The Changes We’ve Witnessed

For such an… eventful… year, it started off with little anticipation of the events to come. Businesses had ample time to plan their 2020 technology budgets, but most (if not all) of these budgets were postponed (if not thrown out the proverbial window) with the spread of COVID-19.

What Should My Documentation Include?

Basically, your documentation should be a complete inventory of all the technology you have, first divided between your hardware and software solutions.

The COVID-19 pandemic is the first time many of us have had to deal with this level of threat, and now that businesses start to re-open in an attempt to stagnate a recessionary dive in the economy, there is a lot of ground to cover. Today, we go through the considerations you need to make, and the actions you need to take, to keep your business clear of COVID-19, and what steps to take if the virus makes its way into your business. 

The Advantage COVID-19 Gives Hackers

To put it bluntly, diversion. With so much attention rightly given to COVID-19 right now, there are many who are remaining in their homes as much as possible to try and prevent the pathogen from propagating. This approach makes the Internet even more important to so many people. Not only are many businesses operating remotely, many rely on support services and other online functions for their in-house processes. Otherwise, people who cannot work remotely are seeking ways to pass the time, turning to social media and other online services for that.

Physical Security

First on our list is the oldest kind of business security, the (sometimes literal) gun behind the counter that helps to dissuade potential attacks. It is only too easy to overlook the fact that data theft can be as simple as someone taking a hard drive, rather than hacking into it. Of course, we aren’t suggesting that all businesses should have an arsenal at the ready. Instead, technology provides assorted alternatives that should be implemented to deter attempted intrusion.

For this week’s tip, we’ll dig into this exact question.

How Working from Home Has Impacted the Use of Mobile Devices

Here’s the thing: with stay-at-home orders and other measures being put into place across the country, a lot of people aren’t as mobile as they once were. As a result, the mobile devices that would travel with them back and forth to the office have effectively become temporary desktops in their homes… and as such, are spending more time plugged in than not.

Security Steps

Let’s face it, your business’ cybersecurity starts and ends with your staff. They need simple, practical directions to follow or they simply won’t pay any mind to it. You don’t want to be the business that deals with significant turnover because security tasks are so demanding that their employees would rather work elsewhere. You will want to take the time to go through every part of your IT and brainstorm potential problems. You will address situations such as:

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.

Ransomware

Imagine trying to access your computer (or your network as a whole), only to find yourself locked out and presented with a demand for payment in exchange for your files to be decrypted. This is precisely the scenario that ransomware puts its victims into, usually with a deadline to pay up under threat of the destruction of the encrypted files. If you’ve heard about Cryptolocker, WannaCry, or Petya, they are what we are referring to.

In 2019, a business was infected with ransomware once every 15 seconds, racking up a total of $11.5 million in total losses. Spam and phishing attacks were responsible for infecting 66 percent of affected companies, and in 2017, almost half of companies surveyed were affected by ransomware.

Denial of Service

Denial of Service (DoS) attacks, and their more-popular offshoot, Distributed Denial of Service attacks are the most common form of cyberattack. Using automation, an attacker has resources batter a target with the aim of taking it down. The rise in Internet of Things-enabled devices now allows an attacker to take over these devices and turn them against a single webpage. Naturally, this takes the website down.

The biggest DDoS attack on record happened on March 5, 2018, but was fortunately unsuccessful in taking down the targeted ISP… despite clocking in at 1.7 TB/s. On average, one of these attacks costs somewhere between $20K-to-$40K each hour, or in other terms, just under the average American worker’s annual salary. In the UK, businesses lost £1 billion to cybercrime in 2019.

Man-in-the-Middle

A Man-in-the-Middle attack compromises any communications between a business and their contact. Any and all data can be interfered with, allowing cybercriminals to have their way with personal data, business correspondence, or financial data that is transmitted. It can be intercepted, altered, or redirected, potentially causing more problems than can be counted. The worst part: because Man-in-the-Middle attacks are relatively easy to carry out, they are rising in popularity on a daily basis. They are most commonly used to extract information, whether personal or professional, that otherwise wouldn’t be available. This includes things like login credentials, banking information, or payment card data.

