MSPNetworks Blog

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.

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. 

Cancel Your Service for that Particular Device

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.

Deactivate Your Personal Accounts

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. 

Change Your Passwords

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. 

Report It to Authorities

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. 

Report the Lost Device to IT

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. 

Get a New Phone and Move On

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.

Be Wary of Unsolicited and Suspicious Emails

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.

Don’t Click on Links—Especially When the Sender is Unknown

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.

Verify the Sender for Yourself When Possible

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.

Be Wary of Unsolicited Requests—Especially Suspicious Ones

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.

Be Especially Careful with Phishing Links

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.”

Use Alternative Methods of Identity Confirmation

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.

Windows and Server Updates

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.

Software Updates and Patches

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.

Antivirus Definition Updates

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.

Daily Backup Checks

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. 

Check Event Logs on Servers

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.

Check Disk Space Across All Mission Critical Devices

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.

Review Wi-Fi, Firewall, and VPN Access Logs

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.

Provide Technical Support For Your Staff

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.

The Process of Migration Testing

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.

What Should You Do Before Your 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.

What Should You Do During the Migration?

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.

What Should You Do After the Migration?

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.

Need a Hand with Data Migration?

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.

What Does a Bad Password Look Like?

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.

What Does a Good Password Look Like?

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.

How are Your Password and Cybersecurity Practices?

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.

Keep Your Antivirus and Security Tools Updated

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.

Use a VPN

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.

Utilize Multi-Factor Authentication

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.

Use a Password Manager

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. 

Avoid Phishing Scams

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.

Let Us Help Your Business Keep Itself Safe

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.

Data Shows that Enterprises Suffer from Considerable Vulnerabilities

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.

Trust Us to Help Prevent These Vulnerabilities from Presenting Themselves in Your Business

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.

What Services Do You Offer?

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?

How Experienced Are Your Technicians?

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.

What is the Service Level Agreement?

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.

Get Started with Managed Services Today

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.

What is Patch Tuesday?

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).

Why is Patch Tuesday Important?

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.

Why Are Patches and Updates In General Important?

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. 

Use a VPN

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. 

Thorough Password Management

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. 

Control File Access

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. 

Set Up and Enforce Use of Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA/2FA)

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:

• Proof of knowledge - A password or PIN that only the user knows
• Proof of possession - A key of some sort, typically an authentication key sent via mobile device.
• Proof of existence - A key using biometric data or voice recognition. 

Making 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. 

Ensure Your File Sharing Fits In

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:

• Sending encrypted attachments via email
• Sharing links to public or private files in the cloud
• Establishing shared folders or collaborative spaces either online or by syncing information from one location to another

Train Your Staff

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:

What Happens If You No Longer Work for the Company?

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.

Businesses Should Actively Discourage Private Use of Professional Email Addresses

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:

• Corporate accounts are readily available online in many cases, making them easy targets for phishing and spam.
• On a related note, it becomes a lot easier for a cybercriminal to find online accounts that are tied to a business email address and use what they find to craft more effective spear phishing messages—ones that are tailored specifically for a particular recipient.
• Many people still reuse passwords across many different websites and services, so if a website is breached that an employee’s work email was used to access, there’s a good chance that a work password could be stolen with it.

Cybersecurity Needs to Take Precedent Over Convenience

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.

We’re Here to Help Strike the Balance

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.

Not Preparing For (or Denying Outright) Threats

“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.

Neglecting Maintenance and Upgrades

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.

Failing to Educate Employees on Security Processes

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.

Not Establishing a Cybersecurity Policy or Standards

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.

Using the Default/Built-In Options

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.

Shortchanging Your Business Data

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.

Worst of All, Not Turning to the Experts for Help

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.

Discarded electronics, including the hardware that so many businesses cycle through, are a big problem—and not one that we can ignore for a variety of reasons. Let’s explore the issues surrounding e-waste, as well as what can be done to reduce it.

First, let’s explore why e-waste is as big a problem as it is.

What is E-Waste?

“E-waste” is a blanket term that covers all electronics that have reached the end of their utilization and have thereby been discarded. Due to the materials that electronics are made of, these devices can lead to some serious issues down the line.

