30
Sep, 2020
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Tip of the Week: Minding Your Manners in the Office Again

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In the office, there are certain courtesies that most people follow, simply to make sure that the environment remains a peaceful and effective place to work. Working at home (as many have) makes many of these courtesies redundant. As many return to the office, resuming these manners will be important. Let’s go over some of the biggest shifts that your employees should remember as they head back to the office.

Mobile Device Use

When working from home, the reasonable threshold for mobile device use is significantly different. Theoretically, you could talk to someone on speakerphone with the phone across the room (although you shouldn’t). However, there are other people with you in the office that you could potentially distract.

Take a moment and remind your team of this. Instead of holding long conversations at their desk, make sure they try to keep their calls brief and that they do whatever they can to avoid disturbing others—including leaving the area, if necessary.

Instant Messaging Use

Again, we have the kind of situation where the standards in the office are much different than those for a remote worker. When working remotely, your team needs to be able to communicate and should do so in both a professional and social manner. This is not so much the case in the office.

Allow me to clarify. When a team is working remotely, some socialization via instant messaging can be considered appropriate, so long as it is not interfering with the workday’s processes. This is simply because they are working remotely and can’t socialize with one another face-to-face. In the office, your team can—and almost certainly will—socialize throughout the day amongst themselves. Again, if done in moderation this encourages cooperation, but it can become a hindrance to your productivity if it goes too far. There is also the risk that if your messaging solution is used too much as a stand-up special your team will be less likely to read the important messages that are shared.

Moderation is key, so make sure your team is aware of that as they come back in.

Proper Communications

With so many working from home, remote conferencing solutions have seen a lot of use in recent months. While it may have been out of necessity at first, many users have begun to see the value of the integrated webcam on their laptop when it comes to holding a virtual meeting.

Of course, if these technologies are so helpful to us now, why should that change once people are back in the office? Communications with prospects and clients alike can be improved through a good conferencing solution. Continuing to embrace their options will only help to make the business and its processes more agile.

Whenever it is that people finally get back to the office for the long term, there’s a good chance that some bad habits may have developed by that time. Make sure that you address your expectations in a comprehensive written company policy. Reviewing these policies with your team, along with your privacy and security standards, will help smooth out the transition process and make your expectations clear.

If you’ve already transitioned back, tell us, how has it gone? Are there any challenges that you didn’t expect? Share them in the comments and reach out to NuTech Services for any technical assistance needed. Give us a call at 810.230.9455 to learn how we can help your team remain productive, wherever they’re working.

28
Sep, 2020
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How Companies Will Need IT as They Return to Workplaces

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As the pandemic enters its third quarter, many places have the spread of the COVID-19 virus under control and are starting to open up offices and other workplaces. Ultimately, it is the business owners’ and managers’ decision whether or not to demand attendance in an office, as most jobs completed in one can be effectively completed from home. For businesses that are opening their office and inviting their employees back, technology is still going to play a significant role. Let’s take a look at what IT is going to be important for people returning to the office after all this time.

It’s true that there are a lot of businesses that rely on their workforce to show up every day. Many of these businesses were forced to shut down or operate at limited capacity during the pandemic but are just now getting up to speed. Outside of operations, there are a lot of administrative uses of technology, some of which involve protecting employee and customer information. Let’s get into some of the strategies that businesses can use to get the most out of their workforce at this time. 

Remote Operations

Ironically, until this whole COVID-19 mess is over with, the most prudent decisions are going to be made using technology that supports remote work, even if you’ve mandated employees to work at your place of business. Not only does it remove physical interaction of your staff to protect them from contracting potentially dangerous viruses, it protects clients as well.

This strategy includes the use of internet-based tools and substantial training initiatives. According to an IMB survey just over half of remote workers during the pandemic were actually trained to protect work-related resources, so making employee training a priority makes sense. 

Hybrid Operations

There’s a saying, “You have to crawl before you walk.” It means that you have to work up to something. If you already have a remote workforce and you are looking to get them to move back to the office or the workplace, you should start implementing a strategy that gets people in waves. The most important thing is to prioritize employee health during this time, as any COVID-19 outbreak could make it difficult for you to conduct business at all. 

