Are you considering ramping up your remote workforce?

As the coronavirus continues to expand across the globe, you might be considering putting more resources and business planning in building (or increasing!) your remote workforce and the technology that supports them.

Net Activity is here to support those efforts in any way that we can.  Our Modern Workspace in a Box”   Office 365-based solution was uniquely designed to support all pillars needed for working seamlessly from home, or any other remote location. It does not require any VPN and cumbersome connections.  This all-in-one IT solution includes the security, collaboration, and productivity tools you need, as well as remote helpdesk support, to keep your business running smoothly throughout this global crisis.

As we see it, a successful remote (home office) work environment should include the following 4 technology pillars when building up your remote workforce planning:

Security– Maintaining a safe and secure internet and network connection in a remote office setting might include  a VPN and firewall, as well as multi-factor authentication for online sign-on and password management In addition to our complete Microsoft Managed Security package, Modern Workspace in a Box includes:

• Safe and secure dual authentication, antivirus and anti-Ransomware protection.
• Sophos spam filtering
• Remote data wipe if any device is lost or stolen.
• Sophos Anti-Ransomware
• Sophos Spam Filtering (Beyond Office 365 spam filtering)

Collaboration-When setting up a remote office system for your employees you’ll want to make sure you have the right cloud-based meeting communication and chat platforms in place. Microsoft Teams offers an all-in-one solution, with seamless chat, meeting, and file-sharing capabilities built into the app. This allows you to simplify and streamline the apps and tools you use-no need for Zoom or Slack, for example.

In addition, Net Activity can provide an upgrade on your PBX phone systems to a Teams-compatible business phone system. Teams phone systems allow you to make and receive calls from any device (tablet, cell, office phone or videoconference) without missing a beat. All you need is an Office 365 phone license to get started.

Productivity-Any remote office setup should include all your unique company applications and software solutions, as well as a complete productivity suite like Office 365. Modern Workspace in a Box includes all apps and tools within the O365 suite in every package. In addition, you can look to tools like Power BI, Microsoft Flow and Planner to track and monitor employee performance.

Help Desk support-To maintain your business continuity and address security and other technology issues, Modern Workspace in a Box includes unlimited remote and onsite support (as needed).

If you have any questions about putting the right tools in place for a larger remote workforce-or how to support their needs- with Modern Workspace in a Box, please reach out anytime.  We are here to help.

Add hours to your day with these PC hacks

Because there are only so many hours in a workday, it’s vital to make the most of your time. If distracting websites, unorganized files, and cluttered inboxes prevent you from getting work done, consider these tips to better manage your time and stay productive at work.

Monitor productivity levels

Start by tracking how much work you complete on an average day. There are many useful apps for this. For example, Google Chrome has an extension called RescueTime, which records your most frequently visited sites and tracks how much time you spend away from your computer. Planner and Clockify are options available within the Microsoft Teams platform. These apps will provide you with a productivity rating and a detailed log of how you spend your time at work.

If you discover you’re wasting a huge portion of your time on social networking and other productivity killers, you’re more likely to make conscious adjustments on how you manage your time.

Get rid of clutter

You can also decrease distractions and increase your output by deleting old files, uninstalling unused programs, and organizing documents into appropriately labeled folders. This makes finding files easier and improves your computer’s performance as well.

As for the clutter in your email inbox, Gmail and Outlook both have features that filter out unimportant messages. Simply enable Priority Inbox on Gmail or Clutter on Outlook to get a clean, spam-free inbox.

Block sites that waste your time

Visiting non-work-related websites hinders productivity. A quick five-minute break to check your Facebook feed may not seem like much, but a few of those per day add up to a lot of time.

If you and your employees have trouble staying away from social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, it’s a good idea to block access to them using URL filters.

Alternatively, you can use apps like StayFocusd or Strict Workflow. These allow you to set a limit on how long and how often users can visit non-work-related sites.

Stay on track with to-do lists

To-do lists help you break down large projects into manageable, bite-sized tasks. Crossing things off the list is surprisingly satisfying since it gives you and your employees a sense of accomplishment and total visibility over your progress.

You can choose from a wide variety of digital to-do lists like Google Tasks or Trello. These platforms allow you to set deadlines for small tasks and write clear instructions for each. What’s more, they’re incredibly easy to use and are great for keeping track of your workflow.