Okay, that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part is that the majority of servers are still vulnerable. As in, 2016 saw 95 percent of HTTPS servers still at risk.

Phishing

Believe it or not, phishing attacks are ranked as the biggest threat to businesses out there today. Phishing is a kind of social engineering where an attacker will reach out to the victim through some format, from email to instant messaging and beyond, in order to gain access to a secure system by fooling their victim into erroneously trusting them. While phishing emails have been around the block a few times, today’s attacks have grown to be quite sophisticated.

Many statistics surrounding phishing emails demonstrate how effective this relatively simple attack has proved to be. Phishing is involved in 93 percent of all social engineering attacks, and was directly responsible for 70 percent of government network breaches. In the last 12 months, 64 percent of organizations had first-hand experience with phishing, notably, 82 percent of manufacturers. The aforementioned ransomware relies on phishing for 21 percent of its delivery. As recently as 2016, 30 percent of phishing messages were opened.

SQL Injection

Abbreviating a structure query language injection, an SQL injection attack does what it says on the box - it injects malicious code into a target’s SQL servers and feeds the database information back to the attackers. While this is another “golden oldie” of an attack, web-based applications that call for database access have given new life to SQL injection attacks and allowed attackers to extract very valuable info.

It should then come as no surprise that 65 percent of all web application attacks are performed through SQL injections. So, if your organization draws information from a database for an application, you could easily be victimized to a significant degree. Even gamers need to be concerned, as 12 billion out of 55 billion detected SQL attacks that Akamai security experts found were leveled at the gaming community.

Malware

If only these other attacks meant that attackers didn’t have time to try anything else, but unfortunately, that isn’t the case. Malware attacks still rank among both the worst, and most common, attacks against businesses. Of course, there are many types to consider, including:

• Trojan horses - Malicious code will be concealed within other files and applications and allow an attacker a point of access to a computing system or network.
• Worms - Malicious and self-replicating applications that travel along and infect networks and individual devices.
• Viruses - Samples of malicious code that infect applications for a variety of motives, including sabotage and theft of data and other resources.
• Spyware - Code that, while it seems harmless, piggybacks to software and gathers information about how a device or network is used.

There are many ways for malware to be introduced into a system. Again, phishing messages can be responsible, but many attackers will use something called “droppers.” Droppers are specialized programs that will install a virus after bypassing cybersecurity solutions. Since there is nothing inherently malicious about the dropper, protections usually don’t flag them.

Fortunately, there are ways to protect your business’ resources, network, and infrastructure from the millions of different versions of these attacks - and you need them, as your business is actively targeted by these attacks. To learn more about putting these protections into place, reach out to the professionals at Coleman Technologies by calling (604) 513-9428.

1. Adopt Technology Solutions

Regardless of your industry, who your business serves, or even where you operate, there are some universal changes that technology has brought to how the average small-to-medium-sized business functions. Methods of collaboration have shifted to digital formats, “coming to work” is no longer a prerequisite to working, and the filing cabinet has been rendered woefully obsolete by other, better options. Cloud solutions are a major contributor to this. I want you to take a moment and consider something: why were any of these changes made in the first place?

It is for the same reason that the assembly line process was adopted, or why we cook our food before eating it: it provides greater benefits than the old way. It is the same with business technology, and you will see this as a common theme throughout these tips. Don’t disqualify yourself from competing by removing your ability to do so.

2. Don’t Shortchange Email

Email is now the gold standard for business communications, for numerous reasons. While a small business might find it redundant to email an announcement, doing so can prove useful to their operations. For instance, let’s say Mary manages a small office with four or five employees. She could easily just announce an important message to the room, but what if James was at the dentist that day, or Rob had excused himself to the bathroom just before? What if Ellen had just connected for an important phone call?

Email provides an easy way for you to communicate with others in your workplace that ensures everyone gets the message, without disrupting operations too much.