In regards to the IT deployment, this strategy is probably the most resource intensive because you have to both be cognizant of your network security inside your business, while also keeping abreast of how your remote workers are using your computing resources. 

Onsite Operations

Getting back to “business-as-usual” will be nice, and if you can accomplish it now, that’s great. It’s just not a strategy many businesses can support at this juncture, especially if they feature open office spaces and shared bathroom facilities. IT management is simpler for IT administrators when everyone is in one location and on the same page. 

Regardless of what your plans are for your human resources, you need to ensure that everyone understands how to mitigate the numerous types of threats your business faces each day. To talk to one of our security professionals about your business’ situation, call us today at 810.230.9455.

25
Sep, 2020
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Partition Your Network to Prioritize Network Resources

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Wi-Fi can be found in many homes and businesses alike, as it is perhaps the simplest means of connecting your various computers and mobile devices to the Internet without installing networking cables or risking going over any data caps you may deal with. Of course, some devices may take priority in such a setup, so it could be very useful for you to partition your Wi-Fi.

Let’s go over what this means, how you can go about doing so to your business’ benefit.

Your Wireless Network and its Bandwidth

When you sign on for Internet services from your service provider, you’re effectively subscribing to a preset amount of bandwidth—hopefully, enough for your staff to do everything they need to do. However, once some people start a few resource-intensive tasks, they could potentially pull network resources away from your other users… not the ideal situation.

For example, take a point-of-sale system as it collects customer data and efficiently processes payments. If network resources are being expended in other places, the POS system could experience some challenges, and negatively impact the customer experience. Internet-hosted communication systems, like email or VoIP, are also vulnerable to this.

Fortunately, partitioning can help avoid these hold-ups.

Understanding Partitioning

To understand partitioning, it helps to look at your Internet bandwidth as the wait to be seated in a restaurant. Regardless of whether there are ten people waiting to get in, or two, the restaurant can only hold so many people. Bandwidth is like the number of seats available—once it is filled up, some will have to empty before operations move along. When it comes to your data, running out of bandwidth causes a bottleneck.

To continue this comparison, partitioning is a little bit like reserving a table at our metaphorical restaurant. When you place your reservation, a table is set aside for your specific use. When you partition your bandwidth, that section of bandwidth is reserved for a specific use as well. So, returning to reality for a moment, partitioning your bandwidth essentially just means you’re reserving some of your Internet resources for a certain task. In the case of a POS system, whether you partition your network could potentially be the difference between having the necessary reliability for your payment terminals, or not. This is also used often for VoIP systems, offline backup, and other bandwidth-intensive systems.

What Does Partitioning a Network Require?

When you partition a network, the first step is to establish how much of your network could be partitioned for specific tasks without causing an issue for your business.

Then, it’s just establishing what processes should be partitioned. If you were trying to ensure that a VoIP platform would remain functional, you could partition your network at the router, specifying that so much bandwidth is meant for VoIP processes, and protect this bandwidth with an authentication system. As a result, your telephony would remain crisp and clear, as its bandwidth wouldn’t have other processes borrowing from it (or the other way around).

For assistance with partitioning your business network, or with any other aspect of your business’ IT, NuTech Services is here to help. Reach out to us today for predictable and professional managed IT services and support by calling 810.230.9455.

23
Sep, 2020
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Tip of the Week: Simple Solutions to a Few Android Problems

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While the Android platform is a highly capable mobile platform, there are a few oddities baked in that can create some annoyances for the user. To help you out, we’ve assembled a few tips to help you prevent these annoyances from impacting your use of your mobile device.

Screen Rotating Too Much? Lock It in Place!

How often have you been in the middle of doing something, only to shift your phone’s position and have your screen switch orientation as it calibrates to what it assumes is what you are looking for? It doesn’t take long for this to get old, and quick.

Fortunately, Android 9 and later iterations have included a fix for this. In your System Settings, access Display and from there, Advanced. Here is where you’ll find the Auto-rotate screen option and the means to switch it off.

Samsung device users have a bit of a different process. This toggle can instead be found in the Quick Settings menu (the one that emerges from the top of your screen by swiping down twice). It includes an icon labeled Auto rotate, which you will want to switch to Portrait. This effectively disables Landscape mode from switching over unless commanded to in context.

