It’s difficult to tell where the line should be drawn between your home life and your work life--especially around the holidays. Mobile technology has made this more challenging than ever before, so much so that it is out of character for a business professional to be disconnected from the office for too long. How can you find that precious balance between work and life and cling to it, even during the holiday season?
The holiday season is a prime opportunity for hackers to steal considerable amounts of money and credentials from unwary shoppers, both online and in-store. When a lot of customers spend so much money, it’s inevitable that some of these credentials will be stolen by hackers seeking to snatch a credit card number or personal data. How can you protect yourself from a threat that’s not necessarily handled directly by you?
The cloud is one of the best modern technologies that a business can use to its advantage, but nowhere is it as important as it is for data backup and disaster recovery. How does your business ensure that its data remains redundant and secure from situations outside of your control? We know of one way that you can take back control of your business’s future, and that’s with a cloud-based backup and disaster recovery solution, also known as BDR.
Since eCommerce has experienced a surge in popularity, your employees might be tempted to get their holiday shopping out of the way as soon as possible by doing a little bit of browsing during your hours of operation. Depending on your business’s policies regarding personal Internet usage during office hours, you may need to take action against those who abuse the privilege.
Here are some numbers surrounding online shopping at work:
To help you limit the use of excessive online shopping during work hours, here are some tips to consider:
We know that not all companies are the same, so we can work with you to ensure that your business’s Internet permissions policy works specifically for your needs. To learn more, reach out to us at 800.394.2301.
Many small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs), find that they need to have the right technology before they can grow. In fact, studies have shown that businesses that cap out at 250 employees and primarily have plans to grow in 2018 are focusing their strategies on using IT solutions and applications to achieve growth.
Cybercrime continues to be a major threat to your organization’s security, and there’s no way to really escape it. Hackers are so prevalent on the Internet that you could actually be dealing with attacks from all sides. Phishing in particular has seen a dramatic rise over recent years, and you need to be wary of email scams designed to steal sensitive credentials.
In fact, according to the Webroot Quarterly Threat Trend Reports, at least 1.4 million phishing websites are set up every month. These reports estimate that this past May, there was an all-time high for phishing website increase, topping off at over 2.3 million websites being set up during that month. Phishing has become the single most prominent method of fraud in the modern business world, and is responsible for most data breaches worldwide.
2017 saw an uncanny number of phishing attacks. Here are three of them that you may have missed.
Amazon Shipping Phishing Scam
Earlier this year, a phishing scam made it appear that Amazon was sending emails about canceled orders or updates to user accounts. They appeared to be legitimate, but users were receiving these messages even if they hadn’t recently canceled an order. If users clicked on links located in the email, they would be directed to a domain that was either close to Amazon, or an entirely different domain. These emails convince users to hand over important credentials, like login information or financial details (credit card number, expiration date, etc.). If you receive an email claiming to be from Amazon, but you never made an order, be wary of it.
Google Docs Hack
Google Docs works by sending you an email containing a link to the document being shared with you. While it’s a best practice to never click on a link in an unsolicited email, you might think that a message from a company as big as Google could be trustworthy. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. This phishing scam works by convincing users to grant permissions to a third-party app rather than actually stealing your credentials. It’s part of a growing trend where phishing attacks are growing more sophisticated, which should raise some concerns for business owners.
IRS W-2 Tax Season Phishing Scams
Your organization has sensitive documents on-file that contain employee financial information, among other important personal data. Tax season is the opportune time for hackers to try and steal this information via phony tax return messages, as users are going to be on the lookout for information on how and when they can process their tax returns. Businesses in particular should be wary of recent phishing attacks asking for specific W-2s or personal information about users.
Is your business prepared to stand against phishing attacks? If you have any questions or concerns, reach out to Infradapt at 800.394.2301.
Can you imagine your business where it is today without a good, quality telephone system? Most small businesses require a dedicated communications infrastructure, but managing such a thing is not the simplest task. The best way to get the most return on your investment is to implement a Voice over Internet Protocol solution, or VoIP for short.
VoIP uses your business’ Internet connection to send and receive calls, which is a step up from the traditional telephone line for multiple reasons. Here are six of the best benefits you can gain from VoIP.
Lower Cost per Call
VoIP uses your Internet connection, as well as your IP address, to send and receive calls. This leads to your organization receiving more value from your calling infrastructure in the long run, as you can dodge long-distance charges thanks to the way that VoIP works. All you need to do is make sure that your bandwidth can handle the extra burden, and you’ll essentially be getting rid of an unnecessary service.
