Daily Tips To Guard Against Cyber Threats

Daily Tips To Guard Against Cyber Threats

Cybersecurity is no doubt a menace that companies and IT experts are grappling with on a regular basis. Even so, the bottom line is that none of them is careful enough to seal all the loopholes posing a risk to their systems.

For that reason, continuous research on emerging threats and how to mitigate the same is critical in securing systems within an enterprise. Here are a few daily tips that will help you enhance the security of your systems to guard against possible cyber threats.

Day One

Tip Of The Day – Tighten The Security And Remain Vigilant 

In most cases, end users are the primary targets of almost every hacker planning to gain access to an entity’s network system. The reason is that it is often difficult to control the documents that each user downloads or every email they choose to open. Each of these actions can introduce harmful malware in the systems in use if workers an enterprise fail to remain vigilant.

Therefore, in-house IT experts, as well as providers of these services, should take the responsibility of educating staff of the dangers of clicking every document or email they receive. On the other hand, end users should adopt a culture of vigilance every time they access the company’s network, to foster successful implementation of this tip.

Day Two

Tip Of The Day – Ensure Proper Disposal Of Sensitive Or Confidential Documents 

Hackers will use every tactic to try and access the network infrastructure, including going through the trash, otherwise known as dumpster diving. In that case, improper disposal of documents bearing sensitive information as well as CDs and USB drives leaves systems prone to cyber security threats too. Hence, shredding confidential documents is advisable.

Also, ensure proper destruction of any physical media you plan to dispose before discarding the same. That way you will protect your network infrastructure from such hackers.

Day Three

Tip Of The Day – Beware Of Exposing Sensitive Information in Shared Meeting Areas

When a consultative meeting or any forum of this kind comes to an end, it is wise to clear the meeting area of anything that may fall into the hands of anyone with selfish motives. Gathering all copies of graphs and presentations that remain behind and opting to trash such details elsewhere, other than using the trash bins available in conference rooms, are some of the precautions to observe.

If you need more information on cybersecurity tips, contact us today!

Tip of the Week: Handy Browsing Shortcuts

Tip of the Week: Handy Browsing Shortcuts

When so much of the day is spent working on the computer, it can be argued that efficiency is paramount to productivity. The faster you are able to do things, the more you could potentially get done. For this week’s tip, we’ll go over a few such shortcuts.

Restoring Closed Tabs

We’ve all been in the position where we’ve closed out of a browser tab to immediately realize that we still needed it. Fortunately, there’s a shortcut for just this situation. Next time you accidentally hit that little “x,” try pressing Ctrl + Shift + T to reopen the tab.

Close Window/Tab

However, once you are actually ready to close a tab, or your last browser window, there is a shortcut that allows you to do so quickly: Ctrl + W

Space Bar Scroll

Instead of tiring out your finger playing with the scroll wheel on your mouse, Windows offers another option that utilizes the space bar. Tapping Space as you hold Shift will have your screen jump down in full-screen chunks, rather than slowing crawling like the start of a Star Wars movie.

Mouse Wheel Functions

Speaking of the mouse’s scroll wheel, you can also use that to accomplish different things. For instance, it you want to quickly open a link in a new tab, clicking on it with the scroll wheel will do so in a single click, rather than the multi-click process you would otherwise go through.

What are some of your favorite tricks and shortcuts? Share them in the comments, and don’t forget to subscribe to our blog!

How Office 365 Helps You Get Work Done

How Office 365 Helps You Get Work Done

Microsoft Office 365 takes the familiar Microsoft Office solutions and adds an extra level of usefulness to them in the form of accessibility and collaboration. This week, our tip covers how to use these features of Office 365, in the context of Microsoft Word.

Anywhere Access

Life isn’t perfect, and so you may find yourself needing to work from multiple places. Unfortunately, a desktop workstation isn’t well-suited to travel. Fortunately, if you need to work on aWord document, you can utilize another facet of Office 365 to pull it up: OneDrive. All you have to do is access your Microsoft Office account on another machine, and you will be able to pull up your document from your recent history.

Putting In Your Two Cents

A big part of collaboration is brainstorming and providing feedback. Thanks to the collaborative capabilities of Office 365, not only can you and your team work together on documents, you can add comments to share an insight or annotate a section that needs more work.

