Boost Productivity with Better Internal Communications
Without a reliable way to stay in touch during office hours, your business can suffer from miscommunications and other, worse consequences. With so many communication solutions available to the average business, how can you help your business be as productive as possible? It all starts by making sure that your employees stay connected.
A Social Intranet
An intranet can be used to stay connected to your staff and all of its resources. It works like a portal where any assets used by your company can be easily located. Imagine having one infrastructure dedicated to keeping your employees connected to each other, as well as where they can access important software, online resources, links, documents, and much more. You can even include a phone number or a link to your managed service provider’s help desk, making it easier than ever to take advantage of technology help and assistance when in a pinch.
Instant Messaging
If you have ever sent an email with the hopes of getting an immediate response, you’ll know the frustration that comes from waiting hours and hours just to get a response that has come far too late to do anything about. Instant messaging is a valuable tool that can help to alleviate this issue considerably. It’s perfect for the moments where an immediate response is needed. Many instant messaging applications also allow you to create group chats or private rooms where you can collaborate on projects.
Internal Blogs and Documentation
Your employees should want to do a better job than what they are currently doing, and in order to guide them toward this lofty goal, you should make internal blogs and other documentation available that they can consult for any information about a specific task. In fact, blogs and documentation can significantly cut down on any time spent training employees. After all, the best way to help someone do their job is to help them help themselves.
Discussion Boards
Just like with internal blogs and documentation, you can foster a conversation about ways to improve workflows or brainstorm new ideas through the less formal medium of discussion boards or open forums. Discussion boards are generally implemented with the idea of creating consumable and accessible content for your employees.
A Ticketing System (or Help Desk)
Chances are that your employees might be somewhat technologically savvy, but they are certainly no IT technicians. This can lead to wasted time and energy. It’s more efficient to simply reach out to someone who specializes in this craft. A ticketing system or an outsourced help desk from Catalyst Technology Group can help your employees contact someone who can help them with their technology issues. We can provide specialized maintenance as per your service level agreement so that you can avoid costly downtime.
Catalyst Technology Group wants to help your business stay connected to all of its crucial elements. To learn more, reach out to us at (317) 705-0333.
How to Protect Your Business with BDR
How would your company react to the worst-case scenario of your technology failing during a critical moment? By this, we mean a server unit failing or a hardware failure causing a catastrophic loss of data. There are other situations where you experience a similar loss of data, including natural disasters that completely destroy physical infrastructure; yet, the end result is the same, and it keeps your business from functioning as intended.
Even something as simple as a hacking attack or user error could create complications for your company, impacting operations to the point where your organization can’t even run. In situations like these, it’s imperative that your company has a data backup and disaster recovery solution put into place. In practice, however, data backup and disaster recovery are two very different things. Both of them are crucial to the continued success of your business, though.
Data backup has traditionally taken advantage of magnetic tape that stores data. The reels are then kept on-site where they can be used in the event of an emergency. While these might sound adequate on paper, tape is actually one of the most inefficient ways to back up your data. In a worst-case scenario, you could lose as much as an entire day’s worth of data, and it could take hours to fully restore operations. Of course, all of this is still assuming that the natural disaster or data loss event wasn’t also enough to destroy the tape that you rely on to initiate a restoration. All of these combined factors make for a horribly inconvenient and difficult way to back up and restore data.
The ideal solution to your business’ data backup and disaster recovery woes is to implement a cloud-based backup and disaster recovery (BDR) tool from Catalyst Technology Group. Cloud-based data backups can happen more frequently because they take advantage of what are known as snapshot-based backups. These backups only occur for information that has changed since the last one was taken, which means you get more frequent backups throughout the day–often as every fifteen minutes. Since you’re taking backups more often, you will lose minimal data during a disaster. Plus, your data will be stored both on-site and in the cloud, ready to go for whenever you need it most.
The greatest asset that cloud-based BDR provides is that it can be restored to any connected device–including the BDR device itself–in the event of a hardware failure or similar disaster. This means that you’ll experience minimal downtime, which is a considerable benefit in itself. You won’t have to worry about finding a new server to replace your old one–at least, not right away. It provides your business with the sustainability to keep operations moving as intended, even under the worst circumstances imaginable.
