Microsoft Teams Has Added Several New Features

Since the start of the pandemic, Microsoft has been working at a furious pace to add new features to Teams. It has become one of the company’s most widely used services, allowing remote employees to communicate seamlessly with each other. Continuing that trend, the Redmond giant has recently added yet more new features, including a call transfer function, anti-spam protections, CarPlay support, a streamlined calling experience, and more.

In short, the latest version is just all-around easier to use, with a new screen that allows for easy access of your call history, voicemails, your contacts, and the software’s settings. On top of that, Teams admins now have the ability to change the default recording storage location, using either SharePoint or OneDrive instead of Stream.

The new CarPlay feature is simply invaluable if you spend a lot of time on the road and want to be able to join meetings in progress while you’re driving. If your car has built in WiFi controls and you can speak with Siri while you’re driving, you can leverage those controls to place and answer calls inside Teams.

In addition to all of that, the company has announced that by early next year, Teams users will gain the ability to transfer calls between your desktop PC and your mobile devices via the Teams app. This will allow you to merge calls, preserve data and work more seamlessly than ever before.

Another new feature on the horizon is the reverse number lookup, which will allow you to grab the name of the caller, assuming you don’t already know it. This also assumes that you’re not disconnected when you transfer the call to someone else and that person isn’t available.

Overall, if you’re a Teams user, there’s a lot to like in the most recent updates and in the rumors we’ve been hearing about what’s next for the app. Kudos to Microsoft for a whole spate of excellent recent additions.

SolarWinds Hack – Everything You Need to Know About The Largest Cyber Attack of All Time

True to form, 2020 gave us a final parting gift: the news that the United States was targeted this year by the biggest cyberespionage attack ever. Let’s go into the ramifications of this attack, and what it should teach us going forward.

 How Did the Attack Happen?

In short, an IT management company known as SolarWinds was breached back in March, affecting a massive number of organizations—18,000 in all. These organizations include the likes of Microsoft, Cisco, and FireEye, as well as many states and federal organizations, including:

• The U.S. Department of State
• The U.S. Department of the Treasury
• The U.S. Department of Homeland Security
• The U.S. Department of Energy
• The U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration
• The National Institutes of Health, of the U.S. Department of Health
• The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration

When the attackers gained access to SolarWinds’ network, they were able to use what is known as a supply chain attack to introduce their malware to these departments and organizations by pushing it through the company’s automatic software update system for their Orion products. These kinds of attacks can be particularly effective since the threat is introduced to an environment via a trusted application.

Making this situation worse, many SolarWinds customers had excluded Orion products from their security checks on SolarWinds’ recommendation to prevent their other security products from shutting them down due to the malware signatures that these security products contain.

While (at the time of this writing) it is unclear what the attackers responsible used this access to do, the potential ramifications are truly terrifying. While government departments were targeted, it also needs to be said that this attack could have potentially continued from the major providers like Microsoft and Cisco to their clients, and so on and so forth. That’s why there is still no estimate of this attack’s true scope.

This attack was seemingly only discovered when an employee at FireEye received an alert that their VPN credentials had been used from a new device, and a little digging revealed the much larger situation playing out.

This Wasn’t the Only Attack, Either

Another attack was also discovered on SolarWinds’ network when the company performed an internal audit of its systems. On December 18, a second malware was found to have used the same tactic to infiltrate SolarWinds, but as of this writing does not seem to come from the same source.

Lessons to Be Learned

Frankly, the most important lessons to be learned here are painfully obvious. First off, cybersecurity needs to be prioritized above all else, and all potential threats should be considered a likelihood. After all, the U.S. government was warned about the viability of exactly this kind of threat back in 2018 by the Government Accountability Office.

Secondly, the concept of your employees being a huge part of your cybersecurity strategy needs to be reinforced. This was only discovered when an employee was alerted of unusual activity and took that alert seriously. Your team needs to know what they are looking out for, and how to proceed if they spot it.

While we likely will not know how deeply this threat went for some time, you can at least be sure that Net Activity is here to help keep your IT as safe as possible. If you have any questions for us regarding your business’ technology, do not hesitate to give us a call at 216-503-5150.