3. Go Mobile

While we’re on the subject, let’s consider Ellen for a moment. In the past, making a phone call would tie her to her desk, so any distractions in the office would be an unavoidable issue. Nowadays, there are many ways that Ellen could hypothetically remove herself from the situation while still fulfilling her responsibilities. For instance, a Voice over Internet Protocol solution could allow her to make and take calls from anywhere she could establish a connection, so she could presumably find a quieter area to work without sacrificing her ability to do so.

Other solutions also offer some form of mobility, assuming they are backed up with enough security. For instance, if James was unable to get to the office after his dental appointment, he could still work on his assigned tasks from home with the right cloud-based solutions.  Again, this helps eliminate his reliance upon getting to the office in order to produce.

4. Don’t Underestimate the Cloud

We’ve already touched upon how the cloud has shifted businesses, primarily focusing on how useful it is for hosting and storing data. However, this isn’t the only thing the cloud can do. Cloud technology enables today’s businesses to make use of tools that would ordinarily be out of reach. Yes, its storage capabilities can help make data more accessible to team members who need it, but it can also assist you in preserving your data in case of some disaster, give you access to computing resources that you couldn’t procure yourself, and provide you flexible access to your business applications.

5. Improve Your Security

A small business’ size once protected it from cybercrime, but nowadays, all businesses are fair game. In order to remain secure against these attacks, the right defenses need to be put in place. Things like firewalls, spam blockers, antivirus, and assorted other solutions help to reduce these risks. Additionally, any employee could potentially let in a significant threat, so all need to be educated on how to spot them, and the proper procedures to dealing with them.

Coleman Technologies is here to assist you in implementing these modern IT essentials, as well as maintaining them for you through our remote monitoring and access capabilities. To learn more about how else we can help your growing business, give us a call at (604) 513-9428.

How to Minimize General Exposure in the Office

Based on what is currently known about the coronavirus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have some recommendations as to how to keep the potential impact of coronavirus to a minimum:

• Encourage employees who are ill to stay home. This will help to minimize the spread of infection within your business. Make sure that your employees are aware of this policy by reiterating it verbally, and by posting notices around the office encouraging them to stay home if under the weather.
  
  Emphasize hygiene and etiquette. Properly stifling coughs and sneezes and keeping hands clean are surprisingly effective ways to keep your workplace healthier. Rather than using their hands to catch a cough or sneeze, your employees should use a tissue or--if unable to do so--use the upper part of their sleeve.
  
  The CDC recommends that tissues and alcohol-based hand sanitizer should be made readily available. Make sure your employees are washing their hands with soap and water for the recommended 20 seconds.
  
  

• Engage in keeping the workplace clean. There is a chance that coronavirus (and other illnesses) could be spread via infected surfaces. Make sure that all surfaces that are touched frequently, like desks, workstations, and doorknobs, are kept sanitized. Provide your employees with disposable wipes so they can proactively disinfect these surfaces before use.

If you find that one of your employees is confirmed to have been infected with coronavirus, make sure that you inform their coworkers of their possible exposure while still maintaining the confidentiality that the Americans with Disabilities Act requires. These employees and those who are living with a sick family member should assess their risk of exposure using the CDC’s guidelines.

Coronavirus as a Cyberthreat

Unfortunately, coronavirus will also require you to also keep an eye on your network security, particularly if you operate within the healthcare industry. Hackers and cybercriminals have taken advantage of the widespread concern that the disease has caused. For example:

• Scammers have phished healthcare providers with updates that appear to have come from the World Health Organization or hospitals local to their area, but actually introduce keyloggers into their systems.
• Those involved in the medical supply chain have been targeted with emails referencing the coronavirus that install malware to steal information.
• Ransomware has been introduced into consumer systems by promising recipients of an email information about COVID-19’s spread.

While the current climate may not make it easy, these emails and other threat vectors can be overcome through the same best practices that foil other cyberthreats. In addition to comprehensive digital protections, training your employees to spot these threats will be crucial.

