Month: September 2020

Social media at work what could go wrong?

Social media at work…what could go wrong?

As a business, there is no doubt today that you need to make your presence felt on major social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. But social media also exposes you to cybercriminals. In this post we talk about the steps you can take to ensure your social media account doesn’t become a gateway for cybercriminals to access your data.

Make someone accountable
The first step to a successful and safe social media experience as a company is to make someone in your organization accountable for it. Designate a social media manager who is responsible for maintaining your company’s social media accounts. This person should oversee everything–from the posts and pictures in your company account to approving/disapproving ‘Friend’/’Follow’ requests.

Train your employees
Of course you should train your employees who handle your official social media accounts about the security threats and how they need to steer clear of them, but you also need to train other employees who are not on your social media team as they could be a weak link that a cybercriminal could exploit to reach your business. Seems far fetched? Not really. A lot of people trust their ‘friends’ on social media and also unwittingly share a lot of information, which can be used to hack their personal accounts and devices, which in turn, may act as a gateway to your business. Teach your employees about general social media best practices in terms of security and also educate them about the privacy settings they can use to ensure there data is shared with trusted individuals only.

Take the necessary security measures
Make sure the devices you use to access your social media accounts are protected with firewalls and anti-malware tools and all security updates and patches are up-to-date.

Password hygiene
Practice good password hygiene and encourage your teams to do the same. That means no password sharing, no sequential letters/numerals, no obvious words or numbers as your social media account password.

Frame a social media policy
You should also frame a social media policy that spells out the dos and don’ts of social media that everyone in your organization should follow. This is important from various perspectives as employee’s statements on social media may be perceived as a reflection of your business’s values, whether you like it or not. This can make your business a target of cybercriminals and lawsuits.

Putting your business out there on the social networking sites gives your brand a lot of exposure, presents paid advertising opportunities and even helps you build and manage customer relationships, but as discussed, it can be tricky to navigate in terms of security. Businesses may find it overwhelming to manage their social media security strategy all by themselves can reach out to a managed services provider. An MSP with experience in social media security can be a valuable asset in helping you build a strong social media security strategy.

WFH: How we got here.

WFH: How we got here.

If you’ve been in the workforce for a while, you remember what life in the office was like a few decades ago. The uniformity of the structure was pretty much the same, no matter what office you worked in. It was 9-5, or some such standardized schedule for everyone. You had your own desk/office/cubicle. They gave you a PC for your desk. It was heavy and didn’t go anywhere, especially not to your home. You had your office phone–part of the company PBX. They gave you pencils and paper and other things you needed, and… there you were.
Then, everything sort of began to splinter apart and “The Office” wasn’t “The Office” anymore.

Suddenly, you were given a company mobile phone. They could reach you off-hours. Then, residential broadband internet became widely available. They swapped out the big desktop PC for a company laptop. Now you could use that laptop with your new broadband and work from home at night. Answer emails at 11 pm. But you probably still used company equipment for company tasks. But then you got your own cell phone, you own laptop, and your own tablet. Suddenly, it was easier to use your own technology and forget about the company-provided equipment. This gave birth to the idea of BYOD (Bring-Your-Own-Device). In the end, this made it possible to do your work outside of the office, outside of the scheduled workday. Then WiFi was added to the mix and you could work from a coffee shop or the local park on a nice day. Long story short, Work From Home became possible and, to many of us, a very attractive alternative. However, as a business owner, getting your arms around a successful WFH policy can be a challenge.

In summary, WFH represents challenges to both traditional ways of handling IT, and traditional ways of managing a workforce. To what degree WFH will dominate the work experience in the future is unknown. However, it should be expected that it will not go away. The workplace will return neither to 2019 nor to 1980. The point is, WFH will require paying serious attention to how we handle and design our business’s IT infrastructure. As forward-thinking managers, we need to realize, as mentioned above, the paradigm of a centralized IT infrastructure is outdated. No matter what, even partial WFH will require us to redesign our IT models to support activities that are widely dispersed. This will create threats, but they can be handled. The point is that you need to proactively find the IT management design that can provide the infrastructure that works for the new WFH business model. For smaller firms especially, you will only find the depth and breadth of knowledge by finding a managed service provider with experience in your industry.

Why MSP relationships fail

Why MSP relationships fail

A lot of SMBs opt for managed service providers who can help handle their IT requirements, and for the most part, it works well. Almost everyone knows the benefits of having a MSP manage your IT. Increased cost savings, ability to focus on your business without worrying about IT, better IT support and expertise, and so on. But, there are times when the managed IT services model fails, leaving business owners to wonder what went wrong. This blog discusses some key reasons why MSP relationships fail.

