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Will These Tech Trends Take Off in 2020?

As 2019 makes its exit, everyone in the tech industry is starting to look ahead to what the future holds. 

One of the best ways to protect your business while staying ahead of the competition is knowing which obstacles or innovations are coming. So, which tech trends will dominate 2020? Let’s look at some of the trends we think will become popular next year.

The Cloud Continues Gaining Acceptance

Over the last couple of years, businesses started moving away from purchasing expensive computer programs and on-site data storage models every couple of years in favor of cloud subscription services. More companies realize that the cloud is a better, faster, less expensive and more resilient solution for their needs. According to a 2018 IDG survey, 73 percent of companies have at least one application in the cloud and that number will increase in 2020. 

Hackers Will Get Smarter

With more companies opting for the cloud—or hybrid cloud—to run more of their business, data security is of the utmost importance. Companies are starting to see the light that ransomware is a significant issue that can’t be ignored. While the cloud automatically updates with the latest security measures, that doesn’t mean hackers will stop trying to steal people’s data. There are many ways hackers can get into your network, including human error, so proper training and security are essential.

The Decline of Company Apps

How many apps do you have on your phone but hardly ever use? Companies may be moving away from the dedicated app model in favor of cloud-based progressive web apps. Progressive web apps are web pages that include features, such as push notifications, that can be accessed via standard browsers. 

BYOD Will Be More Secure

Who wants to carry around two smartphones? As more millennial and Gen-Z employees join the workforce, there will be a higher demand to minimize the number of devices needed to get the job done. As mobile devices and tablets continue offering comparable features to desktop PCs, workers will want to do more from their personal devices. This push for the bring your own device (BYOD) model means mobile software security will be essential to accommodate this workplace trend. 

Don’t Fall Behind 

While we expect these trends to make a splash in 2020, there’s no guarantee of what the future holds. That’s why you have to be prepared for the unexpected. If your IT infrastructure is starting to show its age, then you’re opening your business up to threats. Get your IT ready for 2020. Contact us today to find a solution for your business. 

by Adrian Vasquez

Protect Your Business with 3 Gifts Ideas

The holidays are almost here and now is the time to start thinking about what you’re going to buy for the people closest to you. It’s also a good idea to think about the perfect gift for long-term business success. 

Instead of buying the newest computer, smart speaker or tech gadgets for your business, how about getting something you’ll enjoy for many days to come — peace of mind. How do you do that? By protecting your business from cybersecurity attacks. 

Companies of all sizes are doing more business electronically, which makes having the right security in place essential. Phishing and ransomware attacks are on the rise, and businesses need to protect themselves. According to Tech.Co, cyberattacks cost U.S. businesses $654 billion in 2018. So, how can you give your business peace of mind?

Here are three cybersecurity gifts to give your business this holiday season:

Two-Factor Authentication

Cracking passwords is a hacker’s way to try to gain access to your network. One way to beef up your security is by creating an extra layer of protection. Over the last few years, two-factor authentication has become the new standard in safety. With this security method, once you enter a program password, you’ll receive an email or text message with a code to verify that it’s you trying to get in. This means you’ll be alerted if someone is trying to break into your network. 

Automated Offsite Backup

When thinking about data security, redundancy is a good thing. Keeping regular backups of your essential business data is important to prevent data loss. However, to keep your business safe, your data needs to be kept in at least two separate physical locations, including one away from your primary location. That way, if a phishing or ransomware attack ever compromises your primary server, you’ll still have access to your data and keep working. 

New Software 

Are you still using old software to run your business? If so, you may need an upgrade ASAP. Microsoft Server 2008, Windows 7 and other products are reaching their end of service in January 2020, whether you’re ready or not. When a piece of technology reaches the end of life, that means no more updates. This exposes outdated tech to vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit. If you’re still using any of the Microsoft products reaching EOL, then it’s time for an upgrade.