To learn more about BDR, reach out to Catalyst Technology Group at (317) 705-0333.
According to Survey, IoT Use is Up While Trust is Down
While the Internet of Things has increased in use, that doesn’t mean that its users necessarily trust it just yet. Furthermore, many of these users aren’t fully aware of the actual extent that the IoT has in their lives. These results, from a recent survey by Cisco, could be pertinent to your business and how you manage it. With so many new devices connecting to your network, how can you expect them to affect operations?
Cisco’s survey covers 3,000 North American adults with at least some knowledge of IoT devices. As such, it provides a lot of great information about how businesses and consumers respond to the Internet of Things. Most consumers aren’t necessarily aware of just how far-reaching the Internet of Things can be, even if they use them on a regular basis. In fact, the Internet of Things includes devices that might not have traditionally benefited from a connection to the Internet. Some of these are car navigation systems, street lamps, security systems, and health-monitoring devices.
Most users knew about some of the more familiar and useful Internet of Things devices, but others were amazed by some of the more unusual IoT devices out there. Even though there are disparities in awareness, users generally responded positively to Internet-connected devices, provided they knowingly used them. 53 percent of users claimed that connected devices provided an easier way of life, while 47 percent found that their lives were more efficient with them. 34 percent of users also argue that Internet of Things devices have made them feel more secure.
However, the real kicker of this survey is that only 9 percent of respondents could say that they felt their data was more secure or private thanks to the Internet of Things. Furthermore, 14% of users felt that the way their data was being used wasn’t transparent enough for their liking, which is certainly a major concern. Even if the device helps you, you still have to worry whether or not it’s compromising your security.
Despite these suspicions, it’s likely that the Internet of Things is going to continue growing. Therefore, you must make sure that your company is taking IoT devices into account around your office. Implementing a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) strategy is the best way to make sure that your business is always aware of devices found on the company network. Implementing such a policy ensures that your business has a plan for personal devices in the workplace, and it can help to limit the damage done by them in the event of an incident.
Catalyst Technology Group can help your business prepare for the Internet of Things. To learn more, reach out to us at (317) 705-0333.
Get the Best of Both Worlds with a Managed Private Cloud
The cloud is a great asset for any business, whether you’re a major enterprise or a small family-owned operation. However, there are different types of hosted solutions, and they all offer various benefits and hindrances for your business. What’s the best type of cloud for your organization, and how can you protect the security and integrity of the data stored in it?
There are generally three types of clouds: public, private, and hybrid. Each of these has their own distinct benefits, and depending on the type of business you run, you might be more inclined to select one over the other.
Public
There are many reasons for a small business to select a public cloud as its preferred solution. For one, it removes the responsibility of management and maintenance from your company’s shoulders, allowing you to focus on operations. It has gotten to the point where public cloud solutions are both affordable and quite secure (for the most part), which means that even small businesses with limited budgets can take advantage of the basic aspects of a public cloud-hosted solution.
The main issue that businesses have with public clouds is that they don’t have as much control over their data–or the management of it. Basically, the public cloud is secured and maintained by those hosting it, which limits the ability of companies to implement secondary or more advanced security features. Consider whether your organization wants and needs this additional customization and security before investing in a public cloud.
Private
A private cloud, however, is generally hosted in-house on your company’s hardware, which enhances the security of your cloud system. As long as you have the computing resources, you can customize and control your cloud solution as you see fit. This is the preferred method of cloud management for organizations that have in-house teams dedicated to maintaining advanced computing infrastructures.
Of course, for companies that don’t have internal IT departments, the lack of regular maintenance and management can lead to wasted resources and crippling disasters. If you don’t take care of your technology, it can come back to bite you when you need access to it most. Thankfully, there is a middle-ground solution that works for both small businesses and larger enterprises: a managed private cloud.
Our Managed Private Cloud Solution
Small businesses can take advantage of a private cloud solution without the need to maintain the server hardware or other technology required, and it’s all thanks to modern managed IT solutions. Catalyst Technology Group can help your company implement an on-premise private cloud solution that we can remotely monitor and maintain. This keeps you more focused on daily operations and less on what could potentially go wrong. Since you have talented technology professionals working on your systems, you can keep operations moving forward relatively worry-free. Of course, if any issues do crop up, we will tend to them as needed.
