How to Prepare Your Employees for Phishing Attacks

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Phishing attacks are no joke, especially for business owners. Phishing is when a criminal pretends to be a reputable company to trick you into revealing personal information. This is usually done through emails, and they’re usually after passwords. 

To prevent your business from falling victim to a phishing attack, you have to prepare your employees to combat it. With that in mind, here are four ways to go about that.

Check for Grammar Mistakes

Even though American businesses are usually targeted for phishing, the attacks originate from overseas. That means that English might not be the hacker’s first language. Tell your employees to keep this in mind as they look over any suspicious emails. If it contains misspelled words, poor punctuation, or awkward phrasing, it may be a phishing attempt. 

Phishing Scams Will Claim to Be Urgent

Phishing emails always want you to act as quickly as possible. They’ll tell you that an issue involving your credit card or password needs to be resolved immediately. If you or your staff read an email like that, take a second to analyze it. Then, remember that a reputable company probably wouldn’t try to rush you.

Be Cautious When it Comes to Phishing on Mobile Devices

Mobile devices aren’t as secure as desktops. Thus, that’s why they’re far more likely to be targeted. Communication apps like Skype, Slack, and Facebook Messenger are especially vulnerable. Additionally, tell your employees to ignore any suspicious messages received on their phones.

Have Good Dental Hygiene

Make sure your employees have good digital hygiene. They shouldn’t be posting any information on social media that hackers can use. These guys are used to utilizing tiny bits of information to amass gigantic attacks. However, if they don’t have that, they’ll be forced to try phishing anonymously. Those attacks are easier to defend against.

For more advice on combating attacks, contact us today. We offer specialized IT services to help your business succeed. 

Data Replication vs. Data Backup – Understanding the Difference

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Recently, the most cost-efficient data restoration mechanism available for SMBs was simply to ensure they maintained regular data backups. This was not necessarily ideal since any restored data came from a previous point in time, and the restoration process to recover data was potentially quite lengthy. This meant a business could be down perhaps even for several days, and any data that was recovered was even older. In this post, we will point out the differences between data backups and data replication and how data replication can now outperform traditional data backups in key areas.

Data Backups 

A traditional data backup is essentially a complete snapshot of a company’s data at one given point in time. While there certainly is value in maintaining a regular complete copy of all corporate data, traditional data backups have some less-than-ideal aspects. More and more businesses rely on their data to efficiently run their business. Thus, even losing a few hours’ worth of data can be quite catastrophic. Therefore, making the less-than-ideal aspects of traditional backups even more glaring.

In the past, the best a small or medium-sized company could hope for in the event of data loss was to restore their last backup. After the restoration process, they relied on manual entrance of their business data. This would bring them to the point just prior to the system failure. This entire process was time-consuming and prone to error.

Data Replication

Up until fairly recently, maintaining a near-mirror replication of company data in a remote location was affordable only for enterprise-level organizations. Now, with cloud-based replication, the costs associated with maintaining a cloud-based, real-time copy of all corporate data is becoming realistically affordable for even smaller businesses. With cloud-based replication, in the event of a system failure, even small companies can have a fresh, up-to-date copy of corporate data available to them within minutes.

If you would like to know more about real-time data replication, please contact us.

5 Ways to Step Up Your Company’s Cyber Security

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Cyber security is more important than ever in the world we live in today.

There are an increasing number of hackers who are eager to get into your company or small business’s information and use that information to do damage to either your company and/or your employees.

While no security system is completely foolproof, there are many measurable steps that your company can take to keep your information as safe as possible from those who would use it in a criminal manner.

Understand & Identify Cyber Security Threats & Evolving Defense

It’s no secret that there are more threats in the cyber world than ever before. That means that the “set and forget” mentality does not work now the way it did in the past. It is crucial that you instill good practices in your company ensuring that employees are aware of always updating security measures such as firewalls and antivirus software on your company computers and machines to keep your information as secure as possible.

You will also have to consider if employees work at an office location or work remotely as this will affect the types of safeguards that will serve each type of worker best.

The following are 5 great steps that you can take to start upgrading and increasing your company’s cyber security in an attempt to keep your company’s private and sensitive information as safe as possible:

1. Use the Power of the Cloud:

Many companies and businesses are finding out that the cloud is a very useful tool to use when it comes to protecting a company’s private information. Using the cloud allows the company or business to use app security services that help safeguard and protect their information better than they would be able to if they just stored it on (unprotected) electronic devices. It also allows you to only share sensitive information within your network of people who are authorized to access it. If you have security in place, you can investigate possible breaches early and catch these infractions so you can act on any threats to your security in a timely manner.

2. Create Cyber Security with a Unified Threat Management System:

Using a unified threat management system to help protect your company’s private information can help you avoid cyber security breaches. The main key to making this work is to have IT professionals who are specifically assigned and tasked with protecting the company’s information from such attacks. The best way most companies can do this is to outsource their IT work to an experienced company such as Bluwater Technologies. Using a third-party to help protect your information helps free up your employees to focus on other tasks and ensures that these employees at the IT firm have the proper knowledge, training, and certification to successfully implement this unified threat management system that they are using. This partnership can protect your information as closely as possible and help ensure that any breaches to your data are caught and handled immediately.