Out with the Old…In with the New…Technology!

New year, new technology! If your business is still relying on older and aging technology, it’s time to think about updating that technology. As it ages, the effort to keep it running comes with many hidden costs. While it may seem financially savvy to keep older hardware and software running, you may be setting yourself up for major costs down the road.

It’s understandable why many small businesses shy away from investing in new equipment and software. They do the math and see a number that keeps rising. While the upfront costs of new technology — hardware or software — can be high (or higher than you would like), you have to consider what you would be paying for versus the cost of keeping aging technology running.

Let’s start by looking at some of the “hidden” costs that come with using older or outdated technology. First, consider the cost of productivity.

The older technology gets, the less efficiently it runs. This applies to hardware and software. Hardware has a tendency to lag, even if it’s well-maintained. Devices simply wear out with use. This cannot be avoided. But the productivity issues that come with aging hardware only get worse when you bring aging software into the mix. Over time, you will start to lose support from developers, and this comes with all sorts of problems. Here are three examples.

Loss Of Integration Older apps lose stable integration with companion apps. At one point, your CRM software may have worked perfectly with your billing software. As developers focus on newer versions of their apps, they stop updating past versions. The end result is more hiccups or errors. You risk losing data.

Loss Of Compatibility Older apps aren’t always compatible with newer apps. What should you do when still using an old software and your vendors or customers use the up-to-date version? It can result in a lot of aggravation on everyone’s part, and you can end up losing customers. One Microsoft survey showed a vast majority of consumers – 91% – would walk away from a business if that business were using older technology.

Loss Of Time And Money Factoring in slow equipment and a loss of integration and compatibility, aging tech makes it harder for your team to do their jobs. A recent study by Currys PC World found that employees lose an average of 46 minutes every day due to aging technology. That adds up to about 24 days per year and an average loss of about $3,500 per employee – though that number can vary wildly from industry to industry. You can be sure the cost in time and money has a ripple effect throughout the entire business.

While productivity takes a hit, there’s another major issue that comes up when your business relies on aging technology: security.

As your tech ages, and as developers end support, this means you’ll see fewer security patches. Eventually, there will be zero security patches, leaving you vulnerable. Developers may stop supporting older products, but hackers and cybercriminals will keep on trying to break into those products. They know small businesses tend to update their systems at a slower pace, and this gives criminals an advantage.

If you get caught using outdated software and a hacker is able to break into your network, the costs associated with this kind of a data breach can put a business under. It’s devastating. The problem is made worse if you had limited IT security in place (or none at all) and weren’t backing up your data. It’s like handing your business over to the criminals! The importance of IT security cannot be overstated, and if you are working on older computers with outdated software, risks are greater.

So, What Can You Do? As we said before, many small businesses assume that keeping their technology up-to-date is cost prohibitive. They don’t want to deal with the upfront cost that comes with investing in new hardware and software. While it can be costly, depending on your needs, there are ways to mitigate those costs.

One great example is through a Hardware-as-a-Service (HaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company or program. These allow small businesses to stay current without having to drop a tidy sum in order to make it all happen. These services are often offered through managed service providers (MSPs) that are dedicated to helping small businesses with all of their IT needs, including keeping their technology updated and their network secure from outside intruders.

When you factor in the loss of productivity (and the frustration that comes with that) along with the costs that come with data breaches, malware infections or cyber-attacks, it can easily be worth it to kick your old tech to the curb and embrace the new!

IT Budgeting for 2021 and Beyond

As IT budget and strategy planning for 2021 ramps up, many organizations are seeing the long-range impact of changing trends (due to COVID-19) on their IT priorities and tech spends.

How exactly the impact of COVID-19 is influencing IT budgets, and where businesses plan to spend their tech dollars, was the topic of a recent TechRepublic survey.

The survey validated trends we have all seen with our very own eyes; acceleration of movement towards remote work and digital transformation. These changes have forced IT and business leaders to adapt their budgets accordingly.

Here at Net Activity, we are seeing major shifts in priorities and methods of work.  If you are reconsidering your budgeting priorities for the near future, here are a few points to keep in mind:

Remote, remote, remote.