Too Many Notifications? You Have More Options than “Yes” or “No”!

We’ve all been there before, too, and have had those applications that—if given permission to notify you of things—do so seemingly incessantly. Android has now made it very simple to adjust these permissions on the fly. Once you receive one of these annoying notifications, you can press and hold it to access a control panel. This panel can be used to either silence your notifications, or completely turn them off.

Has Your Phone Stopped Charging Well? Clean Up the Charging Port!

Debris that accumulates in your phone’s charging port over time can easily interfere with your device’s ability to charge. So, before you assume the worst and start budgeting for a costly repair job, why not try cleaning out this debris?

With extreme caution, take a toothpick or a cotton swab and try to tease out any junk that the device has collected over time. Then, try charging your device again and see if you have any more success in doing so. You may just find that your issue was little more than pocket lint, and not a problem with the hardware.

For more useful technology information, advice, and tips, subscribe to our blog!

21
Sep, 2020
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Are Developers Going to Eliminate the Password?

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A lot is made about data breaches and hackers, but I think you’d be surprised to find out that over 80 percent of cyberattacks are the result of stolen authentication credentials. This has led many security-minded IT administrators to try and find a better way than the old username & password strategy that we’ve all been using for as long as there have been user accounts. One organization that is actively making waves trying to replace the username/password combo is Microsoft. They are at the forefront of the move to passwordless authentication.

What Exactly is Passwordless Authentication?

Instead of using passwords, you would effectively verify your identity through alternative means such as a verification app, a predefined security token, or even biometric information. These forms of authentication aren’t exactly new–most smartphones have a biometric authentication system onboard–but now they are beginning to become the predominant way that IT administrators set up their authentication systems. 

Why Is This Shift Happening?

Reduced Cost

You may be surprised, but passwords actually can cost a business a lot of money. A study by Forrester Research found that each password reset can cost a company $70. By using passwordless authentication, there are no passwords to reset, so these costs are completely eliminated. 

User Experience and Convenience

Every account you have has its own password. With more and more accounts being added each day, managing all the passwords that you need to remember can get difficult. Using methods that don’t require the need to remember passwords removes these challenges. 

Security

The main reason passwords are used is for security, but with so many hackers and scammers trying to get people to mistakenly give over their passwords through phishing attacks and other social engineering attempts, removing that possible vector can immediately make a computing network more secure.

Microsoft’s Approach to Security

For the past few years, Microsoft has been transitioning to a passwordless authentication system. In May, over 150 million users were utilizing some type of passwordless authentication, including 90 percent of the software giant’s 150,000 employees. Microsoft has gone on the record stating that it is saving 80 percent of the support costs that they had seen with password-fueled systems. 

At this point passwordless authentication seems to be a no-brainer. It is more secure, more affordable, better for the user, and far more manageable.

At NuTech Services, our IT experts can assist you in implementing passwordless authentication for your company. Give us a call to learn more at 810.230.9455. Of course, if you do continue to use passwords, be sure you use strong passwords!

18
Sep, 2020
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Gmail Templates Can Speed Up Your Communications

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Email is one of the most popular business communication tools, with Google’s Gmail service being a popular choice with a market share of around 33.7 percent. It therefore makes sense that a lot of time is spent using Gmail, time that you might like spent on other initiatives. To help reduce the amount of time spent in Gmail on routine correspondence, we’re sharing how you can use Gmail templates to get the job done.

There are multiple add-ons and browser extensions available to help boost your email templates with more dynamic options, but today, we’ll be focusing on the baked-in capabilities that Gmail comes with.

What is a Gmail Template?

A template is Gmail’s digitized version of a form letter—a stock piece of correspondence that doesn’t change much (if at all) each time it is sent. Naturally, by eliminating the time it takes to repeatedly re-type what is essentially the same message over and over, a template can make your more routine correspondences much more efficient.

As a result, you can spend more time on your more important tasks, without short-changing your communications.

Activating Gmail Templates

In Gmail, access your Settings by clicking on the gear-shaped icon. From there, select See All Settings, and then Advanced. On the page that appears, you should find an option for Templates. Enable it and Save Changes.