If you’d rather your office didn’t have to worry about an in-house infrastructure, we can help you with that as well. We can partition off a portion of our in-house infrastructure to host your managed private cloud solution. Or for organizations that want the security of a private cloud with the cost reduction that often comes with a public cloud, we can set up a hybrid cloud interface. This will enable you to both manage and maintain the core computing construct of your business, while taking advantage of offsite resources for less-important parts of your computing infrastructure. All you will need is access to the Internet, and we’ll take care of the rest.
To learn more about hosted private cloud solutions from Catalyst Technology Group, reach out to us at (317) 705-0333.
How the Business Software Alliance Will Come After Your Business
As a business owner, you should know that you shouldn’t abuse the software licenses that your business relies on to function, or use pirated software to fulfill that need. While there are many people do such things, the response from software companies in an attempt to stop such activities has created a system that can award those who exploit it.
First off, we want to make it clear that we don’t condone software piracy or the use of pirated software. Having said this, we also can’t–in good conscience–condone the strategies used by those who fight software piracy, either. A prime example is the track record of BSA | The Software Alliance.
Who We are Dealing With
BSA is the title of an international advocacy group that fights for the proper licensing of software solutions meant for business purposes. Members of this group include many well-known faces, including IBM, Adobe, Trend Micro, Apple, and Microsoft. According to the organization’s website, BSA “pioneers compliance programs that promote legal software use and advocates for public policies that foster technology innovation and drive growth in the digital economy.”
Admittedly, this mission seems perfectly fine, even admirable, at first glance. However, BSA undermines their mission statement through the tactics they have been known to use to accomplish their less-publicized, primary goal: stomping out pirated software by any means necessary, while making any business that possesses unlicensed software pay a hefty, hefty fine.
Using Social Media to Bribe Their Target Audience
BSA targets businesses that are “under suspicion” of using unlicensed software. However, for them to do so, there needs to be a reason to suspect these businesses in the first place.
To get this “probable cause,” of sorts, BSA has historically turned to social media. Using the marketing platforms supplied by the social media sites, BSA once directly targeted their audience, promising a cash bounty to those who turned over a business that used pirated software. There is even a Facebook page devoted to this campaign that seems to have been abandoned, but still provides evidence that BSA was speaking to a very specific audience: the employees of the businesses that BSA was after.
After all, who would know better than an employee whether or not a business was using a piece of software with less-than-legitimate origins?
The trajectory of these campaigns has gone from blatant to subliminal, as BSA started off by running advertisements that encouraged an employee to “Nail your boss. Report Software Piracy.” More recently, BSA has used more targeted social media efforts to focus in on employees like yours, encouraging them to turn you in for your assumed software piracy in exchange for a cash bounty. These bounties are scaled to the amount in damages that the reported company pays BSA according to their settlement.
If someone were to blow the whistle on a company and the settlement came out to something between $ 15,000 to $ 100,000, they could receive a bounty of up to $ 5,000. However, if the company in question was on the hook for $ 15,000,000 or more, the whistleblower could see as much as $ 1,000,000 coming their way.
The thing is, according to BSA, the organization “reserves the right to deviate from that schedule in its sole discretion.” This means that, even if someone blew the whistle and reported a company that had to pay well over $ 15,000,000, BSA could decide to collect that money and stiff the whistleblower.
Why This Should Be Worrisome to You
If you’re the one responsible for the pirated software being on the system, you’re the one who is going to be held responsible. However, if one of your employees is responsible for pirated software being on the system, guess who is considered responsible then?
Still you.
This is still the case if an employee uses the same software license on numerous devices within your business. What’s worse, if an employee who had done such things was ever to leave with a grudge, they could still be the one to report you.
So, if Pete ran a company, and Paul ran his IT, Pete would be the one that the BSA would go after if Paul installed pirated software on his network. In fact, if Pete was fined $ 25,000, Paul could expect a payout of a couple thousand dollars for an issue that he himself was responsible for causing.
