Fred Rappuhn, Author at NuTech Services LLC

Apr, 2020

Tip of the Week: Phishing Attacks at Home

Microsoft’s latest Security Intelligence Report cites phishing attacks as the most prevalent cyberthreat. With the COVID-19 outbreak pushing large numbers of workers to their own homes, it is almost assuredly still the case. As a result, it is extremely important that you and your staff understand how to spot potential phishing attacks and what to do when confronted with an attack. Today, we will provide you some tips on how to identify and remediate such attacks.

You would think that since millions of phishing attacks are ignored, set to spam, and actively mitigated each month, that there wouldn’t be such a desperate effort to educate people about the signs of phishing attacks, but the fact remains that it only takes one successful phishing attack to compromise an entire workstation, network, or computing infrastructure.

Today, everyone that works for your company will need to be able to spot and report a phishing attack. Doing so can sometimes be extremely difficult if the spammer does his/her homework. Consider using and teaching these tips to keep your business from being a victim of a phishing attack.

1. The Email Gives You Anxiety

One of the first things you need to know about phishing emails is that they almost always push you to take impulsive action. That’s why so many people fall for them each year. They often seem like they are from a legitimate source and are written to deliver fear. If the contents of an email give you an uneasy feeling, and they seem a little out of scope for the sender, chances are it is a scam and should be reported.

2. It’s Zipped Up

Hackers will often send attachments with their phishing attacks. If you are sent a .zip file, and you don’t immediately recognize the sender, do not click on it. In fact, it’s best practice that any email sent with an attachment, if you don’t know exactly what it is, should be verified before being opened.

3. URLs and Addresses are Fraudulent

If you can’t tell by the tone of the content, one telltale sign that you are dealing with a phishing attack is to look at the URLs of the links or the actual email address the message comes from. Hackers will often resort to small changes and redirects to get a recipient into a compromised position. If you hover your cursor over any link, you can see the URL it directs to in the status bar. If it is not a URL you immediately know, you should verify from the sender.

4. The Message is Sloppy

Today’s company is more cognizant of their brand and message than any time in history. If you receive an email that is filled with grammatical errors, misspelled words, and poorly defined sentences, you will want to avoid clicking on anything. Marketers today are trained to make an email as personal as they can. If your email has an impersonal message, chances are it wasn’t sent from a marketer and should be reported.

This may not be a comprehensive list, but by following these tips you will be better prepared to deal with a phishing message. The IT professionals at NuTech Services do a lot to drive forward security as an integral part of any IT management policy. To learn more about phishing, call our knowledgeable professionals at NuTech Services today at 810.230.9455.

Apr, 2020

How to Trim Your IT Support Expenses (But Keep Your IT)

When a budget comes into play, it is important to remember that there are a few ways that you can adjust it beyond eliminating line items. For instance, you can instead optimize some of the most egregious financial requirements your technology has–its support costs–by translating the unpredictably variable costs you likely deal with now for your support, to the much more sustainable agreement that a managed service provider will operate through.

Let’s go over some of the ways that an MSP can help reduce your support costs, while still providing better support than the alternative.

Where Support Costs Build Up

Take a moment and consider why technology costs tend to rise so rapidly once an issue is discovered.

The technology itself could be expensive to repair or replace.
The repair fee will likely include fees and travel costs in addition to the cost of the service itself.
The repair is likely only focused on fixing the immediate problem, without considering if it will recur or if the fix itself will cause further problems down the road, leading to repeat visits.
If an issue does happen, you have to call in the technician for them to come and actually fix the problem. This all takes a lot of time, before the repair even takes place, which itself can take a large amount of billable time as well. So, in addition to paying for the travel time for the tech to get there and the time they spend solving the issue, you are also incurring costs through missed productivity.
It is next to impossible to predict these kinds of expenses when trying to budget out your year, as you can never know when you may be surprised. If you set aside too little, you could drain your budget long before you planned.

Of course, this is assuming that you would call a regular tech support company and that you didn’t have a managed service agreement with an MSP. Most of the above issues can be resolved much more efficiently (and cost-efficiently) through a managed approach, as we’ll demonstrate:

How MSPs Ease These Budgetary Challenges

Let’s go through the reasons we went through before, that would typically lead to swelling costs and exceeded budgets. This time, however, we’ll assume that you’re leaning on an MSP for your IT assistance and support.

While the technology could be expensive for others to procure, the MSP likely has developed a relationship with vendors who can provide them with more affordable solutions.
Many problems can actually be resolved remotely, as the MSP takes full advantage of. This means that travel costs are usually unnecessary, and anything that falls within the agreement with the MSP is covered by a consistent monthly fee.
In addition to fixing the problem at hand, the MSP uses their access and vantage point to identify the root cause of the issue. This means that the issue itself is resolved, preventing future intervention from becoming necessary.
Your MSP will also monitor your technology for these kinds of issues, using special tools that alert them of inconsistencies and errors. Since they use remote access to do so, they can even find potential problems and proactively fix them. Even if an on-site visit is required, it may be included in the agreement, as well. As a result, your team can return to work–and therefore productivity–that much quicker.
With a recurring and inclusive fee for these services, budgeting for a managed service provider is a relative breeze. Any changes you need to make (like if you add more employees to further boost your productivity) can easily be incorporated into your monthly fee, keeping costs in check.

Interested in finding out more? Reach out to our team and ask about what other benefits working with us can bring! Call 810.230.9455 today.

Apr, 2020

Hackers Double Down During Crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic has most of the world at home. It has completely disrupted everyday life and has businesses scrapping their normal strategies for work-at-home policies that will at least allow them to maintain some productivity. These strategies, while highly effective, carry with them additional risk. Today, we take a look at some of the risks associated with relying on remote workers.

With many “non-essential” businesses scrambling to find strategies that will keep revenue coming through the door, setting up a remote workforce has become most businesses’ best hope. Unfortunately, with such little notice to dot the Is and cross the Ts, businesses are taking on more risk than many of them are comfortable with. That trepidation is not fruitless, either. In times of crisis, hackers have a tendency to prey on the unprepared. The fact is that workers that are operating where they are not comfortable–or where they’re too comfortable–can mean disaster for their employers.

Security Threats for Remote Workers

Even if it normally is, security isn’t exactly the top priority for businesses faced with this situation. Businesses need to mitigate net-negative cash flow positions. This means they need their staff to continue working. This is stretching business’ cybersecurity strategies thin. Exacerbating things is that with so many people focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, hackers can use it as bait.

