outline how each should be approached:
This gives you the means to properly prioritize your and your team’s responsibilities in a simple and effective manner.
While the Eisenhower Matrix can help guide your schedule to be its most effective, MSPNetworks can help you acquire and equip the tools to keep your team members on track. Reach out to us at (516) 403-9001 to learn more about the services and solutions that we can provide.
Do you have an old Google account that you created years ago, only to replace it later with one that is more on-brand and less filled with spam messages? You’re not alone, but as you might expect, these accounts can create more problems than they are worth if you let them sit around unused for too long. Perhaps that is why Google is planning to shut down any old Google accounts that have remained dormant for the past two years.
The change is scheduled to start sometime in December of 2023 (although it’s possible that Google is already taking some action on older accounts), and it could impact users of Gmail, Google Drive, YouTube, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Meet, and Google Photos. YouTube accounts with videos shared are exceptions to the rule, as are accounts with open subscriptions. Furthermore, this change will impact only users of personal Google profiles, not those tied to workplaces or educational institutions.
If you want to save your old Google account from being deleted, then you need to do one simple thing: log into it. This activity will show Google that your account is being used and, therefore, should not be deleted. Just about any activity you perform in your Google account will constitute using it, too, such as performing a Google search while signed in, opening an email, watching a YouTube video, etc.
The reasoning behind this change makes sense, too, as Google hopes that this mass deletion of unused accounts will help make security easier. Considering that these accounts are old, their credentials have not been updated in years. This means that they could very well be susceptible to security concerns and breaches. These accounts are also less likely to have two-factor or multi-factor authentication implemented for them.
So, we recommend that you consider your Google accounts and whether or not they have anything important stored in them… before it’s too late to do anything about it.
As for password security on your current accounts, we recommend that you work with complex, unique passwords or passphrases that are easy to remember and difficult to guess. Furthermore, a password manager can be used if you’re concerned about remembering the many passwords that are expected of you. There are plenty of options out there to choose from.
Additionally, multi-factor authentication—utilization of something you own (a smartphone); something you know (a password or passphrase); and something you are (biometrics)—can be remarkably helpful for account security.
For more assistance with business account security, be sure to contact us at (516) 403-9001.
No one wants to lose their phone, but it does happen. Whether you’ve left it somewhere or it has clearly been taken, you need to know how to respond to this situation. In this week’s blog, we will give you some tips on what to do if your phone has gone missing.
Your phone isn’t just your phone. They contain every contact we have, all of our correspondence, your payment card information, your banking details, and about everything personal you could possibly imagine. So losing it or having it stolen is a big, big deal. First, you should try to find your phone.
If you think that maybe your lost device isn’t the result of theft, you can first retrace your steps and have someone try to call it. Most cell providers can help if you are one of the people who keep your phone on silent and play a loud noise to help you locate it. If this helps you find it, great; if not, it’s time to take it up a level. Both Apple and Android offer a location program that can track lost or stolen phones. You’ll need to set up this feature prior to having your phone go missing, but since there is a good chance that you paid over $1,000 for a new flagship smartphone, it should be one of your first actions when you get the phone home.
Hopefully, after using the find my phone feature, you will find that you left it someplace and can simply go retrieve it. If that’s not the case, you need to take immediate action to keep your life from being upended completely. Here are some things you should do if you find that you aren’t going to be able to retrieve your phone.
The first thing you are going to want to do is call your service provider from another phone and tell them the situation. They will work to shut down service to the phone. They will also help you deal with the situation as you will need to get a replacement phone.
You will need to work fast to deactivate your mobile accounts. You can choose to do this individually, or you can use the service on your phone to wipe everything from the device. This is the best-case scenario when your phone goes missing because it removes the possibility of someone gaining access to the accounts on your phone and making your life that much worse. Most mobile platforms back up your data to the cloud, so you won’t actually lose everything, but it keeps that information from being stolen.
Obviously, this is a time-consuming task, but you will want to go through and change all of your passwords to ensure that there is no unauthorized access to your accounts. While you should be changing your passwords every so often anyway, being forced to is a big deal and will take a lot of time and effort.
If you suspect that someone has made off with your smartphone, you will want to file a police report, even if you don’t think the police will do much about it. The more information authorities have regarding any crime that has been carried out, the better they will be about prevention in the future. Additionally, if you happen to have insurance that covers your device, many providers will require a police report to be filed.