With continued lockdowns, and stay-at-home orders in place, remote work is the only option for continued business operations for many businesses. CIOs and business owners should focus most of their IT budgets on ensuring seamless, yet secure operations remotely. Priority spending should be focused on accessing personal computers (since the supply chains are unstable), and upgrading productivity and collaboration tools as needed.

In addition, security solutions will reign supreme to ensure no malicious attacks take place. Ramping up networking data centers-with a handy disaster recovery plan in place-should also be a high-priority.

Surge in cloud computing

Cloud computing has emerged as a true hero in this pandemic. Businesses of all types have found themselves more reliant on cloud computing than ever before…to support their backend applications and collaboration tools like videoconferencing and VoIP telephone systems. The best part about cloud technology is its ability to scale the computing requirements and respective allocation of workloads. Because of these strong benefits and the trend toward remote work, companies should prioritize their investment in cloud.

Expansion of Mobile Computing & Devices

Many organizations and their employees are spending IT dollars on premium smartphone and tablet devices, as PC replacement rates continue to fall. In fact by 2021 it is projected that the number of smartphone users worldwide will exceed 3.8 billion. And that number is projected to grow to over 80% in three years (Statista). Most cell phones and tablets have the capability of performing many tasks that a computer can. This allows for flexibility and availability, keeping employees and managers from being glued to a computer desk to perform their work. Another investment to consider in mobile computing technology is responsive optimization of your website(s). Without mobile optimization, most websites look and act unwieldy and make it a hassle for potential customers to use, potentially even driving them away from using your services altogether. Your website is the first impression of your business and its optimization is an invaluable and necessary investment.

Advanced Cybersecurity Protection

As reliance on IoT and cloud technologies increases, so will cybersecurity budgets.  Within IT departments, a premium is being placed on security spending. Fifty-three percent of respondents said security will be a top priority in the 2021 budget.  This isn’t terribly surprising after high-profile breaches like the WannaCry, or WannaCrypt, attacks and the Equifax consumer data breach.  A Gartner study predicts that global expenditure on information security will grow to $96 billion in 2021, up from $86 billion last year. So, what should all this money be spent on?   As a small business or organization, you don’t want to lose customer data or let malicious groups take over your systems. Cover all the basics, including safeguarding sensitive business data and minimizing the risk of malware attacks.

Use Outsourcing and Consulting Services When Possible
Outsourcing certain responsibilities of your IT management (or even all of it) can have a positive effect on your budget, time that could be spent managing and maintaining your technology would instead be devoted to managing your business and ensuring its efficient operation. You can enjoy the benefits of being a business owner without worrying about constantly managing your technology, and the costs associated with it.

Is it time to postpone non-essential projects?

With budgets mostly allocated to solutions to keep the company afloat and business continuity, other non-essential projects will have to take a hit. That’s not to say that the projects are no-more; simply that they will be revisited in the near future.

As a small business owner or manager, its critical to remember that your IT expenditures are an investment into the operations and flow of your organization, rather than a cost of doing business. Instead of looking at the budget solely as an administrative process, regard it as a validation and support tool for your IT strategy. If you don’t have a formal or informal IT strategy in place, the budgeting process is as good a place as any to start investigating areas for improvement that will be cornerstones of your first attempts at more strategic IT management.

For more ways to improve the functionality and return on investment of your business’s technology throughout this crisis and beyond, give Net Activity a call.

3 Reasons Why Companies Should Use Business Intelligence

Before, hiring specialists to analyze business data entailed costs that only large companies could afford. This was one of the reasons why small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) were hesitant to implement business intelligence (BI). But times have changed. SMBs now have access to a vast range of business tools that can improve data management processes. To stay ahead, SMBs should harness the capabilities of BI to develop effective business strategies using large volumes of data just sitting in their systems.

Self-service BI tools are plentiful — and inexpensive

The emergence of self-service BI puts useful business analytics within reach of smaller-business owners who lack the big budgets of larger corporations. In fact, there are numerous self-service BI tools that you can use to get started in this area without even spending a dime. Microsoft Power BI is a powerful and user-friendly application, and most businesses will find the functions they need in the free version. Zoho Analytics has a low entry-level cost, too, and the slightly pricier yet still affordable Tableau is another option worth exploring.