Cybersecurity professionals and other researchers have seen an increase in ransomware attacks, trojans, and spyware as a result of this situation. They’ve also seen COVID-19 being referenced in millions of phishing attacks. Many problems that businesses face in regards to cybersecurity can be directly attributed to the remote worker. Workers at home are typically using their home PC or laptop that has all their personal accounts on it. An infected personal PC is a big problem when you are using the same PC to access work related materials.

Additionally, hackers are now seeing a lot more success by targeting businesses directly now that security is playing second fiddle.

That is a problem since cyberattacks can decimate your business, tarnish your reputation, and end any positive momentum your business has built up. Since most businesses weren’t prepared in the least for these stay-at-home orders, the ones that are under direct scrutiny from federal, state, and industry mandates are even more exposed.

How to Protect Your Business

While any measures you take at this point to better secure your employees working remotely will be more reactive than they are proactive, it is still important to do so. We suggest that you enact the following measures to begin:

Cloud solutions – Rather than introducing an entrance into your business with a remote access solution, using the cloud’s capabilities enables productivity through a much simpler and more secure means than opening a gateway into your business’ infrastructure. As the cloud permits you to store your data and/or host your applications, your employees can be sure to have the resources they need to safely work from home.
Company devices – If you provide your team with the device they should use through their day-to-day, your business can continue to operate with the knowledge that all updates and security patches can be maintained. Despite the upfront costs of procuring the technology you will need, making this investment can provide returns to both productivity and security.
Employee training – Perhaps most crucially, your employees need to respect how much responsibility will rest on their shoulders in terms of maintaining cybersecurity as they work from home. Making sure they know the recommended best practices for maintaining security, as well as other preventative skills like spotting phishing attacks, will allow you to trust them more to keep your business safe from threats.

While the COVID-19 pandemic will eventually end, smart security practices both in and out of the office never should. To learn more about how we can help keep your business safe, reach out to NuTech Services at 810.230.9455.

Apr, 2020

Keep the Pandemic from Plundering Your Profitability

As the COVID-19 pandemic rages on, affecting hundreds of thousands of people, and keeping hundreds of millions at home, the beginnings of recessionary fear have begun to hit small businesses. Today, we will go through a few elements that will help you get your business through this (and many other) anxious times.

The first thing that you need to consider is that this thing won’t last forever. Most businesses, if they had no contingencies in place, or if they were forced to close by mandate, probably have been burning through cash for the past month. Those that haven’t are fortunate. Small business owners need to stay proactive during this period, altering their company’s remote work strategies if need be, and searching for low-interest loans to get them through this difficult process. Let’s get into some of the most useful tips on how to get your business through this disaster.

#1: Know Where You Are

The first tip is probably the most important tip. This situation came upon all of us pretty suddenly, and to be frank, not a lot of business’ disaster recovery programs consider “supervirus” as a likely scenario. Floods, fires, electrical storms, the temp clicking on a spear phishing attack…these situations your business is ready for. Worldwide pandemic is a stretch. Forging ahead, you need to know that you aren’t alone, but how you react will largely determine how you come out the other side of this thing.

If you are still in operation, you will need to cut as many redundant and unnecessary costs as you can. In times like this, your company needs the flexibility that comes with liquidity. That means eliminating a lot of the extra stuff that you pay for, such as travel (this one is obvious), team outings, company food, and non-essential marketing. This will ensure that you have the financial flexibility to at the very least have a business to reopen when the “all-clear” is given.

Additionally, don’t take on any new investments that don’t immediately relate to getting your business through this situation. There will be millions of businesses looking for additional capital, and there should be enough money and favorable interest rates that most businesses can get the capital they need without putting their whole business in jeopardy.

#2: Maintain Your Relationships

You have spent a long time cultivating and maintaining your business relationships. It is more important now than ever to do what you can to maintain those relationships. This includes your financial institutions, your vendors, and your clients. Regrettably, some businesses won’t make it through this, but the lion’s share will and making sure that your business is on solid footing and there to support your client base will be essential as things begin to normalize.

#3: Proactively Budget

Chances are that the terms you agreed upon and the support from your clients will shift considerably. You will want to proactively budget for this. You can expect higher interest rates, a lower availability of massive available capital, and shorter terms in which to pay off the money you do borrow.

As stated above, there should be a lot of available capital through government-sponsored programs, and these loans will carry with them lower interest rates, but if you take the proactive steps to ensure that you budget for the difficult times ahead, your business will undoubtedly be in a better position when we see our way through this mess.

#4: Trust Yourself to Weigh Variables

The COVID-19 outbreak has left the small business owner a lot to take in. One of the most important suggestions we can give is that you trust that the decisions you’ve made up to this point–and that you will make over the crucial next few months–are in the best interests of everyone that depends on your business. If you are forced into making cuts into your human resources, you will want to make sure that they are protected as not to put your business in additional peril from having a tarnished brand.

Making sacrifices is always hard, especially if you were really thriving before the pandemic hit. Take in as much information as you can weigh and have the confidence that you can make the right decisions. This will keep your business, and the people who depend on it, ready to properly adjust to the situations that are thrown at it.

COVID-19 has millions of businesses and hundreds of millions of people uneasy. To get through it you will need help. Contact the knowledgeable consultants at NuTech Services today at 810.230.9455 to let us help your business get through this unprecedented situation.

Apr, 2020

Vendor Relationships Could See Strain

The COVID-19 outbreak has a lot of business owners looking over their supply chains and their budgets wondering how they are ever going to make things work. If yours is like most businesses, you use IT to make your business smarter, more efficient, and help your workforce be more productive. Unfortunately, with recessionary winds swirling around as a result of this terrible situation, it may become inevitable that your business will have to do more with less for some time.

Your vendors are a big part of your supply chain, and when you have to make alterations to it to ensure that you are able to meet demand, but also operate within the parameters of your budget, it can be a difficult conversation if you are forced to cut back on, indefinitely pause, or eliminate, a product or service you use in your business’ day-to-day operations. Today, we thought we would tell you why our vendor management service can be an indispensable tool when tough decisions have to be made.