If you use the device for work, you have to immediately report the device lost or stolen if it is. Your IT department will then work to shut down access to work-related devices and can actually go so far as to wipe your phone if it hasn’t already been completed.
It may be a traumatizing experience to lose your device since you, like many other people, depend so heavily on it, but the best thing is to ensure that you take care of a lost or stolen device and then move into a new phone as soon as possible.
It’s going to take some work, but you will be back to normal in no time. Check back to our blog regularly for useful technology information that can help you manage the technology you use day after day.
Phishing is a remarkably dangerous tactic used by hackers to take advantage of those who might not be quite as in-the-know about security practices. Phishing attacks can be carried out against both businesses and individuals alike, and due to the many different forms these attacks can take—including email, text message, and even fraudulent websites—they can be quite problematic.
Let’s go over how you can train your team to avoid phishing attacks and how to appropriately respond to them when they are inevitably encountered.
Have you ever received an unsolicited email asking you to perform specific tasks, like filling out a form or downloading an attachment? Oftentimes hackers will use these methods to get the user to download a file or perform an action under the guise of someone else. If you think anything sounds suspicious within the email, then there probably is something suspicious with the email. Look for typos, misspelled words, poor grammar, and otherwise dead giveaways that the sender is not legitimate, especially in the professional environment.
The old phishing link is one of the oldest tricks in the book. The attacker might include the link to something supposedly innocent or important in the body of an email or a text message, only to hide something far more sinister on the other side. You should be cautious of any suspicious links you receive in an email or text message, as it is very easy to hide malware, phishing forms, or other types of attacks within a malicious link.
Also, be very careful of the links and the characters they use in general. It’s easy to substitute the character in a link with one that might look in place, but is really not, like a zero instead of an O or something similar.
The types of phishing attacks you might receive will come from routes where it will be difficult to verify the identity of the person on the other side of the line. This is intentional; hackers don’t want you to be able to thwart their efforts easily. Whenever possible, you should try to get in touch with the sender through alternative means, like walking to their office or contacting them on the phone or social media. This can help you determine if the user is really who they say they are.
The best way to protect your business from phishing attacks is to implement a comprehensive network security plan, including spam blocking and content filtering, as well as training your team on the best practices for how to detect and avoid attacks. To get started with either of these, contact MSPNetworks at (516) 403-9001.
Phishing is a common issue that businesses of all kinds can experience, whether they are a small startup or a large corporation. Hackers are always trying to extol information from your employees, including account credentials, remote access to your systems, and in some cases, funds directly from a bank account. It’s up to you to teach them how to identify and respond to phishing attacks.
Here are some strategies you can teach them for how to address phishing attacks against your infrastructure.
Chances are you’ve seen the messages you get in your inbox about confirming special offers or doing certain tasks, like clicking on a link or downloading an email attachment. More often than not, these types of unsolicited emails are phishing attempts designed to get you to act in a specific way. If you think a message looks suspicious, then it probably is, and you should flag the message as such so your IT can handle it. You might look for unprofessional language, misspelled words, or other similar telltale signs when you are making your decision.
Although they are not necessarily anything new, phishing links are still quite dangerous because they take almost no time at all to put together. A phishing link can come in the form of an email, social media message, or even a text message. Hackers will use every trick they can think of to get you to click on the link, and if you’re not careful, you might actually do it. Links can look legitimate even if they are not; for example, a zero could easily be slotted in the place of a capital “o.”
Let’s say you get a message that you are truly 50-50 on. It could be real, or it could be a scam. If there is even a shadow of a doubt as to the authenticity of the message, you should consider reaching out to the other party through an alternative means, just to confirm that the sender is who they claim to be. For example, if it’s GoDaddy support, contact GoDaddy support through the phone number on their actual website rather than the one in the email message. If it’s an internal message, like one from your supervisor or your IT department, reach out to them with the contact information you have on-hand to verify their identity. In all cases, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
You can help your business stay protected against phishing attacks by working with MSPNetworks. We can equip your organization with the tools to protect itself and the support your team needs to identify such messages. To learn more, call us at (516) 403-9001.
