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UTM is a Strong Solution to Ward Off Hackers

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When your employees think about hackers and network security, do they picture some cloaked or hooded figure in a dark room typing away at a keyboard? Do they see a recluse living in their mother’s basement? Popular culture has given many users a false sense of reality regarding hacking attacks and the culture surrounding them, and it can come at the detriment of your business.

While there are, of course, amateur hackers who aren’t necessarily well-versed in how to do it, there are other, more professional hackers who “know their stuff,” so to speak. This is similar to just about any kind of profession or industry. You have the hackers who have no idea what they’re talking about, and you have the seasoned professionals who know the ins and outs of how to infiltrate a network. Unlike other industries, however, the cybercrime industry is effective regardless of the proficiency of those involved with it.

If you think about it, this makes sense. It doesn’t matter what kind of threat is installed on your computer. A virus is a virus, and malware is malware. It’s troublesome at best and dangerous or downright threatening at worst. Therefore, if you don’t take network security seriously, you could put the future of your business at risk.

Traditional Hacking Attacks
Many users might look at hacking attacks and think about the more traditional threats. This includes the typical viruses and malware that users associate with suspicious online activity. These threats can have varying effects, but they generally make life difficult for businesses and individuals alike. This is about the extent of the average user’s knowledge regarding hacking attacks. They know they are bad, but they might not know the real ramifications of such attacks.

Emerging Threats
Nowadays, security threats are much more advanced and dangerous, capable of crippling entire networks. Some examples are dedicated spear phishing attacks in which hackers take on the identity of someone close to your organization, tricking users into downloading the wrong email attachments or sending a wire transfer to an offshore bank account. Other times, it’s installing a backdoor on a network that lets hackers access a network at their leisure. The most dangerous of all–ransomware–literally locks down your business’ files and demands a ransom for their safe return, putting businesses between a rock and a hard place. Suffice to say, these advanced threats aren’t always identifiable by the average user, and some can’t be identified until it’s far too late and damage has already been done.

Don’t let your business remain in harm’s way any longer. NuTech Services can equip your business with solutions that can both prevent hacking attacks and respond to them quickly and efficiently. We do this through the use of a Unified Threat Management (UTM) tool that combines enterprise-level firewalls, antivirus, security blockers, and content filters together to create a comprehensive, preventative, and proactive way to keep your network safe. It’s the best way to approach network security, hands-down.

To learn more about how you can get started with a UTM, give us a call at 810.230.9455.

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Are Your Employees Watching Porn At Work?

b2ap3_thumbnail_watching_from_work_400.jpgHere’s a statistic that’s going to shock business owners. We hope you’re sitting down for this because we were blown away when we first heard it. Did you know that 70 percent of all online porn access happens during business hours? What does this mean for your company?

One thing that we hope this doesn’t mean is that your employees are using their work-issued computers to access and look at online pornography while on the clock. This would be a deliberate waste of your company’s time and resources, and it’s definitely not what you’re paying them to do. In fact, a guilty employee may even be subject to termination and litigation, depending on how grievous their offense is.

Take for example one of the most extreme and bizarre cases of employee misconduct that we’ve heard of. In 2009, two janitors working for the state of New York were busted for turning an unused room on government property into what police referred to as a “man cave.” In it, they would spend their work days napping, doing and selling drugs, and watching pornography. To make matters worse, the duo was brazen enough to try and bill their man cave time as overtime, which totalled a whopping $28,400.

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Egregious situations like this, along with even more-common occurrences like employees spending too much time watching YouTube videos, can be prevented with proper oversight. Does your company have a solution in place that will keep your workers honest? Whether you’re in the habit of walking around the office, looking over your team’s shoulders, or you have a firewall that monitors your employee’s Internet activity, you need to have some kind of deterrent in place that will discourage your staff from wasting company time and resources.

Now, we’re not saying that your employees are looking at porn every time you turn your back, or that they’ve converted your broom closet into a brothel. We’re just making the point that there are plenty of distractions on the Internet, and even honest, hardworking employees will benefit from having a technology in place that minimizes workplace distractions.

The kind of monitoring solution that your business needs is one that allows you to block all online distractions, like YouTube, Facebook, Netflix, etc., and especially pornographic websites. In addition to adult websites being in bad taste for the workplace, they’re notorious for containing some of the worst viruses and malware, and hackers know how to use porn to bait users into clicking malicious links that give them access to your company’s network.

Does your network monitoring solution allow you to monitor what websites your employees visit? Or do you depend on the ol’ walk-around-the-office-and-peer-over-the-shoulder method? You can’t stand behind their backs all day, and this strategy doesn’t make for a healthy work environment. To protect your network and keep your team on task, you need a solution that’s proven to accomplish both of these goals in a proficient manner.

NuTech Services’s Unified Threat Management security solution will let you specify who can access what on the Internet. Our solution encompasses a firewall, antivirus, spam protection, and content filtering to keep your employees productive, and your business safe.

If you want to learn more about how NuTech Services can help protect your business, we encourage you to get in touch with us at 810.230.9455.