Of course, you should also maintain a comprehensive backup in case you need to recover from a successful attack.

How to Maintain Productivity with Your Team at Home

With today’s technology, sending an employee home sick doesn’t necessarily mean that you will be sacrificing that employee’s productivity. We now have many ways that your team can work effectively from home, still contributing to your organizational agenda without exposing their coworkers to their illness.

Equipping Your Employees

Remote access solutions, paired with virtual private networking technology, can allow your employees to securely continue their work from home, safely accessing the applications and data their tasks require through an encrypted connection. As collaboration will certainly be necessary, you will want to be sure that your employees are also equipped with the communication tools that facilitate this collaboration as well.

Network Protections

You will also want to thoroughly secure your network infrastructure to help prevent threats like phishing attacks and other methods from being successful… as well as preparing for a potential breach or emergency with data backups and disaster recovery policies and procedures (including contact information for your employees) to help mitigate a worst-case scenario.

Employee Awareness

Finally, make sure your employees are on the lookout for any suspicious activity that could be a cybercriminal’s attempt at using the coronavirus as a means to an end. Not only should your employees know how to spot these attempts; they should also know the proper procedures for reporting and handling them.

Is the coronavirus scary? At this point, it is safe to say that it is, but does it have to interrupt your business operations entirely? Not if you are properly prepared.

For more assistance in preparing your business for any kind of disaster, reach out to the professionals at Coleman Technologies by calling (604) 513-9428.

What is COVID-19?

COVID-19, better known as coronavirus, is a respiratory illness that first appeared in Wuhan, China, and was reported in the United States on January 21st, 2020.

As of March 3rd, 12 states have reported 60 total cases of coronavirus and six confirmed deaths, with no vaccines or specific antiviral treatments for the illness. Symptoms of the virus include fever, shortness of breath, and a cough, while those with complications from the virus can experience pneumonia in both lungs, failure of multiple organs, and death. 

Admittedly, it can be easy to roll your eyes at statistics like these. If a method works consistently for a business, why go through the trouble of changing it? Why is it that you have to adjust how you do business, just because someone else has?

Well, there are a few reasons.

First, I want you to consider why we use computers today, rather than typewriters, or send emails and instant messages instead of carrier pigeons. It isn’t that the more traditional alternatives were inherently bad, it’s just that the technology that replaced it is better.

The technology that we all use today is still improving - becoming faster, more powerful, and more capable than what was introduced not all that long ago. 

Technology follows something called an s-curve - gradual improvement as a new method is introduced, sudden acceleration in the improvements that are made, and then it peters out as the technology reaches its limits. At this point, a new technology is presumably introduced, and the process resets.

Each time a new improvement is introduced, you have the opportunity to use a better tool than your competition does… but the same can go the other way, too. If your competition pulls too far ahead of you in its capabilities, your customer service capabilities won’t matter when compared to a service that is just better.

Using up-to-date technology solutions makes your business more efficient. When you’re dealing with a business, how long are you willing to wait to receive your promised services? 

Not only do inefficient services wear down a client’s patience, longer operations are inherently more expensive - so, in a way, you wind up spending more money to deliver a less satisfactory product or service.

Not good - but again, easily fixable with more recent solutions, like automation. Automation makes operations a lot quicker by eliminating rote processes, accomplishing this as your employees work on other things. 

Finally, you have to consider your business’ security. When so many cyberattacks are now run almost completely self-sufficiently, the protections that your business relies on will have to work far faster than any human being could.

On the other side of the coin, an increasing amount of cyberattacks are relying on human fallibility in order to take root. When phishing attacks (think the Nigerian Prince scam, but more refined and directed to your users) targeted a reported 76 percent of businesses in 2018, you need to know that you and your employees can spot them. By helping you implement the security solutions you need to protect your business on the digital side of things, and by educating your employees on how to spot threats and issues, Coleman Technologies can help keep your business safe and competitive.

Our team would be happy to talk to you about implementing the IT solutions your business really does need to remain competitive. We can also remotely maintain it for you, allowing you to go about your business without having to worry about it. Please, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428 to learn more.

