ATECH MSP Blog

With the addition of end-to-end encryption to Google’s Android Messages application, we have a perfect opportunity to discuss the concept of encryption and why it is so important. Let’s dive right in, shall we?

The concept of dark mode has saturated the technological ecosystem and consciousness and is being incorporated by software and hardware vendors alike. Although embraced by vendors and users as a needed feature, the question remains, is there a benefit to dark mode?

Often smartphones are a double-edged sword for businesses: on one hand, they are a great money saver if an employee is willing to use their own for business purposes, but this does leave your business vulnerable in a few ways. Fortunately, if the benefits are something you can't function without, the vulnerabilities are simple enough to shore up with something called mobile device management.

Over the week of June 14, a lot of applications and websites experienced outages, creating problems for many companies until it was resolved. Not only did these outages create business continuity issues, they’ve also exposed just how vulnerable the Internet is to these kinds of issues. Let’s take a look at what happened.

Network security isn’t just for large, high-profile enterprises; even small businesses need to take it seriously. All businesses have something of value to hackers, and if you don’t believe this is the case for your organization, think again. All data is valuable to hackers, and you need to do everything in your power to protect it—especially against threats like Agent Tesla, the latest version of phishing malware designed to steal your data.

The small business has been really hit hard recently and has been doing some hand wringing about their future IT investments. One of the major considerations is: do you keep your computing resources onsite or do you look to the cloud? Today, we will take a look at this very question.

A recent surge of high-profile ransomware attacks strikes again with an assault on the world’s largest meat processor and distributor, JBS S.A. The cyberattack was so disruptive that the company was forced to suspend operations in both North America and Australia, leading to a considerable impact on the supply chain. Let’s take a deeper dive into what lessons can be learned from this situation.

We are consistently adamant that businesses have a comprehensive data backup strategy to help secure its operational continuity. The threat environment in which we find ourselves at the present time only reinforces the importance of such a backup strategy. This month we thought we’d take a few minutes to review what makes a business’ backup platform comprehensive. 

It’s no secret that software often does not work as intended. Developers frequently discover bugs and patch them out. The same can be said for security vulnerabilities. Despite the importance of these updates, small businesses often fail to implement these patches and updates in a timely manner, a practice which can lead to more problems down the road.

Technology adoption can be a major issue for many businesses, mostly due to the variable costs of adding new technologies to a business’ cache of technology tools. For smaller businesses, adding new technologies that will allow them to compete with larger businesses can be even more difficult. Let’s take a look at the adoption gap between larger businesses and smaller businesses and why they are having a hard time closing it. 

The situation surrounding the hack against Colonial Pipeline has only become more complex as new information has come to light, each new discovery providing more insights and potentially actionable takeaways. Let’s examine some of the biggest developments surrounding the attack, and what they will likely mean for overall cybersecurity from this point forward.

When you started your business, you had a specific goal in mind. You wanted to prove something, to create something worth sharing with the world. We all have goals and aspirations, but it’s not always clear what the best path toward those goals is. Using a simple framework, you can maximize your odds of success and set great goals that you are much more likely to achieve long-term.

Many organizations are pushing for two-factor authentication, and it is easy to see why. The benefits are so great and the risks so devastating (and unnecessary) that there is no good reason to not implement two-factor authentication. Let’s discuss what two-factor authentication is, why it matters, and how you can set it up for your Microsoft, Google, and Apple accounts.

Mobile technology has permeated the workplace in countless ways. Many businesses will provide company-owned devices, be they laptops or smartphones, to employees so they can get work done while out of the office. This brings several opportunities for productivity into focus, but it also highlights some of the many risks associated with mobile devices.

Businesses are always looking for a way to be more effective. Whether that be avoiding operational hiccups, cutting costs, or anything else that aids them in an effort to provide a superior product or service. For businesses that take advantage of dynamic technology solutions in efforts to enhance productivity through collaboration and automation, keeping the platform that fuels those initiatives managed and maintained is important. No organization is situated to effectively do that better than an IT services provider. 

Whether you take advantage of it or not, the cloud is a major part of most businesses’ IT infrastructures—especially with the ongoing pandemic, which has kept many workers out of their offices and off of the in-house network. If your business is one of the few that has managed to stay afloat without the cloud, let’s change that. With a high-quality cloud solution, you can future-proof your business in ways you may not have considered.

The cloud is a great tool that lets businesses of all industries and sizes revisit the way operations are handled, but it’s not always clear what the best approach is for your specific business. What are some ways that you can utilize the cloud, and why is it so important that you start thinking about these benefits now?

For all the time we spend promoting productivity-enhancing technologies, we’d be remiss if we didn’t address the source of quite a bit of inefficiency: the user. People get distracted from their tasks all the time and the bounceback rates from these distractions aren’t great. Let’s go over a few tips that you and your team can use to help identify and avoid distractions throughout the workday.

Business continuity is difficult to talk about for some business owners, specifically because no one likes to talk about the worst case scenario. What would you do if your business were to suddenly go through a disaster? Do you have a plan in place? If not, let’s talk about that. Here are some aspects of business continuity that you must consider. Remember; your company’s future depends on it!

Most companies have some sort of regulation they need to stay compliant to, and 2021 seems to be a landmark year. Over the past year, companies have had to deal with a growing remote workforce, end-of-life upgrades, the development of new privacy laws, as well as the existing regulatory landscape. Let’s take a look at why compliance is important for your business.