Now, you’ll have the capability to create whatever template you need for your usual correspondence.

Creating a Gmail Template

Generating a new template is very simple. All you must do is start a new email and write it out the way that your template should replicate. Once your template is written to your liking, click the message’s three-dot menu and navigate to the Templates option. In the sub-menu that appears, you can Save draft as template (which also gives you the option to overwrite your old templates if they need an update). The Templates sub-menu is also where you’ll find all the templates you have saved in the past, when you’re ready to use them, as well as the option to Delete template if one is no longer applicable.

Hopefully, this will help you make much faster use of Gmail in the future. To learn more time-saving technology tricks, make sure you subscribe to our blog!

16
Sep, 2020
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Tip of the Week: 2 Wi-Fi Tips for Your Home or Office

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The COVID-19 pandemic has a lot of people spending a lot of time at home. As a result many people are getting more out of their Internet service. With school starting back up and people still working from home, the Internet needs to be available for everyone in the house. One of the best ways to make this happen is through Wi-Fi. Oftentimes, however, setting up a Wi-Fi connection can be troublesome. Today, we thought it would be useful to give you a couple of tips that can help you get the most out of your Wi-Fi network at home or in the office. 

Strategic Placement

Wi-Fi depends on a couple of pieces of hardware and a couple of other factors. Firstly, ensure that your modem is connected correctly and that your router is connected securely to your modem. Nowadays, they are typically found in the same unit for home use. A key factor to setting up your router is that it has as few obstructions between devices as possible. Wi-Fi is just wireless radio waves, so ensuring it has a clear path will help the reliability of the signal that gets to your devices. 

To make this happen, you will want to choose a centralized location in your house or office to install the router. You will also want to elevate it over most obstructions. If your modem is on the floor there are many more obstructions close to the floor than there are near the ceiling. Setting up your router up high will work to keep your coverage relatively consistent throughout the environment. 

Utilize Wi-Fi Extenders Where Necessary

Some places have too much “place” for your Wi-Fi signal to effectively reach all ends of a property. When this happens, installing a Wi-Fi extender may be your best option. Effectively, these devices just repeat the frequency coming from the router to a larger area. If that doesn’t do the trick you could outfit your home or office with additional routers that will do a better job broadcasting Wi-Fi signals. 

If you are having problems setting up your Wi-Fi connection, or you would like to get some expert advice before networking your home or office, call the IT professionals at NuTech Services today at 810.230.9455.

14
Sep, 2020
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Include Your Staff in Your Security Strategies

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When it comes to cybersecurity, your employees are simultaneously your biggest benefit and your most glaring weakness. This can be outlined in the telling of one story that emerged from automaker Tesla. Let’s take a look at the particulars.

Tesla’s Near-Sabotage

In August 2020, a Russian businessman was indicted on charges of conspiracy to intentionally cause damage to a protected computer after he attempted to recruit a current Tesla employee to install malicious software on the automaker’s Gigafactory network. 

According to court documents, the hacker, 27-year-old Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov, contacted an unnamed Tesla employee who he had previously come into contact with in 2016. Using Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp, Kriuchkov set a meeting with the employee on August 3, 2020. At this meeting Kriuchkov offered the employee money to help him steal data from the company with the use of malware. 

The attack was to work as follows: they would simulate a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack and with access provided by the employee, Kriuchkov and his associates would infiltrate the network and steal data, at which point, the hacking team would demand a ransom for the stolen data. 

Court documents suggest that when Kriuchkov attempted to follow up with the employee to smooth out the details, they weren’t alone in the meeting. The employee had reached out to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI surveyed the meeting, where Kriuchkov repeated the particulars of his proposed scam and admitted that his hacking collective had stolen from other companies, with the help of sitting employees. The employee also received assurances that one of his/her coworkers could be blamed for the breach. 

Ultimately, the FBI collected enough evidence against Kriuchkov to make an arrest. He now faces up to five years in prison.

This outlines just how important your employees are to your business’ data protection and cybersecurity initiatives. 

How to Minimize Insider Threats

Education is a big deal. If you want someone to do something proficiently, they’ll need training. Here are a few suggestions on how to make cybersecurity a priority to your staff. 