First, let’s delve into what ITAM actually covers.

Understanding ITAM

Consider all of the internal resources that your business uses, with the exception of your living, breathing employees. Everything that’s left can be considered an asset. ITAM narrows this down further into specifically the assets that pertain to your comprehensive IT infrastructure. This includes:

• Hardware (like workstations, servers, printers, etc.)
• Software (antivirus, productivity titles, etc.)
• Any Peripherals (Keyboards, computer mice, other devices)

With these assets identified, ITAM assists you in tracking their purpose, how they interact, and other crucial details. This means, as you’ve likely realized, ITAM covers a considerable breadth of your resources, which makes it important that you keep it organized.

How ITAM Helps

A well-organized ITAM can help you save time and hassle by streamlining your processes, simply by keeping the data you need in a manageable and accessible record. As a result, you can make a variety of processes easier through improved data. This data can also help inform you of potential issues, or of the minimum requirements you have to meet to implement change.

Making the Most of ITAM

As promised, here are a few ways that you can optimize your use of IT asset management practices.

• Make it a proactive process. Managing your technology assets needs to be something that you start before you are required to do so, and that isn’t abandoned after reaching a certain milestone. This will help keep you prepared for a wider range of circumstances.
  
  
• Leverage automation. While Excel used to be an invaluable tool for asset management purposes, there are better options now that don’t require you to contend with spreadsheets that extend into the thousands of rows. Not only are automated solutions easier to manage, they come with a valuable set of added features to make your work life that much easier.
  
  
• Track your assets. This one especially applies to your software. There is often a difference between what an agreement says can be deployed, and what can be deployed practically. Keeping your agreements and receipts helps you pass audits by proving compliance.

Coleman Technologies can assist you with your IT assets. To learn more, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.

Create Procedures for Both Routine and Emergency Patches

Many patches are released on a predictable schedule, so as to make it easier to keep up on patches - after all, if you know that a patch is going to be released on a certain date, you can set aside time to apply that patch. There are also emergency patches that are released when a vulnerability is discovered and remediated.

As you might imagine, both are important to maintain - one, to keep your business as free as possible from vulnerabilities, and second (and perhaps more obviously), to keep your business secure in the face of an impending threat. That’s why you need to make sure you have set processes in place to ensure that all patches are tested and applied. While it may not always be a pressing security issue, it is better to be prepared for anything that the vendor is concerned about.

At Coleman Technologies, we always build out and update our procedure, and test updates before they are applied to prevent downtime and other issues. It’s all about working smarter, not harder.

Have a Controlled, but Realistic, Environment for Testing Purposes

Let me ask you a hypothetical question: someone comes up to you on the street and offers you a pill that would make you immune to the common cold, but with no peer reviews by any medical board or the FDA. So, do you take it?

I would hope you would say no, simply because you have no idea of the effectiveness of the pill without it having been tested. Patches are the same way. Without any testing, you simply don’t know how well the patch will work, or if it will interfere with another process. Before you apply any patches to your primary infrastructure, you need to have made these evaluations in a reasonable approximation of it. An effective means of doing so is to spin up a virtualized environment and stress-test the patch there, before actually applying it - just make sure you give your tests enough time to produce trustworthy results.

Keep Track of When Patches Are Released

Depending on the hardware and software you use, patches are going to be released on a different schedule. This is because different manufacturers and vendors manage their schedules differently. Just look at Microsoft and their famous Patch Tuesday (typically the second and sometimes the fourth Tuesday of each month). In order to properly keep your patches up-to-date, you need to know when to expect them.

For assistance with your business’ patch management, you can always turn to Coleman Technologies. Give our professionals a call at (604) 513-9428.

Shake to Minimize

Sometimes when you are working in any Windows platform, you will have too many windows open and you just want everything out of your face except the thing you are currently viewing. Well in Windows 10 there is a cool little feature you can use to make that happen very quickly. Just take your mouse (or your finger if you have a touchscreen) and click-and-hold the title bar of the app you are working in and shake it back and forth. This will minimize all other open applications. To get them back, simply repeat the action.