We really do mean all electronics, as well. With so much modern technology now relying on computing components in some way, shape, or form, you’d be hard-pressed to find something that didn’t qualify as e-waste. Naturally, computers and their peripherals qualify, but so do the majority of appliances, office equipment, and other gadgets nowadays. This is especially the case now that practically every gadget has some “smart” functionality built into it.

However, it is important to remember that a device does not have to be “smart” to be classified as e-waste. All electronics quality—which, in context, helps put the scope of the problem in clearer view.

According to the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, 2019 saw 53.6 metric tons of e-waste generated. This marked an increase of 21 percent in a period of five years, with only 17.4 percent of this e-waste being recycled. The report that UNITAR released also shared other disturbing tidbits, like the fact that (conservatively) $57 billion worth of valuable materials like gold and silver were just dumped and/or burned.

E-waste is a serious issue. Not only is it wasteful, it is also highly damaging to the environment, as many of the materials involved either take centuries to properly break down, or are actively toxic. In some cases, both statements apply.

In no uncertain terms, this is not good.

People are Trying to Draw Attention to the Problem of E-Waste…

…and some of their ideas are pretty darn creative.

For instance, when the G7 Summit was going on at the Carbis Bay Hotel in Cornwall, it was done so under the watchful gaze of “Mount Recyclemore”---a sculpture created by sculptor Joe Rush as a message to the assembled leaders to keep the damage of unrecycled electronics in mind.

Mount Recyclemore depicted an alternative vision of Mount Rushmore, with the faces replaced with those of US President Joe Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Japan's former Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italy's Prime Minister Mario Draghi, and Germany's former Chancellor Angela Merkel.

All of whom were, at the time, attending the G7 Summit.

Constructed out of 20,000 pieces of e-waste in total, the seven figureheads each measure about 10 feet tall. Rush explained to the BBC that the idea behind the sculpture was to communicate to these leaders that e-waste was a problem they all needed to address, and that the message was for them to talk to one another about solving it.

The striking sculpture has since been moved to the Eden Project, a charity meant to educate people about environmental impacts and the different ways that they can be reduced.

Why Recycling Matters

There are a lot of benefits to your business choosing to recycle its old electronics, including:

• Reducing landfill space and protecting the environment, as the more that is recycled, the less that winds up in a landfill to have the dangerous materials inside seep into the ecosystem.
• Theoretically, it helps control pricing, because recycling old materials means that less needs to be produced from raw materials.
• Protects your data (although you should always remove your data before recycling your electronics) as proper channels are required to ensure that data is properly removed.

If you’re looking to dispose of your old technology—and if you’re looking for new equipment to replace it—turn to MSPNetworks. We’ll help you through the processes involved. Give us a call at (516) 403-9001 to get started.

The world is full of people who would try to take advantage of your organization and its employees—or, in less gratifying words, scammers. They will do everything they can to try to fool your company and make a quick buck doing so. How can you make sure that the countless messages and phone calls you receive on a daily basis aren’t crooks trying to scam you out of house and home? It all starts with a little awareness.

If you are reading this blog, it’s because you want to know how you can avoid being scammed while going about your day-to-day business. Here are three tips we can offer to help you identify scammers and handle them accordingly.

Trust No One

Scammers will often try to pose as someone you know, be it a business you recognize or one that you associate with on a daily basis. There have been reports of some scammers even impersonating people within your own organization; sometimes scammers might take on the persona of someone on the executive level to convince others to wire transfer funds or to convince them to do something shady. Avoiding these scammers starts with taking a critical look at who is sending the message, and from where. If something seems a little suspicious, cross-reference the contact with what you have on file or have a conversation with the person who supposedly sent the message face-to-face.

It’s Too Good (or Bad) to Be True

Scammers often use prizes or problems to lure unsuspecting victims into giving up sensitive information. These are pretty easy to identify, as they might claim you have entered a contest that you have no recollection of entering, or they might suggest issues with an order you don’t recall placing.

You Must Act Immediately

Scammers often urge you to take immediate action, whether it’s something that is good or bad that must be addressed. There might even be an unreasonable amount of rush to perform a certain action, like resetting a password, paying a bill, or otherwise, sometimes with the threat of law enforcement or government agencies getting involved. Regardless, something of this magnitude should always be approached with a grain of salt.