Build Your Company Culture Around Cybersecurity

To ensure that you have the best chance to ward off insider threats, make cybersecurity a priority. In doing so, you will unify your team’s efforts to help protect your business.

Educate Your Staff on Emerging Threats

Cybersecurity is a big issue. It’s not as if one thing will protect your network and infrastructure from all the threats it faces. To get help from your employees, you will need to commit to educating them on the threats they could encounter in their day-to-day routines. 

Train Your Staff About Cybercrime

Sure, it is helpful to train your staff on the cybersecurity best practices, but without context chances are it won’t stick. By telling them what could happen as a result of negligence, you can get their attention. The more they understand how their actions could cause major problems for your company, the more they will be diligent to ensure to do the right things.

If you would like some help figuring out your company’s security training platform, or if you need to talk to one of our consultants about getting some security tools designed specifically for your company, we can help. Call us today at 810.230.9455.

11
Sep, 2020
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Evaluating the Security of Your Chrome Extensions

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Google Chrome is currently used by 69 percent of global desktop Internet users, as of July of 2020. With such a large amount of people using Chrome, its security becomes even more important… which makes it all the worse that many people are unaware of the permissions that some of its extensions claim.

Let’s go over how you can review how much of your data these Chrome extensions can access, and how you can adjust these permissions more to your liking.

Fair warning: This will naturally require you to change a few settings, so don’t be afraid to reach out to your IT provider to confirm these changes are okay to make and for assistance in doing so.

What Permissions Have Extensions Been Granted?

Here’s the thing—the extensions that you have installed into the Chrome browser, much like the applications that can be installed on a mobile device, will require some of your browsing data in order to function. Many extensions and applications, however, take claim of far greater permissions than their functionality requires in practice. In fact, a recent analysis of extension permissions shows that over a third of all extensions do this!

Here are a few steps that allow you to evaluate your Chrome extension permissions and help you to avoid granting them too much access in the future.

Step One: Evaluate Your Current Permissions

First, you will want to find out how many of your installed extensions currently ask for too much. To do so, you’ll need to type chrome:extensions into the address bar and go through the Details of each extension that appears on the page.

There, you’ll find a line annotated with Site access. There are various access levels that an extension can have once it is installed, including no access at all. What this means is that your web activity isn’t accessible by the extension at all. The other levels include:

  • On click – This means that an extension can access and alter data in your active tab when you click on the extension’s shortcut.
  • On specific sites – This means that only certain websites allow the extension to access and alter what is presented in the browser.
  • On all sites – This means that there are no restrictions on an extension, allowing it to access and alter data at any time.

Certain types of extensions may need this kind of access, while others will not. It is up to you to determine what access is appropriate for each to need, based on what they use to operate.

Step Two: Adjusting Your Current Permissions

If an extension doesn’t need the level of permissions that it demands, do everything you can to address this by adjusting its settings. If the extension allows this, these permissions can be adjusted by simply selecting your preferred option under Site access. Whenever possible, following a principle of least privilege is the safest bet for your data.

Step Three: Keep Permissions in Mind Moving Forward

Once your extensions’ access permissions are in check, you don’t want to just fall back into your old habits with any new extensions you add. Remember, these extensions prompt you with a brief dialog box explaining its default accessibility settings… pay attention to them. Whenever you activate an extension moving forward you need to be sure to keep these permissions in mind. It may be the difference between installing an extension or finding another option.

NuTech Services can help you manage all your business technology through our proactive managed services and support. To find out more about our services, reach out to our team by calling 810.230.9455.

9
Sep, 2020
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There’s Scheduling, and Then There’s SMART Scheduling

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A schedule has long been the tool of choice for businesses to uphold their productivity, despite the challenges that managing everyone’s schedule can often present. Fortunately, today’s cloud solutions provide a means to overcome these challenges. Let’s explore the idea of smart scheduling and how it can make your entire process so much simpler.

Understanding Smart Scheduling

These software solutions are commonly found in industries that are subject to a lot of outside influence and fluctuating demand due to a variety of factors, such as retail. Smart scheduling gives these businesses the capability to schedule their employees more effectively, using automation to simplify the process.