How We Can Help 

While the burden of protecting customer’s data falls on your business, you don’t have to do it alone. Our team of cybersecurity experts can help select the right solutions to protect your business from bad actors. Contact us today to get peace of mind this holiday season. 

by Adrian Vasquez

The 4 Types of Data Breaches You Need to Know

If you were hit with a data breach, would you know?

It seems like a silly question, but companies take an average of more than 190 days to identify a data breach. Imagine the damage a hacker could inflict on your business in that time! Considering that the average data breach in the U.S. costs $7.91 million, it’s smart to know what you’re looking for, so you can quickly identify and contain the damage – minimizing the costs of lost data, lost productivity and noncompliance.

Here are the four major types of breaches you need to protect your business against:

Ransomware 

Ransomware attacks occur when a hacker takes your data hostage in exchange for a payment. This often means encrypting your data, so you can’t access or read it. For most businesses, this brings production to a standstill. Unfortunately, even paying the ransom may not resolve the situation. In 2018, 45 percent of U.S. companies that were hit by a ransomware attack paid the ransom, but only 26 percent of those companies had their files unlocked. 

Ransomware can be delivered through email, malicious websites or social media messages, among other avenues. Even if your data is restored, assume that any sensitive data on the affected machines has been compromised. 

Malware 

Malware is a more general term that includes attacks like spyware and viruses. Malware is generally designed with the goal of stealing information from your systems in one way or another. Viruses can even spread between the computers on your network. 

Unlike ransomware, which is usually detected right away, other forms of malware can cause months or years of damage before they’re detected. According to Verizon’s 2018 Breach Investigations report, 92 percent of malware is delivered by email. 

Phishing 

One of the most common forms of email malware is phishing attacks. In a phishing attack, a victim receives an email that seems to come from a trusted sender. In generic attacks, this might be someone like UPS or Apple. The recipient clicks a link or downloads an attachment, unintentionally downloading a virus onto their system. 

Some phishing attacks are even more targeted. They may appear to come from a source close to you, like your company’s leadership. This can be extremely difficult for your employees to recognize without proper security training.

Denial of Service (DoS) 

A Denial of Service (DoS) attack is designed to shut down a machine or network, making it basically inaccessible. Attackers accomplish this in two ways. One is a flood attack, where attackers flood the target with more traffic than the server can handle, causing it to slow down and eventually stop. Hackers can also exploit vulnerabilities that cause a system to crash. 

The goal is typically not to steal information, but to lock legitimate users, such as employees or customers, out of a system. You may have also heard news stories involving Distributed Denial of Service, or DDoS, attacks. DDoS attacks can cause more intensive damage, since the target is being attacked by multiple systems at multiple locations. 

Other Types of Data Breaches 

Not every breach comes from a hacker – there are other types of data breaches to be on the lookout for. Employees may accidentally cause a breach by viewing data they’re not authorized to handle, or by leaving a laptop or other device where it can be lost or stolen. Employees or other internal personnel may also act maliciously by downloading, sharing or erasing data with the intention of causing harm to a company. 

How We Can Help

Data breaches are constantly evolving and becoming more dangerous, but you can tackle them with help from a trusted security partner. Our security solutions shield your business from a broad spectrum of cyberthreats while we educate your team on best practices to avoid data breaches. If you’re ready to take your data security seriously, contact us now.

by Adrian Vasquez

How Are You Preparing for 2020’s Microsoft End-of-Support List?

If you’re like most businesses, you’ve been seeing notifications start to surface about a daunting change to your business. Coming January 14, 2020, Microsoft® will no longer be providing support for a long list of Microsoft products and solutions. These notifications can be easily closed, and users can even check the “do not notify me again” option.

Have you been ignoring them? Let’s look at why you shouldn’t, and how you can be fully prepared when End of Support becomes a reality this January.

What Does End-of-Support Mean?