About Vendor Management

Every industry has a certain amount of vendors they deal with; and, if they work with computers they have their IT vendors as well. At NuTech Services, we have identified the time speaking and negotiating with, and fielding calls from vendors as a major time waster for the modern decision maker.

You may not think so, but you spend a lot of time dealing with your vendors. Besides the conversations you have when you are ordering something from them, they command your attention for additional sales calls, they send you endless emails and mailers, and they even use outreach to try and expand their own marketing efforts using you as a referral.

Our vendor management service is designed to manage your technology accounts to keep them from taking up your precious time. Moreover, our consultants typically have prior relationships with many of the companies you would have to deal with, an often fortuitous side effect of having NuTech Services handle vendor management for you. Sure, you may see a reduction in spending, but what you will definitely see is more time to focus on your business. The more time you spend focused on your business, the better your business can become.

COVID-19 and Cost Reduction

With the COVID-19 global pandemic altering the way businesses have to function, you may find yourself having to pause or eliminate non-essential expenses while you can navigate the reduction in revenue. According to the Wall Street Journal, as of April 7th, 29% of the American Economy is shut down. Similar situations are facing business in the UK and Australia.

If yours is a business that needs to pick-and-choose which services to retain (and which to eliminate), the phone calls to your vendors can be pretty rough. With the vendor management service, you don’t need to make those calls. All you need to do is tell NuTech Services’s consultants what services you will be pausing or eliminating and we’ll handle it. If your business has been especially hit hard by the stay-at-home orders, having a professional and trustworthy team of people representing your business will give you the peace of mind that your business is looked after.

What’s more, when this situation is over and you decide to reactivate services, our consultants will not only make the calls and handle the product and service delivery, we will also advise you how to best use your technology budget to meet your business demands in the new frontier.

We take pride in being a company that works hard for our clients, even if that work is tough. Call us today at 810.230.9455 to set up a consultation to learn more about how we can help your business get through this situation.

Apr, 2020

Make Sure Your Use of the Cloud is Secure

The cloud is an undeniably useful technology to implement in your business’ processes, and is a very popular option as a foreseeable result. This does not mean, however, that the cloud isn’t subject to some risks. Let’s go over a few risks the cloud presents, and how you can mitigate them by selecting the right provider.

Potential Issues with Cloud Services

It is important to remember that, if you want to avoid managing an entire private cloud infrastructure in-house, you will more than likely be signing up for a public cloud service. With this setup, you are entrusting your business’ data to an external cloud provider who will manage and protect it on your behalf. This is a great option that many businesses use to great success, but there are a few downsides that you need to take into consideration.

Loss of Service

As rare as it is, even big names like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft can experience issues with their services. With uptime that is generally closer to 100 percent than it is to 99 percent, your chance of not being able to access your data due to an issue on their end is remarkably small, but it is there.

Even if you were to experience downtime due to downtime on your cloud provider’s end, it is pretty likely that simply alerting your clients of the situation and explaining the issue would resolve the vast majority of concerns they would have with you and your services.

Data Loss and Breaches

Hackers and cybercriminals are well aware of the amount of data that cloud providers have under their care, and you can bet that they try their darndest to get at it. Fortunately, most cloud providers maintain stringent data security policies, and have the budgets to invest significantly into these protections.

Compliance Issues

This issue is a little complicated, but is especially important to keep in mind. There are numerous laws and regulatory compliances out there to aid in keeping data safe and secure, that all businesses are expected to abide by for their own good. While these can be challenging to keep track of (never mind fulfill), there are resources out there that are equipped to assist you in doing so.

One such resource is a managed service provider like NuTech Services. Our team of IT professionals can take over the responsibility of managing your use of the cloud, assisting you in preparing for (and of course avoiding and mitigating) any of the above situations. Give us a call at 810.230.9455 to find out how else we can help you make the most of your business IT.

Apr, 2020

Handy IT Acronyms to Understand

It is pretty apparent that there are a lot (a lot) of acronyms used when discussing IT. In fact, that itself is an acronym for information technology. They can all get pretty confusing if you don’t necessarily think about these things every day. Considering this, we’ve put together a list of terms for you to know that we think may be handy to have.

-aaS

-as-a-Service
Businesses of all kinds are starting to outsource various responsibilities and needs to external providers. When you see something-or-other offered “as-a-Service,” it basically expresses that this opportunity is being offered. By getting something as-a-Service, a business is able to scale that responsibility to your needs and budgetary abilities.

BI

Business Intelligence
Business intelligence is the use of assorted business metrics in tracking and projecting outcomes, allowing for better decisions to be made.

BYOD (and MDM)

Bring Your Own Device (and Mobile Device Management)
Bring Your Own Device is an approach that many businesses are adopting because of its cost-saving and productivity-boosting potential. Rather than investing in company-owned devices, a business can use a BYOD strategy to enable employees to use their own, with the support and administrative capabilities that Mobile Device Management solutions provide to them to ensure compliance to industry best practices.

DoS

Denial-of-Service
A Denial-of-Service attack, and its variant, a DDoS/Distributed-Denial-of-Service attack, are methods that cybercriminals use to interrupt a business’ network. Using an army of infiltrated devices, the attacker directs enough traffic to a business’ network to overwhelm its defenses.

EOL

End-of-Life
When a software is retired, it is known as its “End-of-Life.” This designation means that the software will no longer receive any support from the developer, leaving it vulnerable to any future attacks and thereby unfit for use as a privacy and security risk.

IoT

Internet of Things
The Internet of Things refers to the vast variety of Internet-connected devices (often referred to as “smart” devices) that connect to the Internet to function. While these devices can be useful, there are commonly poor security measures associated with them, which means you need to be more prepared than ever to mitigate the threats they could facilitate.

LAN

Local Area Network
This is the network that exists within your business and connects your hardware together. This network covers your workstations and servers, as well as all the peripherals that are connected to them.

MFA/2FA

Multi-Factor Authentication/Two-Factor Authentication
With security becoming a bigger and bigger concern, you need to be sure that your files and other software assets are as protected as they can be. MFA helps to facilitate this by adding another layer of security to the typical username identifier and password authentication measure. WIth another factor required to authenticate an identity, access is restricted to the person who has that factor.

SSL

Secure Sockets Layer
This is a protocol used to protect data sent and received from websites. Because it protects this data, SSL is essential for online commerce, and can be spotted by seeing HTTPS in the address bar of a website.