Depending on the size and complexity of your organization, managing technology can easily become a full-time job. If you are only calling a technician when you are dealing with a computer issue, then you might be sitting on a ticking time bomb. Whether you have internal staff responsible for managing your IT, or you rely on a third-party, you’ll want to make sure the following tasks are getting done.
Microsoft pushes out security updates and product updates for its operating systems regularly. Traditionally, these updates come out on the second Tuesday of each month, but additional updates and patches may be released on a different schedule. On top of that, if you get behind on your updates, sometimes it can take longer to apply them all, or there may be conflicts that prevent you from being able to automatically run updates. These updates are critical, and you shouldn’t rely on your individual users to keep their own laptops or workstations updated.
While Microsoft has a pretty regular schedule for updates, the other software that drives your business might not. Your IT department will need to be aware of everything being used, and how to check for and apply updates, and in some cases, have a testing bed to run updates on so they don’t disrupt day-to-day business.
Virus definitions are updated on a very regular basis, and for your antivirus to fully protect you, it needs to have the latest definitions applied, and it needs to be kept updated as well. This is usually an automatic process, but the end user can sometimes delay it from happening. Having a centrally managed antivirus solution can help remedy this, but even still, someone needs to be monitoring it, and making sure scans are run regularly and that the utility is doing its job properly.
You wouldn’t believe how many IT “professionals” skip this. It’s absolutely critical. If your company’s backup device isn’t properly taking backups, it’s not doing you any good. If something were to happen that causes you to need your backup, it would be a nightmare to only discover then that you haven’t been running backups for several months.
It’s important to review backup logs and check for corruption and audit the entire backup regularly. If this isn’t getting done, you may as well assume you don’t have a backup in the first place.
At least once a week, the daily backup check should also involve a random restore to make sure the process is working and that files and directories are actually being backed up properly. Each month, this should be done even more thoroughly.
This is another daily task that needs to be done, and can catch a lot of potential issues before they start affecting your staff and your bottom line. Server logs will often pick up on problems that are about to become bigger, so reviewing these daily will allow IT to make proactive adjustments and decisions to prevent downtime and solve issues before they escalate.
Done for both servers and active workstations, a full hard drive can bring your network to a stop and cause some pretty ugly issues depending on the device and how the drive is utilized. It’s a very quick check if your business has the right monitoring tools in place, and it can save you from a lot of hassle, especially in cases where you can’t simply free up storage and need to physically add more storage to a device.
It’s important to know who or what is connecting to your network. Understanding network behavior and looking into traffic spikes and other unexpected events can often find problems before they get too big. Not only can this data be used to prevent network slowdown and other bottlenecking issues, but it can potentially detect fraudulent activity on the network and hopefully allow techs to stop it before it turns into something devastating.
This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means, but on top of all of the critical IT tasks above, your IT department (or IT person/company/agency) needs to also be able to handle day-to-day support requests so your staff can continue to do their jobs without getting caught up with computer problems.
These are just some of the regular tasks that our techs perform for all of the businesses who entrust us to manage their IT. There’s a huge difference between just having a computer person on call to fix issues as they arise, and having a company contracted to fully manage your IT. If you feel like your technology isn’t getting the TLC it deserves, give MSPNetworks a call at (516) 403-9001 today.
There’s no beating around the bush with this one; moving data from one place to another, also known as data migration, is critical to get right the first time. If you create and follow a migration strategy, evaluating here and there to make sure it’s all going according to plan, you’ll see great success in this effort. Let’s go over how you can make it happen.
When testing your data migration process, it’s important to make sure you take action to plan it out long before the process begins, as well as what happens after the migration. If you evaluate your process before, during, and after the migration, you’ll have key insights into specific metrics that can help you gauge the success of the endeavor. Of course, there are plenty of things that can go wrong, and keeping an eye on things throughout the process will help you catch them before they cause too much trouble.
Also of note is that data migration requires some pretty technical skills and know-how, so it’s advisable to have professionals on hand to help you with the process. MSPNetworks is happy to assist you with this complicated process.
All that said, we can now take a look at what you need to know before, during, and after a migration.
First, we recommend that you look at how much data needs to be migrated to establish a frame of reference for the success of the migration. It’s also crucial that you take measures to protect your data while you migrate everything to a new location, and be sure to back it up just in case of a worst-case scenario.