Use keyboard shortcuts

Mastering keyboard shortcuts will make it easier and faster to perform simple functions. There are more than a hundred useful shortcuts, but here are the most common shortcuts you should keep in mind:

• Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V, Ctrl + X – to copy, paste, and cut selected items
• Ctrl + Z – to undo an action
• Alt + Tab – to switch between open apps
• Alt + F4 – to close the active app

For more of these, take a look at this updated list of advanced shortcuts for Windows.

In this digital age of short attention spans, focus is key to achieving business success. Drop us a line today if you’d like to know more about how tech can induce focus and improve overall productivity for you and your business staff.

4 Top Security Risks In Any BYOD Strategy and How To Avoid Them

Taking work home, or practically anywhere, has never been easier. The bring your own device (BYOD) strategy has become a popular approach for many businesses to conduct work more efficiently and flexibly.  For users, the ability to work from your personal device without the need to shift from one device to another and the ability to work from virtually anywhere is just hard to pass up. For employers, the advantage of not having to provide mobile devices for their employees while still having them connected to your main communications system really drives down cost. It surely is a win-win situation for both the employer and employees.

However, like anything else in this world, BYOD policies comes with its own set of challenges. For one, the line between personal and company-owned data will probably get skewed and the number of non-IT staff controlled devices that are connected to the company is presenting new security problems as well.

To give you more of an idea, here are the top security risks of implementing a BYOD policy:

Lost or Stolen

According to an Ernst and Young study on BYOD, about 22% of all mobile devices produced will be lost or stolen during their lifetime and about 50% of all these lost or stolen devices will never be recovered. While majority of these devices are stolen for the value of the device itself, the number of lost or stolen devices whose information were accessed is also growing. And with personal information mixed with private company information in one device, the risk of those information getting out in the open in the event of theft is now a scary possibility.

No Password Protection

A lot of users do not really protect their personal devices or the applications within their devices with passwords. Or even if they do, they tend to choose simple passwords for convenience. These devices are easily compromised in the event of theft or hacking.

Mobile App Breach

There are tons of malicious apps out there whose goal is not only to corrupt the device software, but also to hack and access private information within the device. And with your personal and company information being treated the same way, both are in danger of falling to unscrupulous groups or individuals. Aside from that, even apps that are deployed by the company itself can be a problem. Even if an app is provided by the company, if no safeguards are incorporated in the app, then it is still susceptible to attacks.

Non-Encrypted Data and Connections

Imagine your data, including voice, going through the public internet without protection or safeguards. It can be intercepted while in transit or while at rest.

So what can you do? Should you just scrap BYOD altogether? Well, there are certain ways to improve security so that you can safely implement BYOD in your company. Here are some tips:

1. Secure the mobile devices – A lot of the problems above can be addressed by securing the mobile device itself. Company should invest in a mobile device management (MDM) solution that can enforce security policies and ensure only approved devices can access your network and resources. Invest in heavy encryption as well, to protect your network infrastructure and your data as it passes through the public Internet.
2. Secure the apps in the devices – Of course, this is easier said than done. After all, you are essentially suggesting regulating the apps within personal devices of users. What you can do is encourage apps from an in-house app store that are secure.
3. Choose cloud providers that offer top-notch security and protection – For example, cloud phone system providers have highly redundant and heavily encrypted connections to protect data traffic.
4. Use mobile anti-virus programs – This will help protect the mobile device’s OS and software, plus most anti-virus tools can detect malicious apps and pages that can be harmful to the device.
5. Perform continuous risk-assessment – Identify and monitor all possible susceptibilities in your network and devices. This is not a one-time thing. Dangers to your data evolve as fast as technology improves so a continuous audit should be implemented as a best practice.

Lastly, you should also involve your employees in the discussion. After all, it is their own mobile devices that you are trying to protect and regulate. They should have a say in the matter or they will not buy in to your BYOD policy.

BYOD will help your business grow, but it comes with IT security risks that you should be prepared to handle.

Need help mitigating these BYOD risks? Call us today, and let’s find the best IT security solutions for your company.

