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Monthly Archives: May 2015
The Single Most Dangerous Assumption Businesses Make About Bank Security That Can Cause Them To Lose ALL Their Money
The Single Most Dangerous Assumption Businesses Make About Bank Security That Can Cause Them To Lose ALL Their Money
Here’s a shocker to most business owners: Your bank often can NOT reclaim money stolen from your bank account due to fraud or cyber-crime. That means if money gets drafted from your business bank account from a hacker, phishing attack, identity theft or by any other means, you have little to no chance of getting it back.
This often comes as a surprise to businesses who think the FDIC will “save” them from getting their accounts wiped out, and can get the money back once taken. The reality is that the FDIC insurance is to protect you from bank failure, NOT fraud. So if your debit card or account information gets accessed by a hacker and you don’t notice it within the same day, you can pretty much kiss that money goodbye.
Recent studies have shown that 83% of small businesses take no formal measures against cyberthreats even though almost half of all attacks are aimed at them.
Here are 5 essential steps you can take right now to protect your business:
1. Enforce A Strict Company Password Policy. This is a simple step, but it is still violated by many companies every day. Make sure that you and your employees change passwords regularly, don’t use the same password for all accounts and require complex passwords.
2. Set Up A Firewall. Small business owners tend to think that because they are “just a small business”, no one would waste time trying to hack into their network. The fact is that hackers will target the weakest link. Without a firewall, that “weak link” is YOUR company.
3. Designate A Banking-Only Computer. Banking fraud is one of the biggest threats to small business. The 2011 Business Banking Study showed that 56% of businesses experienced payment fraud (or an attempt at fraud) and 75% experienced account takeover and fraud online. By using a single computer solely dedicated to online financial transactions (no e-mail, web-surfing, Facebook, YouTube, etc.) it’s much harder for outsiders to gain access to your information.
4. Back Up Your Files Daily. It just amazes me how many businesses never back up their computer network. You can lose data as well as money in a cyber attack. Thanks to many new cloud based technologies, you can even schedule offsite backups to occur automatically. If the data in your business is important to you, make sure that you have more than one copy of it.
5. Educate Employees. You staff is the first line of defense AND your biggest security hole at the same time. Uneducated employees are one of the most common causes of data breaches. Make sure that they are aware of the do’s and don’ts for your company with regards to data security.
I hope you will find this post informative and useful. I am looking forward to hearing your comments. That’s all I have for today, until next time make it a great day!
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Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged "Tech Tips", Bank Security, business banking, Computer Support, Ener Systems, J. Michele Miller, Technology Tips
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5 Smart Tips To Know Before Moving Your Data To A Cloud-Based Application
5 Smart Tips To Know Before Moving Your Data To A Cloud-Based Application
Cloud computing is all the rage these days, and while some companies are moving their whole IT infrastructure to the cloud, many others are choosing to streamline their businesses by moving individual business applications.
If you are considering moving any of your company’s software applications “to the cloud,” make sure to consider these 5 tips BEFORE pulling the trigger:
1. Back It Up!
Migrating data to any new location is a mess, and anything can (and usually does) go wrong. Therefore, make sure you have good, recent backup copies of everything before you make the move.
2. Maintain An On-site Copy
At first, moving to the cloud can be a bit scary. What can help mitigate the risk (and the fear) is keeping a local, on-site copy of your data and network image on an NAS (network-attached storage) device. That way you have a local on-site copy in addition to the working cloud copy.
3. Have A “Plan B” To Access The Internet
One of the biggest questions about moving IT to the cloud is “What if the Internet goes down?” To mitigate that fail point, have a business-class Internet connection as your initial and main way to connect, and then also have a second Internet connection service as a backup. If Charter/Cox is your main connection, you might consider keeping a Verizon wireless account as a backup.
4. Use It As An Opportunity To Do Some Housekeeping
You could just copy and paste your files from your local machines into the cloud, but why not take this as an opportunity to reevaluate the structure and organization of that data? Here are some ideas:
• Reevaluate and/or update your file-naming conventions and file organization. A good file-naming policy will make it much easier to find files and information. Also, consider reorganizing all the folders into smarter, more efficient categories.
• Consider who will be using what and what levels of permissions are required to access files. Revisiting your permission levels will help keep sensitive data from falling into the wrong hands.
• Look at old files and consider deleting them or archiving them so they aren’t cluttering up your server and costing you money for storing and backing them up.
5. Phase The Move
Don’t try to migrate everything all at once. Create a transition plan and implement it. Make sure you move your files in bite-size pieces so the changes are easy to digest for your clients, employees, partners and everyone else involved. This also gives you the opportunity to test the water before taking the plunge, and it allows you to put out one fire at a time instead of having all systems down or broken.
I hope you will find this post informative and useful. I am looking forward to hearing your comments. That’s all I have for today, until next time make it a great day!
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Tagged "Tech Tips", Cloud, Cloud Application, cloud computing, cloud-based, Computer, Ener Systems, J. Michele Miller, Technology, Technology Tips
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