You’ve already got the data you need

It’s easy to underestimate the amount of data your SMB already has at its disposal. In every area of your business, from finance and sales to customer relations and website management, the software packages you use to simplify your everyday operations reap tons of information that most of us don’t even think twice about.

By talking to key stakeholders in your organization’s various departments, you can get an idea of the kind of data you already have, how it’s generated, and where it’s stored. You can then utilize BI tools to transform that information into meaningful business insights that will inform your decision-making. No need for you to invest in time-consuming data generation from scratch!

It’s easy to get started

BI is an intimidating term, especially for the average business owner. But by taking small steps, it’s easy for anyone to get started. Before you know it, you’ll be enjoying the benefits of having data-driven, intelligence-based insights that will enable you to make better business decisions.

Most self-service BI tools come with built-in suggestions for reports that businesses commonly run and find useful. Some worthwhile statistics to explore include the percentage of your clients who cancel within a given period, website landing pages that generate the longest visits, your most profitable individual products or services, the days or months in which you generate your highest revenues, and which of your clients bring in the most revenue and profit.

Harnessing data is the future of the business world — it’s how companies like yours can make smarter decisions that increase efficiency and profitability. And with a trove of self-service tools available in the market, SMBs no longer need a humongous budget to reap the benefits of BI. To find out more about implementing tools that can help you do smarter business, just give us a call.

Social Media Is A Tool For Any Sized Business

Nowadays, social media companies have a lot of power and influence, which is part of the reason that so many of today’s largest businesses have adopted social media as a critical promotional tool. With the average person spending about two hours and 24 minutes on social media and messaging applications per day, this makes social media a clear opportunity for any sized business to embrace. Let’s consider a few ways this can be accomplished for these different businesses.

Sole Proprietorships and Startups

For those trying to build a business from scratch, social media is an accessible and cost-effective means of marketing their services—so much so, in fact, that it is the only means many will use to do so. This helps them overcome the budgetary obstacles that might otherwise trip up their efforts.

As a result, 80 percent of new United States business owners make use of Facebook as a marketing tool. While there is a natural limit to how effective these efforts are without the multifaceted strategies that the enterprises use, the various social media platforms available can provide some significant benefits.

Small Businesses

Once a business has established itself somewhat, the possibilities that social media presents expand quite a bit. With a little more revenue coming in, a little more structure can be lent to their marketing strategies and as a result, marketing hubs, content creation, and other initiatives allow them to amplify their messaging.

To assist them in accomplishing these goals, many of these businesses turn to a marketing agency and the services they offer for assistance. In doing so, a business can keep its focus on its actual operations and allow the agency to do the requisite work for them. This makes it easier for the business to balance its production with its marketing and delivery.

While these businesses will also utilize social media to market themselves, they have a greater capacity to embrace a wider variety of efforts. As a result, their marketing strategies will frequently use their channels as a means of sharing content meant to showcase what they do and their clientele’s response to it.

Medium-Sized Businesses

The medium-sized business space is filled with those organizations that have some solid name recognition, but that doesn’t mean that they can skimp on their marketing initiatives, either. These businesses often see their use of social media as essential.

Fortunately, these businesses will often have entire departments committed to marketing and advertising that use various analytics to shape the messaging that they send out to their audience, as well as that which is directed toward potential employees. As such, these businesses will also maintain a presence on all the major social networks, funding their endeavors with budgets in the tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Which Social Media Platforms Cater to Business Use?

Simply put… all of them. Social media companies currently rank amongst the richest companies in the world right now, and they got to be that way because of the influence that marketing on their platforms can have. Regardless of whether a social media network is used to build brand awareness or to promote a product or service, they work. Many, many companies have found success on some social media platforms, such as:

•  Facebook – (1.6 billion daily active users) As the largest social media network with various other platforms under its umbrella, it is no surprise that 90 percent of marketers utilize Facebook in their efforts.
  • WhatsApp – (1 billion daily active users) WhatsApp is widely used all around the world, making it an excellent choice for a business open to international business opportunities.
  • Instagram – (600 million daily active users) The photo-sharing platform has also been an influential option for a marketer’s consideration. Not only is the visual nature of its content engaging, but there are also many influencers on the platform who can help garner a following for a brand.
• YouTube – (149 million individual daily users) YouTube is widely considered the second largest search engine in the world, making it a great resource for a growing business to turn to. Like Instagram, YouTube benefits from the engagement that visual content offers.
• Twitter – (134 million daily active users who can be monetized) The immensely popular Twitter enables individuals inside your business (as well as those who follow you) to share and amplify the content you provide.
• LinkedIn – (303 million monthly active users) As the business’ social media network, LinkedIn makes for an excellent recruiting platform, assisting HR professionals to acquire new talent.