UPS

Uninterruptible Power Supply
Power surges can seriously damage your IT components, and sudden power loss will definitely lead to data loss as well as damage to your devices on your network. A UPS device is handy, in that it can keep your equipment running long enough with a stored energy reserve to properly shut the components down.

VM

Virtual Machine
A virtual machine allows a business to use their existing hardware to accomplish more by creating a digital replica of a solution. As a result, businesses that use virtual machines can see their computing costs reduced substantially, without losing opportunities.

VoIP

Voice over Internet Protocol
VoIP is an approach to telephony that offers far more features, greater flexibility, and significant cost savings over the traditional phone service. By using an Internet connection to receive and deliver call information, VoIP allows businesses to stretch their Internet investments further while gaining an assortment of valuable business tools.

VPN

Virtual Private Network
By using a Virtual Private Network, you can securely use any Internet connection because the data that you are transmitting is shielded by encryption. That way, even if the data is intercepted, decrypting it is more trouble to the hacker than it is worth.

WAN

Wide-Area Network
A wide-area network is similar to a LAN, except that it operates on a much larger scale. Rather than connecting different devices to one another, a WAN connects various smaller networks into one big one. This is useful to businesses that have multiple locations to manage.

If you want to know more about any of these terms, or the other solutions that we offer, don’t hesitate to reach out to us! Call NuTech Services to speak to our professionals today at 810.230.9455.

Apr, 2020

When Working Remotely, VoIP is an Indispensable Tool

With the widespread support of social distancing that current events have encouraged, remote working options are seeing an understandable surge in popularity. In order to make the most of “telecommuting,” as it is referred to, there are a lot of reasons to use a Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, solution. Let’s go over some.

To start, let’s consider the situation that we find ourselves in.

With COVID-19 still spreading, the general consensus is that spending time around other people is currently a bad thing, making the workplace a less-than-ideal environment in which to spend one’s time. As a result, many people have self-quarantined themselves in their homes. With today’s available technology, however, this does not mean that they cannot get work done, with the cloud offering great opportunities for collaboration and remote work. This plays into VoIP’s benefits quite nicely.

For instance…

VoIP Can Simplify the Remote Process

Consider what your team might require in order to complete their tasks while out of the office. They should have a workstation of some sort, naturally, whether that be a laptop that travels between their home and the office, or a desktop device set to securely access their work resources. However, another piece of equipment that is generally necessary for many employees is an office phone… something that was once a much less portable solution.

Today, VoIP can change that, by allowing you to use the phone through the Internet, not the traditional dedicated phone lines. This means that your employees can continue to make their typical business calls, without the need to be in the office. Using the same business number, an application on their workstation or mobile device can take or make calls (along with a wide variety of additional features) from anywhere that they can establish an Internet connection.

VoIP is a Secure Means of Communication

When your workforce has the opportunity (or, as we’re now experiencing, need) to work from home, they will still need to communicate with one another. However, many residential Internet services lack the inherent security that many business conversations will require. No matter how efficiently you want your business to operate, no productivity is worth sacrificing security for.

VoIP allows you to enjoy the best of both worlds. By combining the cloud-hosted nature of VoIP with the use of a virtual private network (VPN), you can be confident that any conversations held over the VoIP system are private and secure. This is handy, as your employees could find themselves having to share protected data over the phone with their teammates. A VPN will protect their conversations from being listened in on, as the connection will be distorted to any outside observers by the inherent encryption of the VPN.

VoIP Incorporates Other Forms of Collaboration

Namely, video conferencing. Many VoIP platforms offer some kind of video conferencing feature, permitting a face-to-face interaction between callers, regardless of the distance between them. A big concern that is common amongst remote workers is the feeling of isolation that can develop from working alone.

By using the conferencing capabilities that the right platform has to offer, your team can interact with each other in a more personal way. This reinforces the idea that they are a part of a team, keeping up their morale and encouraging them to work collaboratively to accomplish their shared goals.

To learn more about implementing a VoIP solution for your team’s use, reach out to the professionals at NuTech Services by calling 810.230.9455.

Apr, 2020

How is Your Business Going to React to a Crisis?

Everyone from Wall Street to Main Street is feeling the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak. As a result, many businesses have had to enact their disaster recovery strategy to ensure that their business remains on solid footing during this dark time.

As more and more people are dealing with the virus and its effects on commerce, supply chains are failing and distribution patterns are completely disrupted. This has had a devastating effect on the world economy. It isn’t like a hurricane or a flood, but an outbreak, like most other disasters, hit business’ suddenly and has led many to enact their disaster recovery strategies. Today, we are going to discuss how IT fits into disaster recovery.

At first, people didn’t pay much mind to Coronavirus. They went on with their business as normal, not realizing that this virus wasn’t like most other viruses. Most of the viruses that you could be exposed to have a vaccine. It didn’t take long before the world around us started to shut down and, with it, came regulations on how your business needs to function. What was looked on as kind of a joke three weeks ago, is now one of the deadliest disasters the world has seen in decades.

Chances are that your business has been directly affected by the COVID-19 outbreak and those that have a disaster recovery strategy have had to enact parts of it. How is your business prepared for situations like this? One thing is for sure, if your business didn’t plan for a situation where your workers can work remotely, you are likely feeling the sting much more than if you were prepared. Sure, you don’t have to like the idea of having a remote workforce, but the truth is that any business that can support remote workers, needs to have a contingency for situations like this.

Ensuring that your business can pivot to it makes a huge difference; and, it doesn’t have to be for when the whole world shuts down around you. If you live in a place that gets a lot of snow, you may want to enact your remote work policy to keep people out of harm’s way. Sometimes you may need your team to work more to get an important project out. Allowing them to work from home keeps them from spending longer-than-normal time at the office, and makes it a lot easier to help them handle the other issues in their life.

If your business needs help through this very trying time, call the IT professionals at NuTech Services at 810.230.9455. We can take you through the options you have right now and take you through our strategy of disaster recovery to ensure when you need to mobilize your remote workforce, that you are able to on demand.

Apr, 2020

Tip of the Week: Eight Ways to Optimize Remote Productivity

There are a variety of reasons that you may find yourself working from home at some point or another. Whether there’s something going on at the office, you’re mindfully practicing social isolation, you’re home sick, or it is just an option you want to exercise, you need to be sure that you and the rest of your team are doing so in the best way. Here, we’re sharing a few tips to help you do so.