If any of the above conditions are met, then you might be looking at a scammer. We urge you to use caution when dealing with any of the above situations, and when all else fails, rely on the word of professionals like MSPNetworks. We can tell you if the emails you receive are authentic or if there is a severe security flaw on your network. To learn more about how we can help your business, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001 and let our expertise speak for itself.

The holidays are times for people to come together, even in these incredibly stressful times, so you’ll want to make sure that you are taking all the necessary precautions on both a personal level and a technological level. Here are some ways that you can keep yourself safe from a technology perspective this holiday season.

Be Cautious of Your Internet Connections

When traveling, it’s extremely important to know how secure your web connection is. Places where tons of people gather, like airports and hotels, are known to have cesspools for Internet connections laden with threats of all kinds. You never know what is lurking on wireless networks that are not secured by the same precautions found on your own in-house network. For times when this is not possible, we recommend using a virtual private network to create an encrypted tunnel between your device and your company’s network if you are going to do work while traveling.

This is a little different than those consumer-based VPNs you might hear about on commercials for podcasts, YouTube videos, etc. These services, like NordVPN, TunnelBear, ExpressVPN, and others aren’t inherently designed for businesses to use as a VPN. However, these services typically do have some merit when traveling, because they encrypt your data that gets sent over Wi-Fi. This can offer a layer of protection if you do have to join a public network. Keep in mind though, you get what you pay for. Most of the free VPN services, even when they claim they don’t store any information about you, tend to store information about you. 

If you want to discuss specific use-cases with us, we’re happy to answer questions, or help equip your business with a professional VPN for your entire staff to connect to securely. Just give us a call at (516) 403-9001.

Enable Multi-Factor Authentication and Location Services on Mobile Devices

We know that you don’t want to think about losing devices, but it’s important to take measures to ensure that doing so does not put the data on your devices at risk. Solutions like multi-factor authentication and location services can help you keep your devices secure even if they are lost, and they can even give you an idea of where to look for a device in the event you don’t think it has been stolen.

Implement Data Backup

While you’re at it, you should also implement data backup services so that you don’t lose any data located on these devices in the event you have to remotely wipe them or are unable to locate them—after all, airlines have been known to misplace luggage on occasion. It never hurts to be prepared. In general, it’s a good idea to have data backup; you never know when you might need it, even without someone stealing your phone or laptop.

Wherever your travels take you this holiday season, know that MSPNetworks has your back! Make sure you follow our blog so you are prepared to handle any technology situations you come across this holiday season.

We’re coming up on two years since the COVID-19 pandemic changed many workplaces’ operational strategies from in-person work to remote work. In that time, many businesses who hadn’t initially considered remote working to be a viable option have now made it a core part of their onboarding process. This means there are plenty of workers who are now beginning remote work who haven’t really experienced it before. Today, we thought we’d go through a couple of strategies that will help remote employees be as productive as possible as they work from home. 

Peace and Quiet

One thing is for sure, it is extremely hard to focus on anything when there is constant noise. One of the first things a new remote worker should consider is where they are going to work. The people that have previously worked remote jobs probably have a dedicated desk situated in a remote corner away from the hustle and bustle of the house but it isn’t always easy to set yourself away from it, especially if your space is limited. Regardless of what goes on in the common areas of your home during the workday, setting your workspace up as far away from noise and distractions as possible will inarguably help your productivity. 

Clutter-Free

Another issue for people that work from home is that their desk is often “the desk” for all of the people in the house. The more people that use it, the more clutter you may see. This could just be paper and notebooks and other work-related items, or it could be old plates and silverware and beverage cans. We all have that person in our office who is able to do work with a desk that is constantly spilling over onto the floor. Most of us wonder how he/she gets anything done. The less clutter your desk has, the more at ease you will be and the more productive you can be. 