Furthermore, be sure that your team is aware of the proposed timeline, and make sure that your budget can cover this timeline in a sustainable way. The last thing you need to do is cut corners. Doing so could potentially put you at risk of doing it poorly, or even leave you subject to fines and other compliance issues if the system you’re migrating to is not adequate.
As the migration occurs, you should break up your data into smaller batches so that testing is more efficient and easier to pull off. You can also take the opportunity to set access permissions according to the roles of your employees.
Once you have finished the migration, you should go through and test your new solutions to make sure that they all work correctly. This involves making sure that the data have made it to the new system in the correct format. Checking the system performance should also be a priority, as well as various security assessments like stress testing, penetration testing, and others.
MSPNetworks can help your business with its data migration needs. To learn more, call us today at (516) 403-9001.
Simple passwords are just not an effective security practice, so if you’re still using credentials like Password, 123456, Guest, or Qwerty, listen up. You need better password hygiene practices before you suffer from a data breach. Here are some ways you can make a better password to protect your business from threats.
For passwords, it also helps to know what is ineffective in addition to what is effective.
A bad password is, to an extent, always going to be a bad password because passwords are not generally good for account security. While they are certainly better than nothing, they are far from the best way to protect an account, despite being the most popular and most common methods of doing so.
It’s remarkably easy to create a bad password, as well as have bad password practices. Whether it’s a case of the password not being complex enough or too easy to guess, or if it’s used for more than one account, they repeatedly hold businesses and individuals back from achieving the level of cybersecurity they need and deserve.
To help you better leverage good passwords, we’ve put together a list of things you’ll want to do to make them better and stronger.
Here are some best practices for password use and creation.
Don’t Repeat Your Passwords
If you use your password for multiple accounts, then all it takes is one of them falling victim to a data breach or phishing attack for all of them to be exposed in the same way. You should be using different, complex passwords for each of your accounts with no repeating passwords.
Always Make Them Complex
Complex passwords are easy to remember, but difficult to guess, which is easier in theory than it is in practice. You can make it much easier through the use of a passphrase rather than a password. Your passphrase should be a random string of words that utilize upper and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols.
Don’t Use Personal Details
Personal details have no place in passwords for two main reasons: it makes them easier to guess for hackers, if the information is something that they can find publicly on the Internet or on social media, and it places more danger on you in the event that the password is compromised.
Use a Password Manager
To remember all of your complex passwords is impossible, so we recommend using a password manager to help secure them all. A password manager uses one master password to call upon a secure vault of passwords when they are needed. It’s the best way to use passwords without putting yourself at risk.
If you could use a hand crafting better passwords or protecting your infrastructure, MSPNetworks has got you covered. To learn more, call us at (516) 403-9001.
At first glance, cybersecurity might seem incredibly complicated and difficult to understand, but even a baseline understanding of some of the principles of cybersecurity can go a long way toward protecting your business. Let’s discuss some of the common-sense ways you can keep your business secure, even if you don’t have an internal IT department to ask for help from.
What’s better than eliminating a threat from your network? Stopping it from getting that far entirely. With antivirus, firewalls, and other security measures in place, you can keep your business secure from the majority of threats before they even become a problem in the first place.
In case you or someone else on your team has to travel, or if you have a team that works remotely, a VPN is incredibly valuable. Public Wi-fi is notorious for being quite dangerous, and a virtual private network can offer a safe haven for you to access the Internet without fear of being observed by any onlookers.
You can take your security practices to the next level through the use of multi-factor authentication. A password can only do so much in today’s threat landscape, so you should back it up with biometrics, generated PINs, and other secondary measures that can make things much more difficult for any would-be hacker.
We know you’ve heard it a thousand times; “always use a different password for each and every one of your accounts to maximize security.” While this should be practiced, it can be difficult to observe if you don’t have a password manager keeping tabs on each of your credentials. Plus, let’s face it, you don’t want to rely on your browser’s password management options if you can help it.
While it would certainly be amazing to win the lottery, a free vacation, or catch some juicy gossip in your email inbox, the fact of the matter is that phishing emails know that these kinds of temptations make you want to click on links in emails, regardless of how likely you think they might be. Other tactics used include fearmongering and threats, which aren’t nearly as fun to receive, but are equally as effective, if not more so under the right circumstances. Either way, you should use extreme scrutiny when navigating messages from unknown or unsolicited sources—especially if they contain links or attachments.