This 2020 deadline marks the point at which any solutions on the list will no longer be supported by Microsoft, which means anyone still using these solutions will no longer be able to receive direct support from Microsoft. It also means your users might start running into less-than-ideal experiences. But neither of these issues are your biggest concern. The major risk of not updating your solutions is that you’ll be opening up your systems and users to significant risks. Without ongoing updates and patches from Microsoft support, your outdated solutions will leave the door wide open for security failures and serious compliance risks.

How Can You Prepare?

You have a few options if you’re a business customer. You can pay for extended support or buy Windows Virtual Desktop, but both of those options are an extra cost and even that extended support will have an expiration date.

Your final option is to choose to upgrade your Microsoft solutions, but that means:

• Creating and communicating an exit strategy for your existing solutions
• Upgrading all of your existing solutions
• Managing any training needed for users on upgraded solutions

It’s a lot to manage, and doing it right could mean a full-time resource dedicated to managing the exit, the upgrades and the proactive forward management of your solutions care. If you’re working with a small team or a small budget, it might be particularly tough to dedicate a single resource to your Microsoft solutions updates.

How We Can Help

If that sounds like a lot of work, it is. Thankfully, you don’t have to go it alone. We’re your partner in making this transition simple and seamless. Let us take on the entire process and any other IT support you’re looking for – while you focus on everything else your business needs for growth. Contact us today and let’s talk about how we can help.

by Adrian Vasquez

How Business Continuity Plans Differ from Disaster Recovery Plans

Nobody likes to think about worst-case scenarios when it comes to their business. Unfortunately, your company is susceptible to a wide variety of natural disasters, building structure fires and cybersecurity attacks. 

To be prepared for the worst, some companies create a disaster recovery plan to help get them back up and running. But what about a business continuity plan? 

One misconception is that if your company has a disaster recovery plan, then you don’t need a business continuity plan. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Here is why you need a business continuity plan and how it can help your company. 

What’s the Different Between These Plans?

A disaster recovery plan is the process to get your company’s IT operational following a cyberattack, human error, hardware failure, building fire or natural disaster.

Disaster recovery plans only focus on IT while a business continuity plan has a much broader scope. Business continuity plans are detailed outlines, including the procedures and instructions businesses need to follow to get back up and running following a crisis. Business continuity plans have contingencies for each aspect of your business, such as operational processes, assets, human resources, etc. 

How Business Continuity Plans Help Your Company? 

When disaster strikes, the longer your company is offline or nonoperational hurts your bottom line. According to Gartner, every minute your company IT is down cost $5,600 per minute. With those stakes, you don’t have time for a confused staff asking you, “What do we do?” 

With a business continuity plan in place, your company will know what to do if a crisis strikes. Key stakeholders will be able to direct others on what’s needed based on the severity of the crisis. 

What’s in a Business Continuity Plan? 

Several steps go into creating a well-rounded plan. 

• The first step is to conduct a business impact analysis. This is the time to take inventory of your resources, figure out which business functions will need to be addressed first to get the business running again and what resources will be required to do it. Click here to download FEMA’s free Business Impact Analysis worksheet.
• The next step is developing recovery strategies. These are plans that detail the steps needed to be taken to get the company back up to the minimum operating levels. Also, this is the step to address any potential gaps in your plan regarding resources, personnel or processes.
• The third step is developing a plan framework on how the continuity plan will be executed during a crisis. To help the plan run more efficiently for larger companies, organize a team comprised of people from each department to map out their department-specific continuity plans. 
• If you don’t have one already, this would also be a great time to draft an IT disaster recovery plan. Also, document any manual workarounds so your team can access key programs remotely in the event of the network going down.
• The final step is to test your plan. Conduct training and exercises so everyone knows what to do if a crisis occurs. If you find a gap or problem during training, update your plan accordingly and then test again.

How We Can Help

For small and medium-sized businesses, it can be a daunting task creating a business continuity plan from scratch. To help streamline this process, our team of experts walks you through every step, from completing a business impact analysis to testing and revising your plan. 