Securing Your Email is Crucial for Your Overall Security

Email security has suffered in the past several years due to the commoditization of basic email security services. If every spam solution is the same, then they can be changed out to just about any other solution out there, removing quality and replacing it with quantity. We have seen this trend take antivirus–the fact that free antivirus exists and many people prefer it over some paid solutions is a testament to this–but will spam protection move in the same direction?

Let’s take a look at the current state of email security, and what the future holds for perhaps the most important method of business communication solutions.

Email Security is on the Rise
For a long time, businesses were focused on keeping threats out of their infrastructure through the use of solutions like firewalls that were controlled centrally. Once email servers entered the picture, these types of solutions became less valuable. Nowadays, many of the services offered by security companies are largely the same at the root level. Ultimately, the differences in email security that you’ll see between companies aren’t in the actual antivirus and spam protection features, but in the additional options and features that they come with. It’s practically necessary in order for any solution to actually stand out from others out there.

To an extent, this is a good thing, as organizations are forced to innovate rather than remain stagnant in their service offerings. This is why we always express the importance of enterprise security solutions rather than just spam protection on its own. Centralization is absolutely critical to the success of these solutions. If you have multiple solutions located all across the network, it’s not nearly as effective or efficient as it can be, and you certainly don’t get the comprehensive network security–email included–that you need to keep your organization as secure as possible.

What You Can Do
To keep your business as secure as possible for the future, you’ll need to think about how email plays a part within your business. Chances are you use it for both internal and external communications, which makes it the ideal target for scammers and spammers to infiltrate your organization. Your business needs to secure its email solution through the use of encryption and firewalls, but it should also be prepared to handle advanced attacks such as denial-of-service and directory harvesting. If you fail to secure your business from these types of threats, they could create bigger problems for your organization down the road.

Net Activity offers a comprehensive, centralized security solution in our Unified Threat Management (UTM) tool. It combines several solutions into one convenient package, including spam protection, antivirus, a firewall, and a content filter, all to mitigate and eliminate potential issues for your network security.

Average Ransomware Attack Payments Total $6,700 Per Incident

How much does a successful ransomware attack cost a victim on average? The numbers will terrify you.

Based on the latest statistics compiled by Coveware, each incident of a compromised computer costs a whopping $6,733, which is a hefty 13 percent increase from just one quarter ago.

Part of the increase stems from the fact that some strains known for demanding higher than average payments are seeing increased use. Among these are the SamSam and Ryuk families of ransomware. Another reason driving the increase is the fact that after the initial wave, hackers apparently compile statistics, enabling them to zero in on companies that are relatively easier to breach and more willing to pay. Put the two together, and they’ve got a virtually guaranteed, high profit, low risk enterprise.

Bill Siegel, the CEO of Coveware explains that his company’s Q4 data set is derived from 226 different ransomware attacks that were reported to and triaged by the company. He warns that companies that choose to pay the ransom aren’t guaranteed to receive an unlock key that will decrypt their files and give them their files back. There’s more than a little risk involved in giving the hackers what they’re demanding.

Unfortunately, many companies don’t have robust backup routines, and if they don’t pay, their files are lost forever. That’s an awful position for any company to be in, but fortunately, there’s a simple fix for that.

With the number of ransomware attacks expected to continue to increase this year, if you don’t already have a robust system of backups in place, it’s well past time to make sure that you do. Afterall, $6,733 per incident adds up quickly, and it’s a punishing price to pay indeed. It is much more expensive than a rock-solid system of backups. The choice is obvious.

Why Should You Outsource Your Business Processes?

There are quite a few reasons that it makes sense for a small-to-medium-sized business to lean on outsourced assets. Let’s take a look at a few of the biggest benefits that you could see from bringing on these kinds of services, from both a financial and operational stance…

FINANCIAL BENEFITS OF OUTSOURCING

Naturally, there are assorted financial perks to adopting an outsourcing policy, including:

Decreased Costs

This is perhaps the most well-known benefit of outsourcing, as it can often be too pricey to hire and train the internal employees, or procure the equipment needed for a process. Maybe expanding in-house resources any more would require an expensive change in location. Outsourcing allows a company to side-step these budgetary challenges, as can be seen in many other benefits we will touch upon.

Cash Flow Controls

On the subject, some of your operations can easily grow to be too expensive to realistically support. In order to stem the amount of cash that your company spends on certain needs, an outsourced resource can fulfill those needs (which control costs) without requiring an overhaul of your organization and its goals.