Choose Folders on Start Menu

The start menu is extremely useful in Windows 10, but sometimes it can get cluttered. To choose which folders you want to see on your Start Menu go to Settings > Personalization > Start then click on the “Choose which folders appear on Start” link at the bottom of the screen. From there you can toggle the folders you want to see in your Start menu. 

Find the Original Control Panel

The settings options in Windows 10 are far and away easier to use, but if you are one of those people that likes working with tools they know, the old Control Panel is still available in Windows 10 as it is still the go-to option for customizing advanced options. The easiest way to access the control panel is by clicking on the Cortana icon on the taskbar and typing in “control panel”. It will give you immediate access to all user settings. 

Selectively Sync Folders with OneDrive

One of the best parts of using Windows 10 is the integration with OneDrive cloud storage. Windows 10’s OneDrive integration provides users a lot of flexibility. To sync folders with data stored in OneDrive, make sure OneDrive is running and right-click on the OneDrive icon in the notification area. Select Settings and then navigate to the Account tab. Under the Account tab you will see the option to “Choose folders”. Click on choose folders and you will see a list of the folders you have in OneDrive, select the ones that you would like access to through Windows 10 and select OK. Now you have access to this data through your File Explorer in Windows 10.

Customize Your Application Notifications

Having too many notifications is one of the most frustrating parts of modern technology. To keep from being bogged down with too many notifications, you can customize which notifications you see in Windows 10. To do so, click on Start > Settings > System > Notifications & action. Once there all you have to do is scroll down and select the notifications you want on, and which ones would be better served not notifying you.

Windows 10 has hundreds of options for any user to customize their experience. Check back next week when we provide some more advanced tips on how to best experience the OS.

The first considerations you need to make are fairly straightforward.

Cost

You really do get what you pay for. Rather than settling for a cheaper system with plans of replacing it later, make sure you select a system that can be upgraded and expanded (yes, there is a difference). That way, you can avoid doubling your costs by eliminating the need to procure more than one system. It also helps to seek out a vendor that can supply all the needs your business has - like additional hardware for your POS, or enhanced software to power it - to simplify your processes.

Integration and Implementation

As mentioned before, your POS system should have the ability to grow as your needs of it do. For instance, while you may want to implement customer pagers at some point, it is probably wiser to focus on the essentials - like receipt printers and cash drawers. However, you will also want to make sure that your POS system has the capability to be upgraded to incorporate more advanced features as your business grows.

Tracking

Although this isn’t too far off from integration, you may want your POS to integrate with your inventory system, your quoting system, your CRM software, or any other business app on your network. Depending on your needs, you might even want your security cameras to pull a feed from your POS system to record purchases.

Support

Let’s face facts… you don’t want to find your POS system experiencing technical difficulties without anyone available to help you resolve them. Whether its complications with the software itself or a hardware issue, you need to be sure that support is always available to you.

When running a business, it is crucial that you have the technology to properly take payments. Coleman Technologies can help ensure that you are prepared to do business with reliable solutions. Give us a call at (604) 513-9428 to get started.

Fortunately, there is: password management systems.

What Are Password Management Systems?

A password manager is effectively what it says on the box: it’s a program that keeps track of your passwords for you. While these are available for individual users, we are more concerned with those that are meant for businesses to leverage.

These solutions have a reputation for being complicated and time-intensive to set up. However, this no longer has to be the case, and it is now more important that you find a solution that offers the features that every business needs to prioritize.

What to Look for from a Password Manager

During your search, you will want to make sure your chosen password management system offers the following features:

Security

While this may seem obvious, not all of your password management options will necessarily offer the same protections or follow the same practices. For instance, standalone password managers are inherently more secure than those tied to another solution, like a built-in one in your browser of choice.