Having said that, the principles of smart scheduling can be applied to all industries if they are viewed as a process, rather than a technology. Not only can all industries apply these principles, they should, as all businesses must deal with numerous factors that impact their operations.

Looking at it in this light, smart scheduling effectively just boils down to consolidating your various circumstances and scheduling to accommodate them accordingly. It’s recognizing that certain times will have different demand levels, that some conditions will impact operations, and making the preparations to deal with them proactively.

Scheduling More Intelligently

Even if you don’t have a dedicated solution lined up for these purposes, there are some ways that you can embrace the concept of smart scheduling. Consider these strategies:

  • Bring Your Information Together—You should consolidate any available information that you have regarding your schedule and your business’ operations to make it easier for you to predict patterns and prepare for them. Understanding what priorities you have, and how much your employees have been available to accomplish, will assist you in scheduling your team more effectively.
  • Communicate—Communication is one of the most important factors when determining your success, and this goes for how much information your schedule provides. Give your employees context into their tasks to help empower their procedures and productivity.
  • Use a Scheduling Platform—Businesses have many options to assist them with their scheduling available, and not all of them need to be inherently “smart.” Finding one that works for your needs will bring considerable benefits to your business and its processes. 

Regardless of the business solutions you need, NuTech Services is here to help you manage them. To learn more, reach out to our team by calling 810.230.9455.

7
Sep, 2020
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Small Businesses Make Progress with Managed Services

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For a lot of businesses, 2020 has seen some major challenges. Many SMBs feel like they are in a snow globe attached to a paint mixer that is always switched on. With all the problems laid out in front of them, many businesses have decided that in order to protect their business that they would subscribe to a strategy of proactivity. Let’s take a look at a couple of ways managed services help keep you ahead.

What is it to be Proactive?

It’s all about preventing issues and risk. Being proactive is simply action taken after a risk assessment. Many times, risk is inherent, so being proactive is just managing situations to keep risk at bay. It goes without saying that taking proactive steps, especially in business, can be some of the most effective strategies to get ahead. Why is this? It comes down to time. 

When a person sees a problem and fixes the problem, the time that is spent fixing the problem is waste, especially when taking proactive action could eliminate the problem in the first place. Managed services are predicated on this very concept. The more you do to keep problems from presenting themselves, the more time there is to be productive. We measure this in uptime.

Downtime, the Business Killer

Your business isn’t Google. It isn’t Google in 2013. That was the year that Google went down for almost five hours. Imagine five hours without Google! It cost the company–in 2013–an estimated $545,000. Now, Google can afford that, but it just illustrates how expensive downtime can be. It can be problematic in several ways, including:

  • Customer frustration – Downtime is extremely problematic for your customer relationships. Not only does extended downtime flood your business with calls and messages, it also fosters distrust. 
  • Staff frustration – For many small businesses, employees wear a couple different caps. One of those caps, that many workers would rather not wear, is that of a customer service representative. If someone on your production team can’t get at the resources they need to do their jobs, you are paying them to either be PR or janitorial staff. Either way, they tend to get impatient pretty quick when they can’t do what they were hired to do.
  • Exorbitant cost – The two previous examples fuel rising costs. If you are paying your employees and they aren’t producing anything tangible, you are losing money, period.

Limiting downtime is a priority for every well-run business, otherwise you are just throwing away money. 

Proactive Services

At NuTech Services, we have a couple proactive solutions that can really benefit your business. They include:

  • Remote monitoring – By remotely monitoring your network and infrastructure, our expert technicians can see if there are inconsistencies, infiltrations, or irregularities that we can take care of before they become problematic. By staying ahead of hardware issues and monitoring for malware and other network-related issues, you avoid the downtime it takes to fix these issues when they come to a head.
  • Cloud computing – Another option is to take your computing infrastructure offsite. Cloud solutions often come with comprehensive management baked into the price so that your employees will have anytime, anywhere access to the data and applications they need. 
  • Patch management – Software vulnerabilities can be exploited by hackers and cause significant devastation on your company’s network. By updating all of your software systems with the latest updates, you mitigate the risk that comes from running older versions of software.