Mobility
Installing a telephone infrastructure is one of those things that you do with a sense of permanency. This can make changing numbers or moving your offices around a hassle, as you’ll need to contact your telephone provider for information on how to transfer your services. VoIP can help you avoid this issue completely, which affords your organization plenty of freedom to move offices around without trouble.
Dynamic Features
While you might have loved the traditional telephone services your provider offered, more advanced features can allow for a refreshing and rich communication experience. VoIP can provide plenty of features that traditional handsets cannot, like voicemail transferring, video chat, instant messaging, and more, all so you can get the most from your phone system.
Back to the Basics
With all of the best new features available, you might think that VoIP forgets some of its most basic features. Well, you’d be wrong--VoIP holds onto all of the basic features you’ve come to know and appreciate, like conference calling and call forwarding. Plus, there’s plenty of room to customize your service depending on your specific needs.
Treat Your Clients
There’s nothing more annoying than a phone that won’t stop ringing--particularly for the caller. With VoIP, you can set up a call queue so that you’ll never miss a call again. You can route the call directly to specific phones or devices. This can help you better treat your clients, as they’ll appreciate not talking to an answering machine.
Reliability Above All
VoIP can be used on whichever device suits you best, be it your smartphone or your work desktop. If you can’t seem to leave the traditional handset behind, VoIP can work with that, too. It’s, quite simply, highly customizable and a fantastic asset to any business’ communication solution.
Infradapt can help your business implement the best solutions for your organization. To learn more, reach out to us at 800.394.2301.
Over the past few years, more and more small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) have adopted software as a service (SaaS), in favor of the traditional use of software that was stored locally on hardware. Whether you are already using SaaS for a few of your operations or you’re considering implementing it for the first time, there a few fundamental items you should understand: What is Software as a Service? What are the benefits of adopting SaaS applications? In what departments can SaaS be utilized?
From line of business applications to cloud-based email, most businesses rely on several different types of software to perform day-to-day operations. Rather than purchasing software and installing it directly to in-house hardware, software as a service is a cloud-based way to access the app and programs your business needs, via the internet. Since most SaaS applications can be accessed through a web browser or thin-client terminals, it reduces the costs associated with hardware and maintenance, as well as allowing for easy scalability as the company dynamics change. With SaaS, the user no longer needs to manually implement patches and security updates, as they are performed by the distributor.
Here’s a look at how your peers have responded to SaaS adoption:
Although there are many areas within an organization that SaaS can benefit, these are four departments that can be enhanced by implementing SaaS:
Communications
With the popularity of unified communication and collaboration (UCC), SMBs have designated internal and external communications as a high priority. Generally comprised of virtual meeting rooms, email integrations, VoIP phone solutions, and instant messaging, cloud-based applications can be used to build a custom UCC solution that match your company’s needs - with a lot more flexibility than on premise software.
Cloud-Based Email
For those businesses who aren’t interested in UCC, cloud-based email can be extremely beneficial for SMBs in its own right. Since emails are the primary records of correspondence for the majority of business communications, cloud-based applications allow emails to be stored and archived without taking up any internal memory, as well as, offering different options based on business needs. Gmail and Microsoft Outlook are two of the most popular cloud-based email platforms.
Productivity Suites
When it comes to SaaS, productivity suites are arguably the most popular application used by businesses together. As more businesses are allowing employees to work from home, the ability to use productivity applications and collaborate remotely is a very desirable feature. Microsoft Office 365, Google’s G-Suite, and Adobe Creative Cloud give users all the capabilities of locally installed software but are able to be accessed securely from anywhere that has the Internet, on nearly every device. Additionally, each suite can be bought in a group or as individual programs.
Virtualization
Another good aspect of SaaS is that adopting virtualization doesn’t have to be all or nothing in terms of which programs you’re shifting to the cloud. You have the ability to gradually replace your locally installed programs with cloud-based software at your own pace. Studies suggest, however, that once they begin adopting cloud-based software for one process, SMBs are likely to seek out additional SaaS programs that might be a fit.
At Infradapt, we specialize in helping businesses develop an IT strategy that maximizes productivity and efficiency - including identification of potential SaaS applications that will improve your business, security, efficiency, or productivity. Would you like to learn more about SaaS? Contact Infradapt today at: 800.394.2301.