These platforms aren’t your only options, either. Many have also put the likes of Reddit, Tumblr, Snapchat, and Pinterest to use.

One way or another, technology—especially social media—has without a doubt impacted industries of all kinds. If your company is currently using social media to its advantage, how is it helping? Let us know if we can help!

What the Retirement of Adobe Flash Means to Your Business

Once December 31st brings the New Year around, support for the once-popular Adobe Flash Player will officially end. Of course, it isn’t every day that a 24-year-old software is taken out of commission, so it only makes sense to wonder how much this will impact businesses.

With Any Luck, It Won’t

Flash Player and other software based on Flash have been largely phased out over the past decade or so, so ultimately it was just a matter of time before Flash Player was officially retired. Furthermore, Flash has also experienced some security issues, leading to the major players—Google, Microsoft, and Apple—basically leaving it behind as well.

So, while this news isn’t unexpected, it does still warrant saying that Flash was a big part of what shaped the Internet that we know today. However, nostalgia aside, the retired software needs to be removed from all systems to prevent it from becoming a vulnerability in your network.

Just as is the case with any software that will no longer be supported, Flash Player will not be reinforced against any future threats. This will effectively turn it into an exploit that a cybercriminal could use to introduce a larger threat into your business’ infrastructure.

Fortunately, all it takes to avoid this outcome is to properly update your IT away from any Flash-based software.

Net Activity can help with this, as well as so much more. For assistance with your IT management, maintenance, and security, give us a call at 216-503-5150.

Homeland Security is Warning Businesses to Update Google Chrome

We realize that it’s one thing for us to tell you how important it is to update your software. After all, we’re tech guys, so we worry about that kind of thing all the time. Hopefully, it’s quite another matter when Homeland Security does it, which is why we’re really hoping that you take heed of this warning and update Google Chrome.

Homeland Security Warns of Current Attacks Via Chrome

So far this month, there have been no fewer than five vulnerabilities patched in the Chrome web browser, all of which have been zero-day threats.

A zero-day threat is one that attackers have begun to leverage before a software developer or security researcher has managed to identify it. As a result, the attacker using a zero-day attack has the advantage of an early start, leaving the vendor playing catch-up. This makes zero-day threats particularly dangerous to begin with.

What’s worse, the last two zero-day threats that influence Chrome have been deemed to be high severity attacks. While the full details of these threats have not yet been released to the public, we do know that CISA—the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency—has stated that the vulnerabilities these threats are composed of could enable an attacker to take over an affected system. One of them, tied to a JavaScript engine, would most likely be used in a phishing attack, while the other is more likely to be a corruption vulnerability in one of Chrome’s features.

Regardless, these vulnerabilities have already been spotted in active use, and so CISA is also encouraging users to apply the updates that Google has released to resolve these issues.

Why Applying Updates is So Important

Let me ask you this: if the front door of your business suddenly couldn’t be locked properly, would you just leave it like that and hope for the best, or would you fix it immediately?

Either one of these vulnerabilities are akin to the broken lock, and too many users unwittingly elect to take the first option. For instance, when Google mitigated one of these vulnerabilities with an update, only half of Android users updated their version of Chrome within a day. Whether this is simply negligence or the use of an out-of-date device, it leaves serious vulnerabilities open to attack.

As a managed service provider, Net Activity is here to help. Part of our service is to ensure that these kinds of patches and fixes are applied in an appropriately timely manner. If you need assistance with securing your business’ IT or with any other aspect of your technology management, reach out to us to find out what we can do for you. Call 216-503-5150 today.