Set Some Boundaries

Establish a Workspace

One of the first things that you should do when adopting a remote work approach is to give yourself guidelines. It can be immensely helpful to establish a set place to do your work, and equip it appropriately with minimal distractions. As a general rule, it is best if this area is not in the bedroom, or any area in your living space that you typically spend your recreational time. This will help you to keep up your focus throughout the day.

Don’t Overwork

You also need to set some boundaries as far as work time is concerned. While many employers are concerned about their remote employees goofing off and slacking, the opposite is just as common–employees trying to get as much done as possible and overexerting themselves. Make sure you don’t slip into the “just five more minutes” habit and step away when it is time to do so.

Make Sure You’re Dressing as You Dress Down

Finally, there’s the question of how casual you can be while working from home. While pajamas are overwhelmingly frowned upon in the vast majority of offices, there is nothing stopping you from foregoing the shower and working in your bathrobe. While there is nothing wrong with dressing down a little if you’re working from home, you will undoubtedly feel and perform better if you clean yourself up before getting down to business.

Encourage Co-working

Set the Standard

Collaboration is always critical for a business’ success, but it takes on a particular importance when the workforce is working remotely. Therefore, you need to encourage the liberal use of communication in order to keep your team on the same page, and lead by example. Show them the kind of communications you are expecting them to engage in by actively participating in them.

Use Your Available Tools

Modern business solutions are overwhelmingly designed with collaboration in mind, so don’t be shy about encouraging your team to use them, especially as you are leading by example with your communications. Demonstrate when it is best to use instant messaging or email to communicate by using them to keep your team accountable to the business and to each other.

Do Some Proactive Networking

In the same vein as setting the standard, don’t be afraid to take the first step and reach out to the people you’re working with for some non-work-related conversation (within reason, of course). Getting to know everyone on the team, even the ones you don’t work with directly, will help to make the workplace a more collaborative one.

Commit to Working Productively

Customize Your Schedule

In some cases, the benefit in working remotely comes from the fact that the workday isn’t necessarily constrained to the traditional 9-to-5 agenda. If this applies to the tasks typical of your office, encourage your employees to figure out the times that they are able to work most effectively, and allow them to shift their schedules to match. Depending on their circumstances, not every day would necessarily have the same schedule… but if the work gets done, what difference does it make?

Block Out Distractions

FInally, we do have to acknowledge the elephant in the room: the temptation to procrastinate can be strong when an employee is out of the office. While recreational activities should obviously wait until you and your team is done working for the day, it is important to remember that there’s more than one way to waste time. Some people will postpone their tasks by doing “other” important things, like tidying up their house. Resist spending the time you need to commit to work by doing other things. If you really can’t help but procrastinate, find some way to do so in a way that will ultimately help you focus… whether that’s journaling briefly or taking a few moments to quietly meditate.

Of course, in order to put these tips into action, your team needs the tools necessary to work remotely. NuTech Services can help with that, as well as your other IT needs. To learn more, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.

Mar, 2020

Backup System is a Crucial Tool when Disaster Strikes

Each March 31st, we like to observe World Backup Day, where we educate people about the benefits of having a comprehensive backup plan in place. This year, with tens of thousands of people being affected by Coronavirus, business has ground to a halt in large portions of the world. Today, we are going to look at the business continuity strategy and how, in times like these, you’ll be glad you have your data backed up.

The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly thrown us all for a loop, with many businesses wisely choosing to close their office doors, either scaling back their operations or choosing to utilize a more mobile workforce. While this clearly qualifies as a disaster, it isn’t one that holds too many risks against your data; at least, not when compared to some others. This gives us a chance to consider how well-prepared we are for other disasters that could pose more of a threat to the information and files your operations depend on. For instance, how would you respond if something were to happen to your actual business infrastructure (and, by association, any data you had stored there)?

The standards accepted as best practice today say that the smart move is to preserve at least one copy of your data in an offsite location. That way, if something were to happen to your in-house servers, you know that there’s another copy safely stored away. If you have a BDR set up, this can then act as your temporary server to enable your team’s continued productivity (even while working remotely) until the servers can be replaced.

So while the timing of World Backup Day isn’t the best this year, its lessons remain just as important:

The 3-2-1 Backup Method – Using the 3-2-1 method means that you keep at least three copies of your data. Two copies can be stored onsite, while one is kept in an offsite data center or other cloud storage option.
Backup Your Backup – You will want to check all of your backups (and then check again) to ensure they were taken successfully. There are several reasons a backup could fail, so you should never assume they are working. Check them, double-check them, and then check them again after that. If you ever need your backup, you’ll be glad you made sure.
Protect Your Backup – All devices that contain your data need password protection at the very least, with added multi-factor authentication for extra benefit, including your backups. You should also protect your backup’s storage solution with an up-to-date antivirus/antimalware protocol.

For help in setting up your business with the protection that a data backup brings, with the added disaster recovery benefits you will need, reach out to us at 810.230.9455 today.

Mar, 2020

How to Operate in an Environmentally-Conscious Way

There are many reasons that you might want to make your office a little more “green.” As it happens, there are just as many ways that you can put forth the effort to do so. If you’re trying to run a more environmentally-conscious business, we have a selection of a few relatively simple ways to start.

Use Less Power

We’ll get the simplest habit out of the way first: don’t leave things, like lights and peripherals, powered on when they aren’t necessary. Build the habit of switching them off when they aren’t in use. It may help to label your switches to ensure the right lights are turning off at the right time.

Use Up-to-Date Technology

Modern technology solutions are another good way to reduce the amount of power that your hardware and infrastructure require. Public cloud options, like Google Drive and Microsoft Office 365, offer a dual benefit in that they not only enable remote capabilities (more on that shortly), they allow you to scale back your on-site infrastructure needs. As a result, your energy requirements are likewise decreased. The same result can come from keeping your hardware and business infrastructure (like the aforementioned lights) up-to-date, as newer technologies are more energy efficient.

Use Your Printer Less

On the subject of using up-to-date solutions, these solutions also help minimize the need to print very much at all. Using collaborative technology can therefore reduce the amount of paper waste your business produces.

Use Remote Capabilities

Returning briefly to the idea of remote work solutions, enabling your employees to operate from home is another means of reducing the environmental impact your business contributes. Not only will your office require less energy by default, there will be fewer emissions generated thanks to the reduced amount of traffic on the road from commuters.