Nature Is Surprisingly Effective

Being in the same space all the time can get pretty claustrophobic and can produce some unhealthy habits. One way to improve your outlook as you work from home is to set your desk up near some natural light. If you have a window in a remote corner of your house, it is the perfect place to get work done. Another tip is to add some vegetation to your workspace. A simple plant or a bouquet of fresh flowers can make a lot of difference to someone that spends a lot of time in their workspace. Working from home is often more difficult on a person’s mental health, so being comfortable in your surroundings is important.

Breaks Take On a New Meaning

Anyone that works from home will run into periods of time when there is just so much to do at work--and at home--that it can be distracting and overwhelming. This is when having a hierarchy of priority is important. It’s also important to take periodic breaks so that you can deal with your growing to-do list. When you work from home, you are constantly multitasking, but if you can truly learn to focus on one thing at a time, your productivity is sure to increase. Taking meaningful breaks, where you step away from work for 10-15 minutes can make a big difference and can keep your to-do lists from growing out of control. 

Speaking Of To-Do Lists

One of the biggest challenges about working remotely is handling everything at work and at home. We recommend setting up a daily task list and sticking to it. Start with the most time-intensive things first and work your way toward the things that can be pushed to tomorrow if need be. Meeting your own expectations may be the hardest part of effectively managing your day-to-day responsibilities, but managing priority tasks can keep you from feeling the pressure that comes from having an endless list of things to do.

Need help establishing the technology for your remote workforce? Give MSPNetworks a call at (516) 403-9001 today.

What do you do with your old email messages? Do they just sit around in your inbox and collect dust? If so, this is certainly a wasteful practice, as those emails can accrue over time and take up a sizable chunk of space. The question then becomes, what do you do with the emails to keep them from taking up so much space, especially when you might be paying for the space?

When it comes to your old email messages, you can do one of two things: archive your emails for later access or delete them from existence entirely.

The Benefits of Archiving

It’s easy to see the benefits of archiving emails, especially in the business environment where there are often messages that require attention months or even years down the road. There are several benefits to archiving emails, but they mostly boil down to convenience. You free up your inbox by storing your emails elsewhere, usually in a protected storage environment that can be accessed at a later date. Email archival systems generally have features that allow you to search the database for keywords, allowing you to fish out old messages whenever you think they will be needed.

Keep in mind, a single email doesn’t take up a lot of space. It’s when you eventually have hundreds of thousands of emails sitting in your inbox, that it starts to add up.

The downside here is that archiving does still take up space, and there is a chance that you are paying for that space whether you realize it or not. To free up that space, you will need to delete the mail.

The Benefits of Deleting

Let’s be real here for a moment; there are some messages that simply have no business being archived. For example, how many marketing emails do you receive for products that you have no interest in buying? What about newsletters that you don’t even open? When you delete an email, it is sent to your Trash folder, where it will remain for a set period of time until its eventual deletion. If it’s deleted, then it no longer takes up space, so take advantage of this when you can.

Remember, the last thing you want is to archive everything. 

UNLESS! If your industry requires you to keep records of everything, then you really shouldn’t be deleting emails unless you know it is okay to do so.

Where Do You Start?

We recommend that you begin with your inbox. Stop the flow of new messages entering your archival system by first addressing which emails get archived. We recommend that you only archive those that have some use in the future or those of importance, like business communications, receipts, account notifications, anything that might have ramifications later on if you fail to hold onto them.

What you don’t want to archive are messages that have little-to-no value. Messages about sales, newsletters, or regular communications from vendors trying to sell you products are prime candidates for email deletion, as they often do not hold their value. In essence, ask yourself, “Will this email still be important one year from now?” If the answer is no, delete it.

MSPNetworks can help your business manage its email management system and make the hard calls about which messages to archive and which to simply wipe from existence. To learn more, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.

Technology is one element that many small businesses struggle with, but it turns out that a lot of the same advice that you might get for regular life lessons can also apply to IT! Let’s take a closer look at how we might apply some of these lessons and why it just makes good sense to keep these tips close at hand.

Prepare for the Unexpected

Just like when life hands you unexpected circumstances, so too will your IT infrastructure. That server unit could fail one day, leaving your business without any of the data or operations required to stay running. A hacker could find their way onto your network and put your data security at risk. A fire could burn down your office and destroy everything you have worked so hard to achieve.