Eliminated Expenses

In addition to the employees who fulfill your central business objectives, there are many costs that simply having in-house employees incurs. This is especially true if their roles, while crucial, aren’t necessarily those that would require a full-time employee. Outsourcing allows you to optimize the amount you spend to have these roles filled, without pulling an excessive investment from your budget.

OPERATIONAL BENEFITS OF OUTSOURCING

There are also many advantages that can impact how your business itself works to be gained via outsourcing.

Internal Focus

When a company experiences growth, its behind-the-scenes processes can frequently hinder more growth from taking place, simply because these tasks require attention. Outsourcing these tasks allows you to focus on the elements that promoted growth in the first place, without neglecting critical responsibilities.

Access to Skills

Training an employee, especially a new recruit, can be expensive and time-consuming. However, when you turn to outsourcing, these responsibilities fall to the outsource provider. As a result, you get less-expensive access to resources with specialized, yet diverse, skill sets and large amounts of experience.

Growth Potential

It is also possible that offering your customers a particular service could prove to be quite lucrative, but you unfortunately lack the internal resources, skill sets, or budget to do so. Outsourcing frequently opens businesses to more opportunities of this kind. Furthermore, as these responsibilities are being fulfilled, your staff could be trained to do so themselves.

Minimized Risks

There are a lot of risks associated with running a business, such as the threat of employee turnover or absenteeism. Whether in the short or long term, outsourcing certain responsibilities can help insulate your operations from the impact of an assortment of less-than-ideal circumstances.

Net Activity is here to assist you with our outsourced IT services. To learn more, reach out to us by calling 216-503-5150.

Password Manager Malware Tricks Users Into Revealing Their Passwords

There’s a new threat making the rounds called ‘Metamorfo’ that you should be aware of. The malware began its life as a banking trojan.

This news is from researchers at Fortinet, who report that the malicious code has recently gotten some upgrades that make it particularly nasty.

Like many similar programs, this one finds its way onto target machines by way of phishing emails. In this case, the vehicle of choice seems to be emails that claim to have an invoice attached in the form of a Microsoft Word document.

If a user receives this email and opens the ‘invoice’ he or she will be informed that the message cannot be properly displayed without enabling macros. Of course, enabling macros is the mechanism that allows Metamorfo to be installed on the target device.

Once installed, the malicious code will first check to be sure it’s not running in a sandbox or virtual environment. Once it has confirmation that it is not, it will run its Autolt script execution program, which it uses to evade detection by antivirus programs that may be running on the target system.

Safe from detection, it will then shut down any browser sessions that may be running and prevent any new browser windows from using the auto-complete function when entering passwords. It then begins prompting the users to manually enter their passwords. When they do, the keystrokes are mapped and sent to a command and control server that the hackers control. It’s a fiendishly clever way of making sure the hackers harvest as much password information as possible from each system they infect.

Be very wary of opening attachments from any unknown and untrusted source and make sure all your systems are fully patched and up to date. It’s not a perfect solution, but it will certainly minimize your risk.

Is It Time to Upgrade your IT? 5 Ways you can tell…

The curious thing about information technology is that, while it improves as any other technology would, the environment can accelerate the various changes made to it at various rates. As a result, knowing when your business needs to upgrade its technology isn’t always so cut-and-dry. To help, we’re sharing a few clear indicators that hint that the time has come.

Your IT Team is Always Busy

Or, more specifically, they are always scrambling to fix problems as they pop up. Older technology is prone to issues like this (and others, as we will get into). So, if your internal team is always chasing down problems, or you’ve been calling in the local IT guy almost every day, it will be more helpful to upgrade your technology. More up-to-date solutions will be less susceptible to these kinds of difficulties, so the costs saved in maintenance and remediation will likely offset the financial burden of an upgrade.

Your Employees are Frustrated and Default to Using Workarounds

One of the most reassuring things about most job processes is the fact that there is a process at all, so if your technology no longer allows your set processes to be followed, how do you think your employees will react to it? They aren’t going to be happy, that’s for sure, and in order to accomplish what they are responsible for, they might resort to finding their own, less efficient (and less secure) methods to complete their objectives… methods that might be laden with problems. Improved tools can eliminate this need by providing a set, company-approved and secure process for employees to follow.