Solving this Problem
First and foremost, you need to make sure that your network is completely free of unlicensed software. The way to achieve this is to run a comprehensive audit to identify and eliminate the kind of software that would interest BSA. As a result, even if BSA reached out, you could confidently welcome them in knowing that you wouldn’t be tripped up by something an employee did, either with malice or unintentionally.
For help with this audit and the removal of any unlicensed software there may be on your network, give Catalyst Technology Group a call at (317) 705-0333.
Tip of the Week: Your Productivity Doesn’t Depend on the Internet
It is an expectation for the modern business to rely on the Internet in order to complete its daily function. As a result, anytime there is an Internet outage, many employees may find themselves lacking purpose or direction. However, a lack of Internet doesn’t have to mean a lack of productivity. For this week’s tip, we’ll review some ways your staff can be productive without an Internet connection.
Keeping Things Organized
Office clutter happens. It is the natural side effect of a team being focused on getting task after task completed. If the files on your local network need some reorganization, or the workspace itself needs a little TLC, an Internet outage provides an ideal time to tidy things up a bit.
A tidy workspace will benefit the organization as a whole, as well as each employee. After all, the fewer distractions that an employee has on their desk, the easier it is for them to stay focused (and the easier it is for someone else to find a resource should that employee be away from the office that day).
Furthermore, it is much easier for one to find things in an organized closet or cabinet than one that has everything thrown in and piled up without any rhyme or reason, which translates to saved time. Using the time that the Internet is down to go through your storage and organize it will allow you to achieve an important task without sacrificing another.
If you can still access your internal network’s data storage, an Internet outage also presents the opportunity to reorganize this storage space as well. Using folders to organize the files on your desktop into a logical system of categorization will also help you to find them later when they can be used to achieve something.
Team Building
While technology has enabled businesses and their employees to experience greater connectivity than ever before, this has also contributed to the seemingly opposite effect of creating some barriers between team members as well. After all, it is much harder to build the interpersonal relationship that develops into the synergism that you want and expect from your team when most of their communication takes place through a screen. Additionally, this synergism will often have a positive benefit when collaboration is part of your team’s responsibilities. Therefore, it only makes sense to encourage the development of these interpersonal relationships when the Internet doesn’t allow for typical workplace duties to be completed.
As they wait for their Internet access to come back, your team can hold meetings that don’t need the Internet in order to be run. These meetings could even be relatively simple brainstorming sessions where new ideas can be shared freely. Alternatively, you might encourage your teams to reach out to departments they don’t often do business with in order to get to know the other people who work alongside them.
This can benefit management as much as it benefits the workforce. If you and the rest of your management team reach out to employees with the intent of getting to know each other better, you can better shape your management style. By doing so, you encourage your employees to be more engaged and communicative, and you can personalize your approach to each employee for the highest impact.
Mobile Devices
While there are times that an improperly used mobile device can be a detriment to office focus and productivity, there are also times that these devices, leveraged properly, can be your best bet if you want productivity to be preserved. Mobile devices provide the chance that, if your business’ Internet should fail, your employees could continue their work. With the right proactive planning, your workforce could continue their tasks through the use of their own mobile data, with reimbursement dictated by a Bring Your Own Device strategy, or on a device that your company provides. If you’d like help in developing any of these measures, Catalyst Technology Group can provide that assistance.
In the meantime, what do you do to help stay productive when the Internet fails? Share some of your ideas with us in the comments!
4 Resolutions to Keep Your Business Secure in 2018
With every new year comes great new opportunities, and 2018 is no different. However, change can be a good thing, and with a new year also comes more perspective and knowledge that you can use to make considerable improvements to the way you run your organization. Here are four ways that you can use developments in cybersecurity to help your business succeed in the new year.
Monitor Endpoint Security
One of the first things you need to check is how secure your endpoints are. By endpoints, we’re talking about any employee devices or workstations that access your business’ network. You need to ask yourself if your employees are using these endpoints as securely as possible. Do they have permissions that they need (or don’t need)? Do they misuse any permissions that they do have? These are all questions that will clue you in as to how secure your endpoints really are.
Your network security starts with your end users, and any risky situations that they find themselves in can reflect on your network. Your employees should understand how their actions can impact the way that your organization functions as a whole. In the same train of thought, your employees should understand the proper way to use devices, usernames, and passwords, so that hackers can take advantage of as few endpoints as possible. If you lose any employees, be sure to revoke their permissions so that you minimize the risk of unmonitored accounts becoming dangerous endpoints.