Proactivity doesn’t just happen, you have to make it happen. If you would like to stare down some of the biggest risks to your technology and data, and improve your business’ uptime, call us today at 810.230.9455.

4
Sep, 2020
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You Need to Be Asking These 4 Questions to Maximize Security

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Today’s business has to prioritize its data security. There are endless examples of businesses that haven’t done enough. Some aren’t around anymore. To help you build a strategy, we’ve put together four questions that need to be asked to give you a chance to outwit and overcome the endless threats your company could run into online.

#1: Is security a priority when we build processes?

Your business has a way that it does what it does. Are those processes created with both physical security and cybersecurity in mind? The amount of threats your business is subject to is literally innumerable. Each day new threats are created and used to try and steal money and data from businesses just like yours. When building your business’ processes, the first consideration that isn’t “can I make money this way” has to be about how to secure your business from outside threats. 

Some ways you can prioritize security is to train your staff on what threats look like when they come in, ensure that you prioritize access control and proper authentication procedures, and really make sure that your entire staff is educated about the importance in keeping you secure. Making sure that all transferred data is encrypted can also help.

#2: Who has access to my files?

When we talk about access control, we talk about limiting access to data. Not all members of your organization need access to the same data, after all. Doing your best to ensure that some of your most sensitive data is protected not just from people outside your organization, but also inside.

By enabling role-based access and adding in a multi-layered authentication procedure, the security of your organization’s data will be much improved. Another good practice is to keep logs and routinely audit both them and the other protections you put in place. 

#3: How can encryption help my business?

Data in transit can be stolen. Data just sitting there in the open can be too. You will want to ensure that all of your most sensitive data is encrypted both when it’s at rest and when it’s being moved from one location to another. 

Today the most popular forms of encryption are the Data Encryption Standard (DES) or the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). Understanding the particulars of encryption may be complex, but knowing how to use it to better secure your business’ data is not. 

#4: Is my security strategy working?

Obviously, the security that you put on your business isn’t plug and play. It needs to be properly configured to meet your business’ specific situation. The best way to get the most comprehensive security resources to protect your business’ network and data is to have knowledgeable consultants help you find the strategies and solutions that are right for you, implement them, and then routinely test them to ensure that they would stand up under pressure. 

If you would like to start this conversation, call the IT experts at NuTech Services today at 810.230.9455.

2
Sep, 2020
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How to Make the Most of Mobile Device Management

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The concept of remote work is closely tied to mobility, which means that solutions and strategies that promote this mobility are particularly important for businesses to adopt if they are interested in benefiting from remote operations. Mobile device management is one such solution.

Let’s go over a few key practices to successfully using MDM to your business’ benefit.

What is Mobile Device Management?

Mobile device management is the application of software solutions that allow you to implement policies that control how users can access your business’ data. This enables your business to improve its data security while implementing a Bring Your Own Device policy.

If you are currently considering implementing an MDM solution, here are a few best practices to keep in mind as you make your selection:

Comprehensive Compatibility

Some people are fans of Android, while others will pick iOS whenever they have a choice. To successfully implement MDM, both platforms need to be supported. You should also be sure that your solution can differentiate between an employee-owned device and one that is property of your business and be able to adjust its policies accordingly.

Device Tracking and Management

On the off chance you have to let an employee go, you don’t want your BYOD strategy to leave you vulnerable to retribution. A good MDM solution will allow you to review what a device has access to, and to remotely revoke that access as necessary. As a bonus, these features make general device troubleshooting much simpler as well.

Security in Your Control

While your business’ security is obviously a priority for you, your team probably won’t think about it as seriously as you will… despite it largely being their responsibility. They might just assume that the chances of something happening are so low, they can cut a corner or two. Instead of convincing them that they’re mistaken, an MDM solution allows you to set the acceptable benchmarks for your security. This enables minimum password requirements, encryption, remote wiping capabilities, and other utilities.

Comprehensive Backup

If you’re allowing BYOD in your business, there’s a good chance that some of your business’ data is spread out amongst several employee devices. Should something happen to that device, you could easily lose this data. Protecting this data is as simple as backing it up to the cloud.

For more information about mobile device management, or any of our other IT services and support options, give NuTech Services a call at 810.230.9455.