Use Carpooling Practices

If you do require your staff members to be present in the office, encouraging them to set up carpooling groups is another way that you can help reduce the emissions they produce. After all, one car produces fewer emissions than four would, and it gives your staff time to connect, to boot.

Use Fewer Disposables

The average office has quite a few disposable options that could very well be replaced with reusable ones. Switch the paper and plastic products in the break room for washable, reusable options, down to the coffee filter. Instead of offering sugar packets and individual creamer cups, have communal dispensers that can be refilled. Will it make a huge difference? No, but it is something, and it will ultimately be less costly to your business in the long run.

Use Laptops

As the nature of the work environment has shifted, laptops just make more sense for many employees than the desktop. This is good, because laptops not only help enable remote work, they also require far less energy in comparison.

Use Recycling Resources

Finally, as you make these upgrades to your location, equipment, and processes, make sure you are properly disposing of the elements you are replacing–including your equipment. Due to the environmentally-hazardous components that are used to make them, most modern pieces of technology shouldn’t just be thrown out. Instead (once you’ve made sure that all data has been good and wiped from the device) enlist a reputable professional to ethically recycle your device and its components.

We can help you with many of these initiatives, while improving the general functionality of your business’ technology. To learn more, give NuTech Services a call at 810.230.9455.

Mar, 2020

How to Maintain Productivity when Illnesses are Rampant

It is never a good situation when a widespread illness strikes. Not only does it impact many individuals on a personal level, the impacts reach to the businesses that employ them as well. As we deal with the current outbreak, it helps to keep in mind that there are various means out there to allow for a business’ productivity to continue… even if its employees shouldn’t be near one another.

Let’s go over a few solutions that can assist your business’ continuity in these testing times.

The Fear of Infection

The primary concern that comes from this specific variety of disaster is generally one of widespread infection, which makes it an uncomfortable prospect for people to congregate anywhere. This is especially true of the workplace, where papers and files were traditionally distributed (and redistributed) as work was done.

Naturally, this is the perfect storm for any illness to spread: materials being passed around, with many people together in a relatively enclosed space. With COVID-19, this is especially problematic, as the CDC believes that it is spread through respiratory droplets and close proximity to others. As a result, it is better to avoid this situation… but how could your business possibly cope with its entire staff being absent, due to either illness or preventative “social distancing?”

Fortunately, the technology exists today that allows you to see the best of both worlds.

Securely and Safely Working Remotely

Many common technologies today can be used to enable your employees to do the same tasks they would do in the office from the relative comfort and security of their own home. Let’s go through some of these technologies and applications and review why they are valuable to a remote work policy.

Mobile devices – If your employees are going to work productively from home, they’re going to need access to the proper tools to do it. Supply your staff with laptops or thin clients that permit them to bring their tools out of the office if need be.
VPN (Virtual Private Networking) – Of course, once your technology has been taken out of the security of the office, the data that it accesses can be put at risk. Utilizing a virtual private network can help decrease that risk greatly by shielding the data that is in transit.
Cloud solutions – Of course, in order to effectively work remotely, your data and applications need to be accessible to your team as they need them. Hosting these resources in the cloud enables your team to access them from wherever an Internet connection can be established on many different types of devices.
VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) – Communication is absolutely critical to business productivity, especially when it comes to remote resources. Without communication, you can’t expect to accomplish much at all. Certain solutions, like VoIP, allow you and your team, to maintain this communication–again, from wherever an Internet connection can be maintained.

While productivity is crucial to your business’ success, so is the well-being of your employees. Giving them the option to work remotely can help attend to both needs. For assistance with implementing the needed solutions, reach out to NuTech Services at 810.230.9455.

Mar, 2020

Considerations for Your Business Networking Setup

A business’ network is one of its key assets, which means that it is particularly important that yours is well-developed and planned. Here, we’ll go over a few basics and best practices for you to familiarize yourself with for when you need to reconsider your business network.

One of the first things you should know is what might be a part of your network infrastructure. You’ll likely be working with at least one network switch and at least one router. A network switch allows all the technology on your network to communicate with one another through network cables, while the router provides wireless capabilities and connectivity. Your modem enables you to access the Internet.

Networking Best Practices

As your network is such an important tool to your business’ success, you need to be sure that it is sufficiently prepared for this task. To do so, it will help to keep to the following tips in mind:

Skip the consumer level. Networking products come in a variety of “grades,” intended for consumer or business use. When equipping your business with these solutions you should only use options made for professional applications. This is because the consumer-based ones are simply not secure enough for business purposes, and likely will not be able to support your business’ needs.
Incorporate some redundancy. In the event that your business suffers from a disaster, you will want to be sure that your network is reliable enough to make it through and bounce back. Having a data backup and disaster recovery platform will build the redundancy you need to protect your network.
Plan for future growth. Or in other words, make sure that the network you put in place can be scaled to your business’ future expansion, and that it can incorporate the solutions you will ideally grow into.

NuTech Services is here to assist as needed. Our team can help optimize your business’ network to best fit its needs and your professional development. To learn more, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.

Mar, 2020

You’d Be Surprised How Insecure Some Healthcare Providers Are

The healthcare industry is in a difficult position. Despite the utility that connected devices present to medical providers, the Bluekeep vulnerability makes it seem as though connected devices aren’t a wise solution for many to use… and there’s nobody these organizations can blame but themselves.

What is BlueKeep?

BlueKeep is a malware strain that was first discovered in May 2019, and was patched in short order to prevent it from becoming another situation like EternalBlue. EternalBlue was the exploit that allowed WannaCry to have such a considerable impact, especially on healthcare providers in the UK. Despite this precedent, however, many hospitals neglected to apply the necessary patches–and that isn’t even the worst part.

The worst part is that the three systems that BlueKeep impacts (Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 R2) share one thing in common: they have all passed their end-of-life date, and therefore no longer receive security updates.

This makes this situation a two-fold disaster. Not only have patches been released to mitigate BlueKeep, the systems affected by BlueKeep should not be in use anyways.

Of course, it only gets worse, and paints an unfortunate portrait of medical IT. A reported 22 percent of BlueKeep-vulnerable devices are yet unpatched. Worse, 45 percent of connected medical devices remain vulnerable, making things like x-rays, anesthesia machines, and other care-driven technology a risk to use.

Are you concerned about your organization’s technology?