Your Technology Runs Reeeeaaaally Sloooooooowly

Speaking of things that frustrate your users, slow technology is perhaps public enemy number one in the office. Whether workstations are taking too long to boot up, the Internet connection is flaky, you deal with slow application load times, or too many other examples to list here, lagginess is generally best resolved by a replacement. This is very closely related to our next warning sign…

…You’re Feeling Financial Strains

It’s simple math, really. If each task takes longer to complete, fewer tasks can be completed throughout the day, which usually translates to reduced revenue overall. At the same time, your employees will still be paid their usual wage, meaning that you’re spending the same amount of money to generate less income. It doesn’t take an economics degree to see that this isn’t good.

Investing in an upgrade can help you improve your productivity, which gives you the potential to generate increased amounts of revenue. So, instead of working for less money, you have the chance to see some significant returns from your investment.

You’re More Vulnerable to Cyberattacks

Here’s the worst of it: as technology improves, so do the cyberattacks that bad actors will use to undermine it. By using older technology, you are effectively welcoming cybercriminals to attack you–especially if your tools have passed their end of support date. Updating your software, whether it’s your security solution or the productivity tools you rely on, helps to reinforce your overall security by reducing a particularly potent weakness.

So, when all is said and done, keeping up on your IT upgrades is a bit of a no-brainer. For more information on whether or not you need to upgrade your IT, or assistance in doing so, reach out to Net Activity! Our professionals are just a phone call away.

5 Ways to avoid Digital Sprawl in Microsoft Teams

Workplace and digital content collaboration are the way of the world. Remote workers include permanent home employees; a mobile workforce, including on-the-road sales teams; international organizations, with locations in multiple countries; and offshore development. This agility in the work environment requires effective collaboration.

With so many collaboration tools on the market with varying capabilities, content sprawl is a possibility if the right strategies aren’t in place.

Some collaboration-supporting tool sets include Box, Dropbox, Microsoft and Google, and businesses use them daily. Each varies in its abilities, but can include instant messaging, audio and video conferencing, document sharing and other types of content sharing — including tasks, to-do items, calendars and plans.

For those already using Microsoft technology, Teams is a natural choice. Teams — built on SharePoint — is a unified communications platform, with chat, video meetings, file storage and application integration. It integrates with Microsoft Office 365 products, and its extensions also enable it to integrate with many non-Microsoft services.

Organizations that use Teams run the risk of content sprawl. Before deploying it, consider these five points:

1. Teams is not a content management system. Teams can be used to store files and other content, which it does by using the underlying SharePoint. For full content management capability, users need to use the “open in SharePoint” menu that is available in various places throughout Teams. Once in SharePoint, additional capabilities are available, such as check-in and -out, file versions, tagging, retention and deletion rules.

SharePoint can be a longer-term content management platform after a business decommissions the team to avoid the content sprawl.

2. Develop an archive strategy for content developed in Teams. Consider Teams as transient content storage, for example, to support a specific project or initiative. An archive strategy will allow storage of that content beyond the life span of the team. Examples of content that a business might manage this way include documentation coming out of a project, such as standard operating procedures and application support documentation. SharePoint can be a longer-term content management platform after a business decommissions the team to avoid the content sprawl.
3. Define sound governance approaches. Organizations should use naming conventions for teams and the channels in a team, and limit team and channel creation to nominated people supported by training and standard operating procedures. Businesses should also regularly review teams to determine current business relevance, as well as content archiving and long-term storage. Create a directory of teams with attributes, including responsible owner, purpose, proposed decommission date and content confidentiality.
4. Develop clear guidelines on when Teams is appropriate for business initiatives vs. another platform. For example, organizations using SharePoint may already have a project site template. Should a team replace this or be supplementary to it? At present, there is no templated approach to creating a standardized team structure. Without a standardized approach, each project owner will construct each team differently, making it difficult for users who work across multiple projects.
5. Avoid organic and unstructured growth of collaboration tools. Teams is the most recent example from Microsoft of a history of collaboration tools, including OneDrive, Skype for Business, Yammer and SharePoint. Choice is a good thing, but knowing what tool to use and when makes for better choices. Businesses need to develop a strategy to identify which tools to adopt.

Net Activity is here to help you manage your data assets and keep sprawl in check.  Reach out to us today!