Apply Updates and Patches
One of the best ways to ensure network security is to keep your patches and security updates implemented as soon as possible. Cybercriminals and malware developers are always trying to overcome the security of software solutions commonly used by businesses and individuals. To counteract these malicious intentions, software developers are always fixing flaws that surface in a (hopefully) timely manner. Unless you implement these patches and security updates, you’re putting your business at risk.
Patching and updating your software solutions is the only way to make sure that your company is as secure as possible from threats. If you don’t take action now, you could very well be putting your company at risk of a data breach. You need to regularly patch your software solutions to make sure that hackers can’t take advantage of the latest bugs to infiltrate your organization.
Keep a Positive Attitude
Some of these resolutions might feel like you’re focusing too much on the negative, but there is always room to focus on the positive. Use your imagination a little bit and focus on what kinds of attacks you could potentially see against your business in the future. How would you protect from these attacks? You always want to make sure that you’re considering the best-case scenario.
To attain this standard, you want to take an honest look at what you’ll need to go one year without a cyber attack. You should then work toward this idealistic goal.
Cover Your Basics
Forgetting about simple security tactics can be the downfall of your business. Be sure to always follow password security requirements so that you can keep threats out of your network and accounts. Furthermore, you should implement two-factor authentication to make each hacker’s job even more difficult.
You should always be keeping your team in the loop, as well, ensuring that they know about any changes to procedure or new solutions implemented. Do you have any questions about how to optimize security in the new year? Let us know in the comments.
2018 is Expected to See $96 Billion in IT Security Investments
If you were considering increasing your investment into your information security in 2018, you certainly aren’t alone. Gartner released a report that indicated a considerable rise in plans to invest in key security considerations.
Closer analysis of these considerations shows that businesses around the world are paying attention to essential security requirements that have seen relatively smaller portions of budgetary spending in the past, as well as increasing their security investments as a whole. For example, while identity access management sees the smallest amount invested, it is anticipated that there will be an increase in spending of 9.7 percent between 2017 and 2018.
In addition, spending on network security, security services, and infrastructure protection is expected to rise by 6.7 percent, 11 percent, and 7.7 percent, respectively.
Why? Simply put, 2017 was a rough year, in terms of security breaches and other attacks. Worldwide events, like WannaCry and NotPetya, have shown the importance of comprehensive network security preparations. Another recent reinforcement of this lesson came when the Equifax breach came to light. As is usually the case when a certain something hits the metaphorical fan, businesses are taking notice.
However, if these projections prove accurate, it may still not be enough.
With technology becoming more and more critical to business operations with every week that goes by, cybersecurity is only going to become more important–important enough that an overall spending increase of 8% might not be enough of an investment. After all, technology is becoming a factor in more and more elements of life, which gives a botnet more ammunition–and that’s just one example.
Fortunately, many businesses are also planning on outsourcing their security needs to experienced and trusted professionals. Spending on that is expected to increase by 11%. Will some of this increase be due to your investment?
If it is, reach out to Catalyst Technology Group first. Our IT professionals are adept in ways to keep your business secure, as well as ways to improve your business’ performance. Give us a call at (317) 705-0333 for more information.
20-Year-Old Exploit Finds New Life as ROBOT
There is no shortage of threats on the Internet, from situational issues to deliberate attacks meant to damage your company or steal your valuable data. While new threats pop up almost every day, some have been around for some time–so long, that many seem to not consider them as viable threats.
This can be seen in many considerably-sized Internet companies, including the likes of Facebook and PayPal, which recently tested positive for a vulnerability discovered in 1998 that enabled encrypted data to be decrypted.
When it was first discovered by researcher Daniel Bleichenbacher, this exploit was found in the secure sockets layer, or SSL, encryptions that protected (and still protect) many web platforms and websites. The algorithm that powers the RSA encryption has a flaw that permits a hacker to decrypt ciphertext without the key. The error messages that the encryption presents give hackers enough information to crack it.
As it would happen, instead of eliminating and reworking the flawed RSA algorithm, the SSL architects at the time simply created workarounds to limit the error messages.
