ATECH MSP Blog

At the end of January, the Federal Bureau of Investigation went public with an announcement that they had taken down the servers and Dark Web sites utilized by the Hive ransomware gang. This is a major victory, in terms of fighting cybercrime, but a certain statistic from this operation shows a somewhat disconcerting trend.

It isn’t easy to run a small business, and a lot of this difficulty comes from the fact that, as an owner of a small business, you have some limitations that dictate how your business can be run. For many businesses, one of these is a budgetary one. If you are going to stabilize your costs, you need to know that the investments you make are going to work. One way a managed services provider accomplishes this is through remote monitoring and maintenance.

Back in the early days of wireless Internet connectivity, setting up your router was a challenge. Fortunately, this is no longer the case, and it’s a pretty simple process. However, that is not to say that there aren’t better ways of doing things as compared to others. Let’s go over a few things that you’ll want to address as you’re setting up your wireless router.

Even the most technology-literate of your average employees is not going to have the knowledge needed to manage and maintain your entire business infrastructure, and you shouldn’t expect them to, either. It takes a special kind of attention and training to manage complicated enterprise-level technology, but how can you make sure your business has access to these important resources?

In recent months, publicly-accessible AI tools have ignited interest in using artificial intelligence amongst businesses, and for good reason. While these tools are very, very limited in what they can do—which we will discuss here for sure—they still show enormous potential.

However, this potential introduces a few major questions to the conversation. Let’s examine some of them.

Passwords, as annoying as they are sometimes, are the front line of defense to almost every account and profile your business depends on. That doesn’t stop security professionals from trying to develop better strategies to secure digital systems. Some of the biggest names in tech are searching for ways to forge ahead passwordless. Let’s take a look at one example that has drawn the attention of the tech community.

We write in a lot of general terms about technology, whether it’s how to secure your infrastructure, procure hardware, or implement software solutions for your network, and that is for one very specific reason: each business is different and has different needs. We thought today that we would take you through some of the questions you might ask when thinking about the best approach to new technology in your office.

To sustain any type of relationship, there needs to be some open and clear communication. The worse communication is between two parties the more inefficiency there will be. Obviously, inefficiency can lead to disaster for any organization that depends on consistency so this month we thought we’d give you four ways to improve communication throughout your organization.

Love them or hate them, cutesy little acronyms like this just don’t have a place in business communications. However, for some people, they’ve become so habitual that they almost can’t help but use them everywhere. In light of this lack of meaning, one artist and tinkerer has devised a way to judge whether or not the “LOL” is sincere.

Technology is remarkably important to just about any business endeavor, so it stands to reason that you should be especially scrutinous with your IT spending so you get the most out of your investment. If the total cost of ownership breaches what you deem affordable, how can you expect to get a return on your investments? Let’s go over what your business needs and how that translates into costs for your company.

We are of the firm belief that data backup is crucial to the continued success of any business. It can be the differentiating factor for a business that is successful and one that less unfortunate circumstances knock them off the grid for good. You can invest in your business’ future with a solid data backup solution, even if it’s there simply as a preventative measure.

Business technology can actually be pretty simple. It can also be frustratingly—even maddeningly—complicated and create all types of problems for a business. In this month’s newsletter, we thought we would go through a couple of tips that can help you keep your technology simple.

It’s never a good time to deal with budget cuts, and unfortunately, due to its large costs and investments, technology management, maintenance, and infrastructure are often a victim of them. Let’s go over how you can lessen or mitigate the hit you take when dealing with an IT budget cut.

It was only a few decades ago that purchasing a couple of computers for a business was almost the same investment as purchasing a decent company van. In 1986, a business could spend $3500 on a single Compaq Portable II, which was a 24 lb monstrosity with a tiny 9-inch screen. Alternatively, a Chevy Astro Cargo Van cost about $7800 around the same year. 

Technology is not cheap, especially not business technology that has features that the average user might not find much value in. To help you keep your business from investing in the wrong solutions or spending unnecessary capital on solutions you won’t find useful, we’ve put together some of the common places where businesses like yours might accidentally waste hard-earned funds.

The world has become reliant on technology for countless tasks, even to the point where businesses and individuals alike depend on technology just to go about their daily tasks. The big question, though, is whether people are happier with all this technology in their lives. Let’s go over how technology has impacted society as a whole in relation to people’s feelings.

The telephone cemented itself as a valuable tool of business long ago, but the ways that businesses use these devices have changed over the years. Thanks to advancements in technology, telephones can still be used by businesses even today, albeit with some modern adjustments to stay competitive and useful. One of these telephony solutions is Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP for short.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are entering the mainstream technology discourse, and with software developing the ability to learn from datasets, many businesses are using this technology to automate their processes to cut down on costs and better use their current resources. There is a lot of good that comes from this, but only when you look past these benefits can you start to see the drawbacks, including an important one called “data poisoning.”

Despite not wanting to think about cybersecurity incidents derailing your operations, it’s important nevertheless to consider them before it’s too late to do anything about them. These days, businesses need to invest considerable capital into protections, including a cyber insurance policy to cover all of their bases.

Let’s discuss some of your options for cybersecurity insurance and what you’ll need to know to make the most informed decisions possible.

Social media can be difficult to navigate due to how overstimulating it can be. Sometimes it is beneficial to unfollow people or pages that are either no longer relevant to you or are not doing anything for your mental health. To help you detox your social media feed a little bit, let’s discuss how you can unfollow someone on Facebook.