Lean on the IT experts at NuTech Services for assistance. We can help any organization ensure that their technology won’t put their operations or their patrons in harm’s way. Learn more about what we can do by calling us at 810.230.9455.

Mar, 2020

Tip of the Week: Using Microsoft Word Templates

Microsoft Word is an excellent tool for businesses to use for a great assortment of their word processing needs… especially due to the assortment of editable templates available to users. For this week’s tip, we’ll go over how you can customize a Microsoft Word template to meet your preferences.

In actuality, you’ve used a template every time you’ve opened a Microsoft Word document… the Normal template. However, you may want to use a different template to meet your different needs. If that’s the case, you’ll need to adjust some settings as you create your document.

As you select New from the File tab, you will be presented with a few options. One of them will be Blank document, but you also have the opportunity to utilize a huge variety of other templates that can be found in the application and then downloaded. Once you have done so, select your chosen template and your new document will be generated with that template’s contents. These can include:

Boilerplate text
Styles
Images and logos
Table of contents
Sections that split the document into different parts, with appropriate numbering
Table and chart boilerplates

Of course, this isn’t a comprehensive list of your options. Feel free to explore the different templates and their options to see all that these documents can do.

Once you have a few templates downloaded, you can even edit them to better fit your needs. To do so, all you need to do is open the template you want to edit (File>Open>This PC>My Documents>Open) and make your desired changes. Once that’s done, just Save and Close.

Why Bother with Templates at All?

There are a few advantages to using templates that you should see significant benefits from, such as:

Templates can be shared amongst your staff and unify your business’ style.
Templates can be used to make forms much easier (and less expensive) to reproduce.
Templates can reference your other applications to simplify additional tasks.
Templates allow you to quickly reformat your documents if need be.

So, do you think you’ll do any investigating into templates in the future? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments, and let us know what other tips you would find helpful!

Mar, 2020

You Need to Backup Your Data

When we start working with a new client, we’re often left surprised at their data backup and recovery strategy. It’s not always that they don’t really have a strategy for it (although this happens more than we’d like to admit), it’s just how sure many of them are that they don’t need to spend a lot of time and effort on it. This ambivalence is a major mistake that often leads to hardship. Today, we will talk a little bit about why backup is such a big deal.

Data Is a Big Deal

Your company’s data is one of its major assets, and you take quite a bit of effort to protect it. You deploy antivirus, firewalls, intrusion detection, and other security tools designed to mitigate exposure to malware, hackers, and other deplorable situations like:

Human error (negligence and mistakes)
Sabotage and theft
Hardware malfunction
Power surges
Software corruption

The minute something gets through your network’s defenses, you are in deep trouble. If disaster hits your business and you don’t have a reliable backup, you could not only lose continuity, you could lose it all. This wouldn’t be so dire if you have a comprehensive business continuity strategy in place. Business continuity plans are just potential solutions to problems that threaten to take the business down.

There are hundreds of different situations that could result in substantial data loss, but irregardless of the situation your business is in, having a strong backup and recovery plan lets you be prepared for any eventuality.

Today, there are a lot of different ways that you can back up your data and applications, but there really is only one that offers onsite and offsite backup, incremental backups, and the ability to recover data on demand. This solution is what we call a BDR. Short for backup and disaster recovery, our backup service allows you to configure the backup solution to fit your company’s demands, while also providing all the high-end redundancy features that any business could need.

If your business is looking to protect its data from the litany of ways it can be corrupted or lost, the BDR is right for you. Call NuTech Services today at 810.230.9455 for more information.

Mar, 2020

How to Encourage Collaboration in Your Place of Work

Collaboration: it is the gold standard of teamwork that so many businesses seek. If your employees aren’t naturally drawn to the idea, however, there are some ways that you can help to sell the concept. Let’s discuss a few of the ways that you can coax your users into collaborative behaviors.

Have Them Socialize Outside of the Office

Let’s look at how kids behave for a moment… if told to partner up, they—almost automatically—gravitate toward their friends, the people they are comfortable spending time with. Your employees will do the same, both in and out of the office.

Collaboration greatly relies on some level of trust and familiarity, which is most effectively developed outside of the professional environment. Encourage your staff to socialize outside of work hours, or even treat them on occasion, on one condition: no shop talk. While your employees may not all be fast friends afterwards, they’ll understand one another much better and be able to work more effectively.

Tell Them What You Want

Speaking of efficacy, make sure your team understands what you expect from them in terms of results. This goes double when collaborative work is involved. A clear understanding of a task makes it easier to determine how to accomplish it, and how their combined efforts can best serve their purpose.

Walk the Walk

If you really want your team to work collaboratively, make the first move and involve yourself in the process. “Rank” or “position” should have no bearing on how able someone is to participate in a collaborative process, and there is no telling who could be struck with inspiration. Actively seek input from your team and demonstrate how you want your employees to work together.

Use Your Resources Wisely

While there’s a time for either, there is a difference between combining your resources to accomplish a given task and having your employees collaborate. The former is great if a lot of a single task needs to be finished quickly, but if a complicated process needs to be completed, it helps more to give the task to a group of people who have different proficiencies. This way, you have a better chance of the necessary skills being present in the group.

Acknowledge Accomplishments

A team that doesn’t feel appreciated is a team that won’t accomplish much. Why would they, if it doesn’t seem to matter whether they excel, or put out a thoroughly mediocre performance? This is especially the case if a single member’s performance is publicly singled out, as though they did all the work.

To encourage your team to perform well as a group, make sure that the entire group receives some recognition of their combined efforts.

Make Collaboration the Easy Option

Regardless of how motivated your team may be to collaborate with one another, it just isn’t going to happen if they don’t have the opportunity or means to effectively do so. While this may have been a more reasonable obstacle in the past, today’s available technology invalidates any excuse your team may have… mostly due to the Internet serving as the greatest collaborative tool the world has ever seen. The easier the collaborative process is, whether you lean on an Internet-based application or an internal resource or both to simplify things, the more likely it is for your employees to work with each other.

We’re Here to Help.

NuTech Services is ready and willing to deliver the solutions you need to promote collaboration among your staff. Give us a call at 810.230.9455 to hear more about your options.