Don’t stress about the future of your business. Contact us to find out how we can help. 

by Adrian Vasquez

5 Tools to Improve Project Management

A study by Hive found that 77 percent of high-performing projects use project management (PM) software. Considering that fact, it’s a surprise that a survey by Wellingtone found only 22 percent of organizations have a PM software in place.

This means that, despite the benefits of leveraging a project management platform, the average business misses out on crucial success opportunities. A PM software solution gives you better visibility into and control over deployments, process changes and projects. Plus, it increases communication between your teams, improving productivity and removing implementation roadblocks.

But, how do you know which PM software solution is right for your business? Start with the pros and cons of the top five solutions:

Basecamp

Pros: Basecamp offers a separate dashboard to show clients, meaning you can collaborate with the team and discuss ideas while presenting polished plans of action to your clients. Plus, Basecamp is free to use for teachers and students.

Cons: While you can organize tasks into projects, you can’t link them to each other. This limits visibility between departments and team members unless you remember to tag team members into your task.

Asana

Pros: Asana is a simple-to-use platform that works best with small teams or simple projects. Each task is transparent and gives your entire department visibility into its progress and which team member is responsible for it.

Cons: It doesn’t accommodate complex projects and limits task assignees to one person. If too many tasks are created within the same project, the UI begins to slow down and hurts your productivity.

Trello

Pros: Trello provides a more visual approach to project management. When you create a task and assign it to a team member, that team member can drag and drop their notecard to change the status of the task.

Cons: If you have a lot of tasks under a single project, the dashboard becomes cluttered and overwhelming to look through. And, for a visual platform, it limits your visibility by not featuring an overview layout.

Jira

Pros: Jira lets you create epics, stories and tasks to keep your projects organized. You can prioritize your tasks and automate your workflow to make reassigning tasks a seamless experience. This platform also provides its own time-tracking feature.

Cons: While creating multiple tasks under a single project is helpful, it can quickly become cluttered, and its complex platform creates a sharper learning curve for your team.

Scoro

Pros: The only other time-tracking platform on this list, Scoro provides detailed reporting tools and safely stores all of your important information in one central place. It integrates your business calendar and meeting schedule to keep your team connected and provide visibility on availability.

Cons: The platform is a bit tricky to learn, and the number for their support team isn’t easy to find. Also, users are often overwhelmed with updates – from essential glitch fixes to unnecessary font changes.

While all of these project management software solutions provide a platform where you can create tasks, assign them to team members and monitor progress, some work for your business better than others.

For more information on project management solutions and how we can protect your PM software, contact us today.

by Adrian Vasquez

3 Reasons Your Business Needs a vCIO

“Should I let my employees use their personal devices for work?”

“Will this new solution be a game-changer or a waste of my money?”

“How do I defend my data against the next generation of cyber threats?”

If you’ve asked any of these questions, you’re not alone – trying to prepare for the future while balancing day-to-day responsibilities is a tough task for even the most dedicated business owners. Fortunately, you don’t have to be an IT expert to tackle these challenges. A virtual Chief Information Officer (vCIO) offers expertise in a flexible, cost-effective manner that suits small and medium-sized businesses.

Here are three reasons your business needs a vCIO:

Your employees need more flexibility.
If you have employees who work remotely, while traveling or from home after business hours, you have a mobile workforce – whether you’re equipped for one or not. You need processes in place to maximize their productivity and secure business data across corporate and personal devices. Virtual CIOs help you consider factors such as applications, support, ownership, security and communication policies to develop a strategy that fits your business. Cisco reports that companies with Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) processes save an average of $350 per year, per user – a vCIO can help you claim those savings for your organization with simple and secure access to data, tools and applications from any location.