While you can certainly do all of the above on your own, why not work with a managed service provider like MSPNetworks? We can take the stress out of managing your network security. To get started, call us at (516) 403-9001.
We’re not shy about sharing how important it is for a business to have comprehensive cybersecurity throughout its entire infrastructure. That’s why we wanted to share what some recent data has shown about the importance of having visibility into your infrastructure.
Spoiler alert: it’s really, really important.
Compiled by Sevco Security, the State of the Cybersecurity Attack Surface report took data from over 500,000 IT assets. This data, compiled from enterprise-level businesses, revealed that a substantial number of the assets these businesses rely on are missing critical endpoint protections or aren’t being actively patched.
According to Sevco Security’s research, the businesses they surveyed were lacking endpoint protections at a rate of 12%, while 5% of them were lacking enterprise patch management. Compounding these issues, 19% of Windows servers were missing endpoint protections.
Furthermore, “stale” IT—assets that are present in the security control console and register as installed on a device, but haven’t checked back in for a few weeks—is a small but serious issue for these enterprise organizations. 3% of the IT assets have stale endpoint protections, while 1% have stale patch management. However, since they are supposedly accounted for, these risks are harder to spot and more likely to create issues.
Of course, these findings were all based on research into enterprise-level companies, with enterprise-level capabilities. Now, just consider what that suggests about the small or medium-sized businesses and their comparative capabilities.
Part of our proactive remote monitoring and maintenance services is to catch these kinds of issues before they result in larger problems for your business. To learn more about how we accomplish this, give us a call at (516) 403-9001 today.
More businesses than ever before are seeing the value of outsourcing their technology management to a managed service provider (MSP) and it’s easy to see why. With a more hands-off approach to technology management, businesses can focus on delivering quality goods and services instead of worrying about their technology. If you are considering jumping on the MSP wagon, consider asking the following questions to make sure you understand what you are getting from your provider.
It helps to know what services an MSP is capable of offering to your organization, specifically because it helps to establish expectations and inform your ability to add or remove services according to your specific needs. For example, if you can foresee a situation where your business wants to move to a more cloud-based infrastructure environment, you want to ensure that your provider offers services like cloud hosting and cloud migration. Otherwise, why would you consider them?
When it comes to your technology, you don’t want some greenhorn handling it. You want a seasoned and experienced technician who has had their fair share of time working with business technology solutions. This is especially the case in a world where security needs to be at the forefront of every business owner’s mind. You want technicians who both know what they are doing and are knowledgeable enough to distill complex ideas into easily-understood concepts.
The service level agreement, or SLA, is an agreement between your business and the service provider which dictates the services rendered and the costs associated with them. It might include information such as how much you pay, which services are included with that payment, how often you pay for your services, and so on. Basically, asking this question helps to determine what kind of expectations you have from your MSP and the services they provide for you based on what you pay.
If your business is considering working with a managed service provider to fill the technology skills gap that so many companies find themselves with, we encourage you to think local and work with MSPNetworks for your needs. Our trusted and trained technicians can work with your team to ensure that technology is never a pain point for your business again.
Plus, depending on your specific needs, we can either fulfill the roles of a full-fledged IT department, act as a consultant, implement new technology solutions, operate as a help desk, and so much more. Our services are truly customizable to suit your company’s specific needs.
To learn more about how we can support your business goals, call us today at (516) 403-9001.
If you watch technology news, you might notice that there is one day out of every month that gets a lot of attention from the technology sector, and that day is what is called Patch Tuesday. This is the day each month when Microsoft issues all of their patches and security updates, and it’s important to know when this day falls each month—at least, for your IT team it is.
You don’t need us to tell you that Microsoft as a software developer is a big deal, having released major computer operating systems and business applications that are used by countless individuals and organizations across the globe. We want to highlight one quality that is a little easy to forget sometimes, though, and that is the fact that Microsoft, like any other software developer and publisher out there, is not infallible. They are bound to create products with flaws in them, just like anyone else.
This is why Patch Tuesday exists. It provides Microsoft with the opportunity to routinely address performance issues, security risks, and other bugs that might be discovered in their software. Each month, the Microsoft Security Response Center puts out information using Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures numbers on their website. This information is designed to inform IT workers and the public in general about security issues that are addressed with each update. These updates typically cover Windows operating systems—including those that have reached their end-of-life but are covered under an extended support contract—as well as other Microsoft software products.