You didn’t do a reference check
Did you just pick the first MSP you found on the Google search? Did you just go by the presentations they gave you, or the information on their website? Always remember to ask your MSP for references. Talk to someone they work with and get feedback.

They don’t have enough staff
If your MSP is short of staff, they won’t be able to give you the attention you need. One of the biggest advantages of bringing an MSP onboard is having someone who proactively manages and monitors your IT requirements– something you cannot do without a full fledged IT department. So, it is important that your MSP is well-staffed.

They are not experienced enough
Before you bring an MSP on board, make sure you pay attention to how long they have been in business. This is important because the whole idea behind hiring an MSP is to leverage their knowledge and expertise. Secondly, someone who has been in the business for quite some time is more likely to be able to scale with you as you grow.

They said they will be there, but…
You want your MSP to be available 24/7, because with IT, you never know when the problem will arise. Not only should your MSP be proactively monitoring your IT infrastructure to ensure everything runs smoothly, they should also be able to resolve IT problems when they happen–time and day notwithstanding, so that your business is back up and running as soon as possible.

They are not able to provide you with all that you need
Sometimes, as you grow, your IT needs change. You may need much more support and new technologies that you didn’t think you’d need earlier. In such cases, if your MSP is not able to grow and scale with you, then the relationship won’t work.

When choosing an MSP, think of the whole process as a partnership, and not a one-time deal. When you look at the relationship as a long-term one, you are more likely to consider all the factors that go into making your relationship with the MSP work in the long run.

Three Reasons to Dump Your PBX

How will you support the extended IT infrastructure needed as you roll out WFH activities? Traditionally, your IT infrastructure would be supported by in-house IT staff, a managed service provider, or some combination of both, but a lot can fall through the cracks when shifting virtual. As an example, PBX generally exists as a standalone entity, unrelated to the rest of your technology and unmanaged by staff. How do you take it with you to remote work, and should you even try? We provide three reasons to dump your PBX once and for all. Continue reading Three Reasons to Dump Your PBX

Why We Still Worry About Work From Home Policies

If you have been in the workplace for a few decades, you may remember that the idea of telecommuting began to appear in the late 90s as Internet access from home began to become more common. Telecommuting was often poorly received, as it carried the onus of being a “trick” to avoid working a full 8 hours. Then, with the arrival of residential broadband access in the 2000s, successfully conducting a large majority of your work tasks in real-time, from home, began to become very realistic for a large swath of office workers. Managers finally had to face their own biases against Work From Home policies. Continue reading Why We Still Worry About Work From Home Policies

The Positives of WFH

You are probably caught up in overseeing a Work-From-Home policy that you may have never intended to initiate. It can be concerning, and there are many policy issues that an employer has to consider when they begin to implement WFH.  That said, it is worth stepping back and looking at the upsides of working from home both for employees and organizations.  In this blog, we’ll do a quick rundown of the commonly accepted benefits of WFH and why organizations adopt it. Continue reading The Positives of WFH

How Safe is Your Data When Your Staff Works from Home?

The Coronavirus crisis has changed the world as we know it. With social distancing, lockdowns, and work from home becoming the new normal, cybercriminals are exploiting the situation to their gains. This blog discusses how the cybercrime landscape is likely to shape up in the current and post-pandemic world, and how businesses can safeguard themselves against it with better cybersecurity when staff works from home.
Continue reading How Safe is Your Data When Your Staff Works from Home?

VoIP Facilitates Working From Home: So What is VoIP?

What is VoIP? Voice over Internet Protocol takes us away from the traditional office PBX, the on-location physical equipment that provides voice telephony using physical wires or fiber to transmit analog signals. PBX technology allows for some audio conferencing (though it can be a bit clumsy to set up) as well as voicemail, call forwarding, and some other call sorting features. However, a PBX has some severe limitations on available collaboration features and requires a trained technician to configure any changes. Even moving someone to a new office requires expensive and technical labor to move the extension to a different physical location. Continue reading VoIP Facilitates Working From Home: So What is VoIP?

7 Ways a Work From Home Policy Can Help Your Business

In the last several years, the concept of Work From Home policies (WFH) has become increasingly more popular. Though some still remain skeptical, it has been gaining in popularity and become more widely accepted among management circles. That said, the pandemic event in 2020 essentially set the debate entirely aside – at least for the time being – because WFH became the only choice between working and shutting down for many businesses. Continue reading 7 Ways a Work From Home Policy Can Help Your Business