These separate solutions usually have additional features to assist your security as you use them. Good password managers will remind you of best practices if too many saved passwords are the same or too weak and will require multi-factor authentication to be accessed in the first place. It also wouldn’t hurt to find one that also notifies you when you’re due to update some of the passwords you have saved.

It should also never save one password: the master password used to access the solution itself. That is still the user’s responsibility.

As far as behind-the-scenes security is concerned, you should find a password manager that is itself protected by a variety of security features, like encryption, role-based access, and secure cloud storage.

Storage Considerations

Determining where your credentials are kept by the password manager is another important detail to keep in mind, largely as an extension of your security considerations. Does your password manager save your passwords to the cloud, or are they kept natively on the device? Either approach has its pros and cons.

If the cloud is leveraged, your credentials will be available to you on any of your devices… but this does put your credentials in the crosshairs if that cloud solution was ever breached. If you keep your credentials stored locally, you won’t risk losing them in a cloud storage breach, but they are still vulnerable. For instance, if that device fails, there go your passwords.

Generally, this won’t have much impact on the solution you choose, as most enable either option, if not a combination of both.

User Friendliness

As difficult as your password manager should make things for cybercriminals, it should make simple for your legitimate users - starting with adding and removing them to the business’ accounts. They should find it easy to change their password as needed, and your password manager should automatically log a user into a website or application. If it senses that there are not currently credentials for that site, it should offer to save them.

Coleman Technologies has plenty of experience dealing with password security, which means we’re familiar with password managers and maintaining them. If you’d like assistance with selecting, implementing, and utilizing one in your business, let us know! We’re just a call to (604) 513-9428 away.

Password DOs
Password security doesn’t have to have a nuisance. Here are some of the easiest best practices to follow when building a password.

• The longer the password, the better: Long passwords are better for security than short passwords, but only if the password contains a varied-enough string of characters. You should aim for at least 16 characters.
• Special characters, numbers, and symbols are great for security: A strong password will contain both forms of letters, numbers, and symbols.
• Alphanumerics are ideal: If you’re trying to improve security, use alphanumeric passcodes. Try replacing a lower-case “i” with an exclamation point, or an “a” with the “@” symbol.
• Passphrases work wonders: If you find passwords are hard to remember, a passphrase might help. Use a short phrase that is easier to remember, but difficult to guess. A good example is, “iL0veW@ffle$2much” instead of “ILoveWafflesTooMuch.”
• Password variety is key: It might seem counter-intuitive to use multiple passwords that are difficult to remember, but it’s much more secure to use different passwords for each of your accounts. If the same password is used for each account, all it takes is one breach to expose multiple accounts to risk.

Password DON’Ts
Of course, best practices are more than just what you practice; it also includes what you don’t practice. Here are some pointers.

• Avoid words like “password”: Some of the most common passwords out there include “password” and “notapassword.” You should avoid using these whenever possible, as they are often the first ones to be cracked.
• Avoid key strings like “qwerty”: Strings of characters with consecutive keys, like “qwerty” and “12345678,” should be avoided at all costs.
• Don’t include sensitive information: You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to find sensitive or personal information about an individual--especially if you are the target of a hacker. To make sure a hacker can’t use any information contained in your password against you, avoid using anything like this in your password altogether.

Coleman Technologies can equip your business with a password manager to improve network security and better manage account passwords. To learn more, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.

Stay Organized Whenever Possible

Any business owner receives countless emails on a daily basis, and when they all collect in one place, they can quickly become overwhelming. The issue with this is that, when you have to focus on too many messages at once, it’s more likely that you’ll miss important messages, focus on the wrong tasks, or even respond to messages thinking they are different ones, creating some messy confusion. If you can’t determine what’s important in your inbox, how can you even be productive? We recommend placing filters on your inbox so that you can determine a message’s importance, sender, topic, and even more to navigate and sort your inbox in the most efficient way possible.

Allocate Time to Your Inbox

You should always set aside a specific amount of time every day to deal with the emails you receive. If you don’t, chances are that you will get sidetracked by a task and possibly miss out on responding to important emails. One thing to keep in mind when considering how quickly you should respond to emails is that messages that are the most important aren’t going to come in your email inbox. The ones that are critical will likely come in other forms, such as someone within your organization knocking on the door or giving you a phone call to make the issue known.