Patch Tuesday is the second Tuesday of each month. Patches and updates are issued at 5:00pm (Coordinated Universal Time).
Simply put, Patch Tuesday was created to give IT workers a heads-up as to when patches and updates will be applied. Oftentimes IT workers will need to prepare an infrastructure for a blanket installation of important patches and updates, so this gives them an official date and time to work towards.
Patch Tuesday is also important to another, slightly less altruistic group of individuals: hackers. Cybercriminals and developers of online threats can scour the code of Microsoft’s patches to gain insights into vulnerabilities that might have been addressed within them. They can then use that information to reverse-engineer patches, so to speak, to target individuals who have not deployed their new patches and updates, thereby getting the jump on users who have not expediently deployed them.
There is a reason why patches and security updates are issued so regularly, and it’s a big one: your business is very much at risk without them. Patches and updates are issued to shore up security vulnerabilities in software—vulnerabilities that could ultimately give hackers access to your network if they are crafty enough.
It’s important to note that not all vulnerabilities are actively exploited in the wild prior to being detected. It’s entirely possible that developers at Microsoft happened upon them out of the blue and decided to address them appropriately. When they do find unpatched vulnerabilities that are being exploited, however, they tend to release patches and updates out of their routine to get them into the hands of the public as soon as possible.
If all this talk about patches and updates has you concerned about the future of your organization, fear not. MSPNetworks is happy to assist you with the management and deployment of all patches and updates for your mission-critical systems. To learn more about what we can do for your business, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.
In today’s business, sharing files is easy and something many workers take for granted. Unfortunately, not all file-sharing methods are secure. When efficiency is prioritized over security, it can often lead to extremely troublesome situations. For this week’s tip, we thought we’d go through a half dozen practices you can take to ensure your files get to where you need them to get safely and securely.
The Virtual Private Network is a key tool when it comes to securing your data flow. It allows users to use public Wi-Fi, many of which are more than sketchy connections, to safely and securely transmit data. Many public Wi-Fi connections leave users exposed and with a VPN, you have an encrypted portal that makes intercepting data highly unlikely.
Not only do you need to understand how to concoct a secure password and reliably protect your accounts with solid password practices, you should also consider using a password manager to store your passwords. Not only does a password manager make it almost impossible for hackers to access your passwords, you can also stretch a buck if you need to use shared passwords. There are a lot of them to choose from and the professional consultants at MSPNetworks can help you set up a solution to ensure that your accounts are protected.
One of the best ways to ensure that files are secure is to maintain control over the permissions of them. One of the easiest ways to do this is by assigning groups that can access certain files or file types. You can set permissions by department, but you can also just set up groups that have users in them who need access to the files. Since not everyone needs access to every single file, controlling users’ access is one of the best ways to keep your files and file storage secure.
Multi-factor authentication (or two-factor authentication) is a security step that requires any user to prove their identity before logging into a particular system. MFA uses multiple authorization methods to verify their identity. They do this in three ways:
Tip of the Week: Steps You Can Take to Ensure Your Files are SecureMaking users prove they are who they say they are is a solid practice to secure your data, but it is important to limit your efforts as to not put too many redundant barriers between your data and your users.
As important as file sharing can be, it also can cause some problems if the solution you choose doesn’t fit into your overall security strategy. There are all types of options on the market and the one that you choose needs to fit into your overarching security posture. File sharing is only one facet of your business that needs to be secured, so as to not leave your business vulnerable, ensuring that any file sharing platform you choose to use fits in with all your other security efforts is a must.
Here are some types, for example:
Like any other part of your business, the people that use a piece of technology need to be sufficiently trained on how to use it to ensure that its features are used properly. Most hosted platforms are going to take some getting used to for your staff; there is no way around it. That’s why you should get out in front of it and provide the necessary training that will get your people up to speed faster. The more they know, the more secure your files and your file sharing will be.
At MSPNetworks, we work with New York companies that require dedicated IT services and support to keep their business secure and running efficiently. If you would like to get some insight about enterprise file sharing from our IT professionals, give us a call today at (516) 403-9001.