Mar, 2020

Tip of the Week: 5 Ways to Maximize Productivity, According to Experts

In most workspaces and offices, “productivity” is always present on the list of goals. Why settle for one task completed in a set time, when multiple tasks can be completed in the same amount of time without sacrificing the quality of the result? This goal is popular enough for many experts and consultants to have weighed in on. This week, our tip will involve a basic overview of some such strategies so you may consider them.

Two-Hour Solution

Roger Seip, author of Train Your Brain for Success, took a proactive and prepared look at productivity by developing his Two-Hour Solution. The idea is to take two hours to plan out a schedule to follow each week, based on how your plans and goals culminated the week before. Investing this time should allow you to make the most of your available time to accomplish what you want to accomplish.

The reason that this is different than simply going over your calendar each week is the fact that, if guided by the Two-Hour Solution, you’re figuring out how the time you’re spending contributes to your goals. “Green time” is time that helps you generate financial capital, while your “red time” is the time that you spend preparing for green time, without generating any profit. To account for the wrench in the works that would ordinarily throw off your schedule, you also include “flex time” to provide a buffer. What’s left is your “re-creation” time, where you recover from your productive endeavors by doing the things you want to do.

Prioritizing

Steven Covey is an educator and a businessman who came up with a philosophy to living a full life that can also apply to life in the office.

Consider your big priorities, your more flexible responsibilities, and your rote tasks in the workplace as large rocks, smaller stones, and sand, respectively. Your time is a bucket, ready to be filled with these items as you see fit.

Let’s say you decide to start with the “sand,” before trying to cram in the “rocks” and “stones.” Chances are pretty good that you won’t be able to accomplish very much at all, at least nothing of any circumstance. However, if you prioritize the more impactful rocks, then the stones, and fill in the rest of the space with your sand, your bucket—or workday—is then used as productively as possible, and anything you didn’t get to complete isn’t of consequence.

Two-Minute Rule

While there are countless variables that can potentially influence the amount of time a task will take to complete, you eventually get a feeling for the typical duration, right? So, some tasks can predictably take a significant amount of time, while others take almost no time at all to make it through. The idea of the Two-Minute Rule, thought up by productivity consultant David Allen, takes advantage of that difference. His strategy: if a task will take two minutes or less, do it.

If that seems too simple, it kind of is. The philosophy behind the Two-Minute Rule is to build up your motivation to tackle the larger responsibilities by successfully completing smaller tasks. Think about it—every task, regardless of how large it is, can be broken into smaller, more manageable chunks, chunks that can take mere minutes to complete. Once you’ve completed enough of these two-minute tasks, it only makes sense to see the greater responsibility through… and with the progress you’ve already made supporting you, completing it seems that much more feasable.

The Blastoff Method

Entrepreneur and motivational speaker Mel Robbins devised this practice to help overcome the mental blocks that encourage us to procrastinate rather than doing things that are good for us. Robbins posits that, by hesitating, we put the brain into “protection” mode—by thinking about everything that needs to be done between point A and point B, your brain ultimately prevents you from doing what you need to do. However, if that hesitation can be avoided, your productivity (or, by Robbins’ original theory, your well-being) will see benefits.

Her solution is to close the gap that hesitation creates between your capability to do a task and your perception of that task. Her recommendation is to, quite literally, treat yourself like a rocket and count down to your action. Focus on counting down…5,4,3,2,1… and act immediately, before your thoughts get in the way.

Scientifically, by doing so, you are bypassing a behavioral process and resetting an established habit loop… allowing better, more productive habits to be created instead. Give it a try next time you encounter a task you want to avoid starting.

Create a Time Crunch

We’ll wrap up with another method that Roger Seip came up with. If you really feel you work better on a deadline, add a bit of a hurdle as you are scheduling your “green time” … give yourself less time than you think you’ll need. The pressure can help you to focus. Naturally, you need to avoid any flex time you have assigned for this to work.

What methods do you use to keep yourself focused and productive? Do any of these approaches sound like something you want to try? Let us know in the comments!

For the technology solutions that can also help you improve your practical productivity, talk to us! Give us a call at 810.230.9455 to discuss your options.

Mar, 2020

How Secure is Your Use of Cloud Solutions?

Cloud computing is generally accepted today as a good option for businesses. While we aren’t arguing that this isn’t the case, we wanted to make sure that your cloud use–actual or theoretical–was sufficiently secure. Many will neglect to consider how secure their use of cloud solutions is, which is something that we’d like to fix.

To do so, we’ll be discussing the concept of cloud security, which is pretty much what it sounds like: security concerning the data, infrastructures, and applications that are hosted in the cloud. In many ways, these considerations aren’t all too different than the ones that would be involved with your local IT. When really boiled down, any security you have implemented should meet a few benchmarks:

Assurance that data/solutions are safe
You have a transparent view of your security’s status
Instant alerts to unusual events and issues
These events and issues can be followed back to their source and addressed

Of course, we don’t mean to say that everything is identical between the security of your local infrastructure and a cloud system. We just wanted to establish this as the foundation of any security you implement.

Demystifying Cloud Security

By its nature, cloud computing can be intimidating, especially when you start to consider how it has impacted the business technology landscape. Fortunately, many of the security considerations that cloud now demands aren’t necessarily huge leaps from what your security should be normally. Let’s walk through a few differences between traditional security and what is required in the cloud.

Different Perimeters to Protect

Consider how data can be protected when it is localized. You can effectively prevent a lot of threats just by preventing access to the area where your data is stored. The cloud makes this significantly more difficult by being so very connected.

However, if you know this moving forward, you can adjust your security to meet these needs. One effective way to do so is to make sure that all data to be stored in the cloud is encrypted, and that access to the cloud itself is protected with multi-factor authentication requirements with the appropriate best practices baked in.

More Advanced Threats

Unfortunately, not even cloud providers are immune to attacks. The development of Advanced Persistent Threats (which you may see referred to as APTs) and other means of breaching data make it difficult to be sure that your data is truly safe. While the jury is still out on how these threats can be overcome, you need to accept the responsibility of keeping up with the practices that can help in the meantime.

Software Challenges

As the cloud relies on software to deliver hosted data, there is an assortment of potential variables that need to be addressed. Therefore, the cloud needs to have security controls in place to address these variables as they present themselves. This is the case whether data is being transported at the time, or if it is filed away.

NuTech Services can assist you with your data security needs, as well as assist you with whatever cloud implementation you decide to put into place. To learn more, reach out to us by calling 810.230.9455.