Use Alternative Communication Methods

If you find yourself stuck with a perpetually full inbox, perhaps you could benefit from sending or receiving fewer messages. If the message is short or a simple notification, perhaps it would be better to use alternative means of communication, such as an instant message. This is particularly great, as it cuts down on the back and forth required for a quick conversation, as well as takes the urgency out of a situation.

Make a Quick Phone Call

Sometimes a matter is too important to leave to an email. In cases like this, making a phone call is the most prudent. Furthermore, meeting in person can take this advantage one step further, as you eliminate the possibility of intent being misconstrued altogether, making it much easier to be as clear as possible.

To learn more about how you can eliminate the pains of email, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.

Before we go into depth about network and cybersecurity, we’d like to point out just why they are so important. You invest a lot of time and money into making your business what it is. You pay a lot of money for hardware, software, services, and time to give your business a chance to succeed. The act of protecting your business, its staff, vendors, and clients is one that should be taken seriously, because if any are compromised, your business is in trouble.

The Protection of Business Computing

Today’s business uses a computing infrastructure that is much larger and complex than most and includes considerations outside the physical confines of the network. Cloud services have become a very popular product for businesses and individuals alike. Cloud services are hosted in some other place, and by companies that have taken great diligence at securing their solution. For obvious reasons, you can’t guarantee that your cloud-hosted data is 100% secure, but logic suggests that a company offering computing services over the Internet would be in serious trouble if they were to have their security compromised.

These services all have dedicated access control systems that are designed to only let authorized users in. Some organizations also require their staff to utilize two-factor authentication to secure the solutions further.

This brings us to the perimeter of the network. Regardless of a company’s ineptitude with cybersecurity, there is typically some form of firewall that stands between the Internet and the company’s network. If the firewall is properly maintained with threat definitions, it will stop a good amount of unwanted traffic. It’s just not enough. With the immense amount of attack vectors threats are coming from nowadays, a stand-alone firewall is like a single sheet of flypaper in front of a window.

Going the Extra Mile

In order to keep their business’ data and infrastructure safe, many organizations have begun to utilize Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS). These systems include Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), software that attempts to block determined threats, and logs network traffic so that IT professionals can go in and see the current state of the network.

For years, this would have been enough technology to keep most threats out. Nowadays, however, it’s really just getting started being vigilant. If you consider your network to be like an onion, you need to understand that each layer needs to have its own set of security protocols that typically come in the form of a dedicated access control system and a firewall.  This way, every “layer” is protected from its perimeter, to the applications, to the databases that hold all your data. This tiered access control system is designed specifically for your needs and is in place to do one thing: protect your assets.

It also works to protect your business against the biggest digital threat on the Internet: phishing attacks.

A phishing attack is where someone outside your network tries to infiltrate it by passing off some form of correspondence as legitimate. It’s all a fraud. Verizon, who does an annual study of cybersecurity, found that around 90 percent of all network attacks are the result of successful phishing attacks. Unfortunately, there is no piece of software out there that will make phishing attacks completely benign. That is why training is so important.

Training Your Staff

Training your staff about phishing (and cybersecurity in general) has to be a priority. You’ve spent a lot of capital and time building what you have, and the thought of losing it because you bullheadedly forged ahead without getting your staff trained up properly could be thought of as shortsighted.

A phishing attack is now the preferred method of hacking. Since security systems have evolved to be hard to crack, hackers now look to use your staff’s legitimate credentials to gain access to your network, applications, and databases. By training your staff about phishing, specifically what to look for, how to react when they come across phishing attacks, and what the consequences of a phishing attack can mean for your company, you should be in a better position to protect your network, infrastructure, and data against the onslaught of outside phishing threats.

To learn more about how to secure your network, train your staff, and acquire the technology you need to protect your business, reach out to Coleman Technologies today at (604) 513-9428.