3. Invest in Quality IT Partners & Support:

There is a cost to hiring quality IT partners and support such as Bluwater Technologies to help manage your cyber security, however, that cost is a lot less than the cost of a severe cyber security breach would be. Allowing people who have the appropriate training and certifications to handle your business’s private information helps keep you safer than allowing employees to try to protect information on their own. Here at Bluwater Technologies, we are here to work with your business and protect your sensitive information to lower your risk of cyber security threats in the future!

4. Train Your Employees in Cyber Security:

In addition to outsourcing your unified threat management system through a partnership such as the one with Bluwater Technologies, train your own employees to spot cyber security threats on the devices they use each day. Having them report anything they may notice to IT specialists can help them catch any breaches that occur early or fix anything that may lead to a breach of information in the future. Emphasizing the protection of your company’s information and fostering good practices of protecting business information (i.e. Never leave unattended workstations unlocked, be sure to shred sensitive information, etc.) will help keep your information as safe as possible from cyber security threats and those who wish to use sensitive information to harm your company or business.

5. Create a Complete Business Training Program:

When you are creating a program to protect your company’s data, be proactive and include everyone from the top to the bottom of your company in the training. Ensuring that everyone knows proper practices to protect sensitive company information can help lead to less cyber security threats in the future.  This will include training employees in areas not specifically related to technology to spot threats as well. This would include employees in departments such as those that work with insurance or in human resources.

In the end, the best way to protect your company’s private information is to partner with a specialized IT company such as Bluwater Technologies whose job is to protect your company’s information from those who wish to use it to cause you harm.

Use Bluwater Technologies to Protect Your Business’s Information

Bluwater Technologies is a premier IT firm that has employees who are appropriately trained and have the credentials and knowledge as well as the experience to handle your company’s sensitive information and protect you from cyber security breaches. Our job is to protect your company and keep your information safe.

For more information on hiring Bluwater Technologies to protect your company’s private information, please feel free to contact us today.

Data Security Methods

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The internet is a commodity with several different ways of accessing it — but be careful. Although the internet is easy to access, one may be exposing personal information in ways that compromise data security.

Some of the most common ways that people can access the internet are through cellular technology, WiFi, and dial-up. However, dial-up internet users are dwindling. With the threat of cybercrime on the rise, these avenues through which the internet is accessed should be evaluated periodically for security holes by which criminals attempt to take advantage of the privacy of internet users. Evaluating data encryption (security) options and determining a budget for it can be daunting. Consider the scheme below to exemplify this point.

Password

Accessing the internet through WiFi can be done in one of two basic ways with regard to security. One way is if the WiFi network being used requires a password to access it. This password implies that data on the WiFi network is encrypted. Therefore protected from prying eyes, for the most part. However, once the data leaves that network and goes out to the internet, it can be open for anybody to see depending on the website being accessed — websites using addresses with the prefix ‘https‘ are safe to use (the ‘s‘ must be there). 

No Password

The second way of accessing the internet through a WiFi network is if no password is used. Data therein will be open for everyone to see all the way through to the destination. However, if the websites accessed use the ‘HTTPS in the prefix of the website address, the data will be protected all the way through. Regardless of whether a password is required to access the WiFi network.  

The above is simply stated regarding the security of WiFi data transfer. Even within this simple description, one can see that protecting computer data over a network and the internet can be complicated. Different networks used to access the internet, other than WiFi, can require different types of encryption protocols. This depends on what the needs of a user or business are.  It might be best to acquire the services of professionals to assist in the process. 

Please contact us for assistance in determining appropriate data security and transfer methods.

Five Essential Computer Maintenance Tips

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Computer Maintenance

Performing computer maintenance on your devices is a matter of both convenience and savings.

With proper maintenance, you’ll experience less downtime and fewer unexpected malfunctions, helping you work with greater efficiency and productivity. You’ll also save on the costs of major repairs or device replacement.

The following computer maintenance tips will help you prolong the life of any device:

  1. Clean it, and treat it gently. The chances that a device will break down increase if it’s kept in hot, humid, or dusty conditions, banged against hard surfaces, or covered in food particles or spilled liquids. Regularly clean your device, eat or drink next to it with caution, and handle it with care.
  2. Take care with what you install on it. For instance, if you’re downloading a file or an app, make sure it comes from a legitimate source, it’s compatible with your device, and it’s free of malware.
  3. Investigate suboptimal performance. Sometimes, a computing device may perform poorly because you’re taxing its resources. For example, a computer with relatively low RAM (the memory called on when you’re using various programs) will struggle more with software involving videos or graphics. However, always check the reasons for slow performance or other problems, such as a program crashing repeatedly. You may have to perform some sort of disk repair, or perhaps it’s a sign that your device is harboring a virus.
  4. Keep your device updated. Updated versions of software include fixes for previous problems, such as security holes that hackers can readily exploit. A device operating with outdated software is much more likely to get compromised by a cyber attack. (One example comes from the healthcare industry, where outdated technology is one of the major cybersecurity vulnerabilities.)
  5. Use a surge protector. If your device is plugged in during a storm, a surge protector can help defend it against a sudden sharp increase in power flowing through your electrical lines. Power surges can wreak havoc with hardware.

For additional computer maintenance advice, please contact us. We can help you maintain your devices by keeping them in good condition and detecting and resolving problems before they have a chance to become emergencies.