All of these things can be prepared for with adequate foresight and proactive planning. You just have to understand that even the unexpected can happen when you least expect it and plan accordingly.

Don’t Skimp on Quality

Certain things you might be able to get away with lower quality, but IT is definitely not one of them. The lowest quality services or goods are not going to get you anywhere. While you might save a bit of cash in the short term, long-term you will spend much more than you think replacing hardware or purchasing new solutions entirely.

Just like in your personal life, you want to plan your investments around you and your lifestyle, things that are specific to you rather than the accepted norm. After all, no two businesses are the same, so your IT shouldn’t be, either.

You Don’t Have to Know Everything

More often than not, the journey through life is in a constant state of confusion and you do things not because you know what to do, but because you know that inaction is the incorrect choice. You know you need to take care of your IT systems and you know you need computers of some sort for your business, but you might not have the entire picture in your head as to what this means for your organization. And that’s perfectly fine! Nobody can know everything, after all.

For areas where you have a clear knowledge deficit in your understanding of various topics, you can instead rely on experts in their fields. For example, you might rely on an IT provider like MSPNetworks to make major technology decisions for your business. It sure beats taking a shot in the dark and getting it wrong, and it always helps to work with someone who knows what they are doing!

MSPNetworks wants to help you build a better future for your business and your employees through the use of industry-standard best practices and IT management. We can work with your company to ensure that these practices are implemented in such a way that you are never caught unawares. To learn more, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.

Regular computer maintenance is part of maintaining healthy IT infrastructure, but one aspect that can often go by the wayside is keeping your computer physically clean. By this, we mean keeping it dust-free, clean and tidy. We’ve put together a shortlist of everyday actions that employees of any caliber can use to keep their workstations clean. This will help your organization take preventative measures over time and (hopefully) prolong the lifespan of your business’ technology.

Before you begin cleaning up your device, we recommend that you power it down and unplug it from its power source. The last thing you want to do is give yourself a jolt on accident!

Keep the Fans Free of Dust

You may have noticed that dust tends to gather around vents and fans on your computer’s casing. If left unchecked, this dust could affect airflow and become a major problem in the long term. This is why it’s so beneficial to keep things clear; the last thing you want is your computer to overheat due to an easily preventable thing like the accumulation of dust. Use a can of compressed air to blow the dust away from the vent (Note: NOT into the computer--this does the exact opposite of what you want).

Wipe Down Screens and Surfaces

No matter how frequently a device is used, chances are it will accumulate some sort of dust on its surface. This is especially the case with your monitors. If you plan to wipe the dust off of them, we recommend that you use a microfiber cloth specifically for this purpose, and whatever you do, don’t spray anything directly onto your monitor’s screen. The same can be said for your keyboard. If you use a can of compressed air to blow away dust, combined with a microfiber cloth, you should be able to get your device reasonably clean.

That doesn’t mean you can’t use a cleaning agent to clean your screens, we find that good eyeglass cleaner works great, but harsh chemicals could cause damage. This works great for smartphones and tablets as well, but spray a clean microfiber cloth, don’t spray the device.

Keep Food and Drink Away

This is more of a preventative measure rather than an actual cleaning tip, but if you can keep your workstation tidy in the first place, the less cleaning you will have to do in the long run. Crumbs and other gunk can easily find their way into your keyboard, especially if you are the type of employee who often finds themselves working through their lunch break. The same can be said for liquids; even water can create problems if it gets under your keys or into your computer’s components, and you better hope that you never spill something sugary on your keyboard. While it isn’t necessarily a death sentence for your keyboard, the effort it takes to clean up after such a spill will make you want to just buy a new one instead. Better to just eliminate the possibility and keep your workplace clear of anything of the sort.

Perform More Thorough Cleaning

Every so often it helps to perform a cleaning that is more than just at the surface level. By this, we mean going into your case and making sure that there is minimal dust clogging up your PC’s components. Obviously this is something that you should only attempt if you are familiar with the innards of a computer, so if you are not adequately trained or experienced in this prospect, we recommend working with MSPNetworks to make sure your workstation gets the deep cleaning it needs to promote longevity. To learn more, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.