Furthermore,your collaborators can add their comments to yours, making it easier to brainstorm better things to include or how to word a certain phrase in your Word document.

Inviting Collaborators

Speaking of your collaborators, Word 2016 makes it easy to add them to your document. Again, using OneDrive, you can share access with anyone else with access to that OneDrive location through Microsoft People. You also have the option to share your document via email in a variety of ways, either sharing editing access or not.

To access this area from within Word, click on the File tab at the top and go to Share.

Clearly, Microsoft Office 365 was meant for teamwork. Have you ever benefited from these capabilities? Let us know in the comments!

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Cyber Security Tip Of The Day: Don’t Put Off That Update

Cyber Security Tip Of The Day: Don't Put Off That Update

It can feel like every program wants an update installed and wants it installed right now. The temptation is always there: Hit “Remind Me Later” and hope it goes away forever. However, software updates usually aren’t intended to annoy or stop work in progress. Many software updates are designed to patch security holes and prevent annoying bugs giving hackers access to your data.

For operating systems in particular, keeping patched is one of the easiest ways to protect your company’s hardware and users from malicious software and attacks. Hackers are at work every day trying to find a way into your operating system and sometimes even the patches need patches to keep systems running smoothly. 

Using an Apple system seems like an easy way around those annoying patch days, but MacOS can have catastrophic security bugs that need operating system-level fixes. Many exploits and hacks use previously discovered holes in software and even hacking dummies know how to look for them. 

Maybe you’re using a Linux or Unix system and think that’ll serve as protection. Unfortunately, Arch Linux just discovered malicious software in its repositories and before that, it was Ubuntu Linux. Every computer that touches the internet is vulnerable, no matter its operating system or the software it’s running.

Beyond that, many of your routers and other network devices may be vulnerable and may not notify you the way Windows will. Check your router manufacturer’s website weekly to see if there’s new firmware, then schedule some downtime to get it installed, tested, and running. It usually doesn’t cost anything and it’s one of the best ways to make sure your network stays secure.

Just remember to get your users to save everything before running any updates since lost work can be a big mess even if you had the best of intentions.

Cyber Security Tip of the Day: Secure Your Public WiFi Access

Cyber Security Tip of the Day: Secure Your Public WiFi Access

Using a VPN to secure the connection to your sensitive data, emails, and company services can provide you the peace of mind by providing a safe link to the internet while giving you the freedom to use public WiFi hotspots.

Using Public WiFi

Using public WiFi is a convenient, easy, and fast way to connect to the internet while at your favorite spots around town. You can enjoy a latte while following up with your clients or eat a hamburger while listening to your highest sales earner’s phone calls.

The freedom to work where you please is vastly easier given this technology. However, the ease of use and openness of public WiFi comes with a risk.

Concerns Using Public WiFi

While most of the time you may be safe while browsing non-critical websites on a public hotspot (social media, video streaming services, etc.), it would be a bad idea to use services and websites that have sensitive information such as banking or company emails.

Most large-scale companies and websites have a safety net called HTTPS that secures your internet traffic with encryption. This is not enough to prevent a well-known cyber attack called the man-in-the-middle attack. This hack can intercept your private data before sending it to the secure site with HTTPS. This leaves the attacker with your private information.

VPN for Public WiFi

A VPN connects your computer to an online VPN server, which in turn access the website or service you requested. In short, a VPN can be visualized as a tunnel. Your computer and the online VPN server communicate with specific files and settings that are only known to your computer and the VPN server.

This closed circuit communication is the bread and butter of VPN. This prevents man-in-the-middle attacks, because only your computer and the VPN know the secret key. This is different than HTTPS because HTTPS follows certain guidelines and rules for communication. However, attackers know these rules and guidelines.

Although there may be weaknesses and vulnerabilities with a VPN, it will still greatly increase your security when you are connected to a public hotspot. A VPN in conjunction with the HTTPS protocols can provide a safe network environment for you to work untethered. 

Interested in a VPN? Already familiar with a VPN? Let us know what more you want to know or what some of your favorite VPN services are?