This crypto-vulnerability, codenamed “Oracle,” provides “yes” and “no” answers to queries. This means that cybercriminals can phrase their queries specifically enough to ultimately retrieve enough information to form a detailed picture of the encrypted contents. This method is referred to as an adaptive chosen-ciphertext attack.
Recently, researchers have discovered that this vulnerability can be found on over a quarter of the 200 most-visited websites on the Internet, and on around 2.8% of the top million. Naturally, this includes Facebook and PayPal.
Researchers explained the oversight of what is now being called ROBOT, or Return Of Bleichenbacher’s Oracle Threat, as the result of too much focus being directed towards new threats, and the older ones being neglected as a result. As they said in a blog post:
“The surprising fact is that our research was very straightforward. We used minor variations of the original attack and were successful. This issue was hiding in plain sight. This means neither the vendors of the affected products nor security researchers have investigated this before, although it’s a very classic and well-known attack.”
These researchers sent their findings to vulnerable sites before going public so that a patch could be created.
Having a comprehensive understanding of the threats that are poised to damage your business will greatly help you keep it secured. We can help. For more information, reach out to Catalyst Technology Group today at (317) 705-0333.
ALERT: Your Business’ Infrastructure May Be Susceptible to Meltdown/Spectre Vulnerability
You’d think that Intel would make sure their firmware is of sound integrity, but unfortunately, a recently discovered vulnerability has revealed that it’s not as secure as previously thought. The issue involving Intel’s chips could potentially lead to a permanent nosedive for your CPU’s capacity to perform as intended, which could have disastrous implications for your business.
An unknown blogger calling themselves Python Sweetness describes the issue as “an embargoed security bug impacting apparently all contemporary CPU architectures that implement virtual memory, requiring hardware changes to fully resolve.”
The bug found complicated the way that various programs interacted with the CPU. Ordinarily, your CPU will have two modes. Kernel offers a complete “carte blanche” access to the computer or user. This is supposed to be considered the safe mode for your CPU, but Python Sweetness has found that this bug lets programs run through user mode access kernel mode. What this ultimately allows for is the potential for malicious programs to access a user’s hardware–a scary thought indeed.
A fix has been developed that mitigates the issue to a small dip in system performance (approximately 2 percent), which is a much smaller price to pay compared to allowing hackers to influence your hardware itself. Originally, it was thought that the processes would be placed on the kernel mode, then shift back to the user mode as needed, but this process slowed down the system. A new Windows update has resolved the CPU problems, even though most professionals thought that a hardware change was the only way to solve it.
If you have a PC with Windows 10 and an antivirus that supports the patch, you should already have the fix implemented. You should make sure to confirm this by navigating to Settings > Update & Security. Once you’ve done so, make sure you also review your update history and find Security Update for Windows (KB4056892), or check with your antivirus provider to find out when it will be supported, the patch will not install until it sees that the antivirus has been updated to a version that the vendor verifies supports this patch.
Android device users should have had this issue mitigated by an update pushed on January 5, with other updates incoming to strengthen these protections. Phones that fall under the Google brand, including the Nexus and Pixel phones, should have received patches already, with other Android devices soon to be patched as well. You should check your phone to see, and if you haven’t received one, put pressure on your carrier on a visible forum.
Google Chrome should be updated on January 23, and the other browsers should soon follow, with additional mitigations. Until then, you should ask IT to activate Site Isolation to keep potentially malicious sites from harvesting your data from your other browser tabs.
Other devices (like NAS devices, smart appliances, networking equipment, media equipment, etc.) may also be at risk, as they are using cursory hardware. It’s really important for business owners to have their entire infrastructure reviewed and audited.
These types of problems are one of the best reasons to have a managed service provider as part of your IT management and maintenance infrastructure. Catalyst Technology Group keeps a close eye on the latest in network security, including any new threats to your business’s data or patches that need to be implemented. We’ll do whatever it takes to keep your business’s technology as secure and up to date as possible.
Your business won’t have to worry about any aspect of IT maintenance, and we can even help your internal team with implementation projects or technology support aspects of running your organization. To learn more, reach out to us at (317) 705-0333.