While we’re all for efficiency, there are some boundaries that should not be crossed for everyone’s benefit. Take, for instance, the email you use to subscribe to online services. While it may be tempting (or, for some people, automatic) to use your work email address when you sign up for, say, your Netflix account or an online merchant, we wanted to discuss why this is a bad habit to get into that could have lasting consequences.
The reason you shouldn’t use your work email for personal purposes is a simple one:
Seriously, we want to know: what’s your plan if your employment comes to a sudden end?
Let’s say that you were using your work email for an assortment of personal reasons—maybe you used it to subscribe to a few subscription services, or you used it to login to a favorite online retailer or two… maybe one named after a really big river in South America.
Potential for distraction aside (which is itself a whole other can of worms), tying your personal life too much to your work life can have some long-term issues. Let’s say you did choose to use a work email to sign up for a personal service, only to leave that job some time later.
Regardless of the reason you leave—whether you or your position was terminated, you found another job, whatever—one of the first things that any responsible company will do is to deactivate your accounts from their system. Neglecting to do so would be a cybersecurity failure on their part. Good luck trying to recover a forgotten password when the authentication is sent to an email you no longer have access to.
There are plenty of reasons that a business should want to keep their users from using their professional email accounts for their own personal purposes. We’ll quickly run through the list:
While convenience is an appealing motivator, it is important that your processes are shaped to prioritize your business’ security. Educating your team about password best practices and the actual importance of this kind of work/life balance will be key to shoring up this particular security issue.
Turn to us for help with keeping your team members from inappropriately merging their work lives and personal lives, as well as our assistance in optimizing the rest of your processes. Give us a call at (516) 403-9001 to learn more.
Your network security is of the utmost importance to your business for numerous, hopefully obvious reasons. However, there are a few errors that are easy enough to make that could easily be the proverbial monkey wrench in the works. Let’s go over what these network security faux pas look like, so you can resolve them more effectively (and don’t worry, we’ll discuss that, too).
So, let’s dive right into the mistakes you need to identify in your business—if they should be present—so that they can be fixed.
“But it doesn’t happen to businesses like mine,” is one of the most lethal opinions you could possibly have in terms of your preparedness against threats of all kinds. This is primarily because (spoiler alert) these kinds of attacks do, in fact, happen to businesses like yours.
They happen to all businesses—it really comes down to how well prepared you are to resist the efforts of such attacks. This will require some forethought to first generate a list of risk factors your business is apt to face and establish the means to minimize them. Between phishing and other forms of social engineering, pure cyberattacks, and the litany of other attack methods that modern cybercriminals employ—often using automation—the threats to all businesses are very, very real.
Let’s say that you do accept that you’re at risk of cyberattacks. That’s a great start, but if you don’t keep up with your IT’s needs and allow your business’ technology to fall into disrepair, you’ll also accept that you’re going to be breached. You need to keep up with your upkeep, ensuring your technology and its defenses are all in proper working order and that you promptly install any upgrades that apply to your solutions.
Look, I understand the impulse to want to trust your team members to make good decisions, but there’s a difference between trust and shortsightedness. While you should feel that you can trust your team, not educating them on how to recognize and appropriately respond to the various threats they are effectively guaranteed to encounter leaves them far more vulnerable than otherwise. Training them, on the other hand, helps you secure your business that much more effectively.
If you aren’t enforcing a baseline expectation for your team to follow in terms of their security, you are again providing an inroad into your business. Putting together the standards that your team members need to uphold—particularly in terms of passwords, multi-factor authentication, and the like—and holding them accountable to them will help to keep your business and its data secure.
Honestly, you get what you pay for when it comes to your security, so default security options that come integrated into your solutions aren’t the wisest move. The investment into more trustworthy security options will be well worth it when you compare it to the cost of a breach. We can equip you with security solutions that you can trust your business’ data to.
You need to consider your data itself, and what might happen if your infrastructure was to fail. Failing to maintain a comprehensive backup and data recovery strategy only risks your business further. On the other side of the coin, you need to ensure that your data is only accessible by those who need it, and remains protected both while in storage and while in transit.
Finally, the biggest network security mistake you can make is trying to go it alone, instead of leaning on the team of professionals we have here at MSPNetworks. Find out more about our multiple cybersecurity services that can help you avoid these mistakes by calling (516) 403-9001.
Learn more about what MSPNetworks can do for your business.
MSPNetworks
1111 Broadhollow Rd Suite 202
Farmingdale, New York 11735