New technology can solve your headaches.
Technology is constantly evolving, but as a business owner, you probably don’t have time to research every emerging technology – or the insight to understand which ones will produce long-term results and which are just fads. Virtual CIOs are plugged into the rapidly-changing world of technology and can help you identify new developments that reduce costs and increase efficiency. By thoroughly understanding your business’s pain points, they are in an ideal position to recommend solutions that will help your team now and into the future. A vCIO can also periodically evaluate your existing technology to discover new opportunities and assist with putting together a business case for new solutions.

Cyberattacks are on the rise.
The news is full of stories about the hacking of large companies – Marriott, Macy’s, The New York Times, and even tech companies such as Apple, Twitter, Facebook and Microsoft. Unfortunately, hackers don’t just target big companies – a study by Symantec found that 36 percent of recent attacks targeted businesses with fewer than 250 employees. No matter the size of your organization, security is an essential factor for all businesses. A vCIO oversees risk assessments, data protection, training awareness and third-party security practices to mitigate the possibility of attacks or breaches. They can also handle identity and access management to allow only authorized users to access sensitive corporate data.

Virtual CIOs can handle other challenges, such as helping you resume operations after a disaster, overseeing special initiatives and keeping your IT costs from ballooning. To discuss how a vCIO can impact your business, contact us today.

by Adrian Vasquez

Finding the Right Cloud-Based Collaboration Tool for Your Business

The cloud hosts hundreds of tools and applications designed to improve security and collaboration, streamline operations and project management, and enhance your existing solutions. But, knowing which cloud-based tools are right for your business is harder than you think.

From the cost of the application to how well it integrates with your current services, a lot goes into the decision of adopting a new app or tool. Ease the burden of researching hundreds of products by using our chart to compare some of the leading cloud-based collaboration tools.

Instant Messenger Solutions

While on the surface Slack looks like a more expensive choice, their free subscription offers a stripped-down option for an unlimited number of users. Their free and paid options leverage a variety of features including synchronization, data security and encryption, iOS and Android apps, file sharing and browsing, voice and video calls, webhooks and more.

HipChat may not have as many features as Slack, but it provides a solid communication option for small businesses or organizations on a limited budget. With features like screen and file sharing, synchronization, and voice and video calling, HipChat makes it easy to share ideas across an unlimited number of chatrooms. But, they only offer a free 30-day trial version before you’re faced with the decision to buy a monthly subscription.

Office Suite Solutions

Microsoft has been in the cloud-documents game a little longer than Google, and their subscription plans show it. From Office 365 Business Essentials to Enterprise E5, Microsoft has a plan for any size business. Office 365 offers 1TB of file storage per user – and that’s over and above email storage in Outlook. Due to its popularity, Office 365 integrates with most existing solutions and also provides Yammer and Stream as services in its package.

While G Suite counts email toward your storage space, their Business plan offers unlimited storage if you buy more than five user accounts. For the right business, that provides the most cost-effective solution. G Suite is also extremely scalable and doesn’t restrict your plans to the number of users. Plus, you gain the option to create both G Suite and Office 365 documents – giving you the best of both worlds for a single price.

Video Conferencing Solutions

Cisco Webex starts at a steep price for an annual subscription, but as a leader in security, Cisco brings a multi-layered security solution that keeps users protected and messages encrypted. Webex doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of Skype for Business, but it’s easy to navigate and provides a more reliable connection.

Skype for Business provides a variety of features from one-to-one video calls and voice messages to group screen sharing and more. With security solutions that keep unauthorized users out and data encrypted, you can feel safe conversing with clients, peers and prospects. Skype for Business seamlessly integrates with Office 365 and provides Microsoft plans like Business Essentials and Business Premium.

While the cloud may offer hundreds of different collaboration tools, not all of them are right for your business. We’ll help you evaluate your issues and determine which solutions are the perfect fit for your business.

For more information on the leading cloud-based collaboration tools and how they can influence your business, contact us today.

by Adrian Vasquez