Recent Blog Posts

What Happened in this Breach? McDonald?s Corp recently announced that some of their data had been stolen by hackers, after systems in South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States were breached. According to the company, they had identified unauthorized activity through their internal security, managing to cut it off a week after its discovery. With the assistance of hired consultants, it was discovered that some of the company?s data had been exfiltrated. McDonald?s informed their employees in the United States that the breach had involved contact information for franchisees and employees, in addition to some infrastructural data about its locations. Fortunately, it seems that no sensitive data regarding any employees was breached, with no customer data absconded with. However, the restaurant chain has advised its franchises and employees to keep an eye out for any potential phishing emails they could receive. In its Asian markets, customer emails, phone numbers, and delivery addresses were stolen. Regulators were quickly informed, with the company also reaching out to employees in South Africa and Russia to follow up on possible breaches there. Cybercrime Targeting Businesses Has Been Prevalent While this breach didn?t involve the use of ransomware, it is still difficult not to group it amongst other attacks we?ve seen recently. In addition to the frequent attacks we?ve seen over the past few years against the healthcare industry and local government bodies, the past few months have given us two major ransomware attacks?one against a global meat distributor, the other against a major pipeline in the United States. Volkswagen has also had its data lifted from a third-party vendor, putting data regarding prospective buyers and existing customers in the wild. Clearly, No Business is Safe? So What Can Be Done? With the way that ransomware has developed (focusing on stealing its targets? data before encrypting it, so that they can sell it after the fact) along with other varieties of cyberattacks, businesses are only under increased threats? and because many such infections are spread through means like phishing, protecting your business will require you to do a bit more than keeping an antivirus up to date (which you should do regardless, of course). Instead, your team members need to be able to not only spot potential phishing threats as they come in, they need to know how to handle them appropriately. This will require ongoing employee education and training as the threats facing businesses continue to develop, in addition to diligent monitoring of your IT solutions. White Mountain IT Services can help with all this, and more. Reach out to us at (603) 889-0800 to learn more.

Defining Hardware Strategies On-Premise Solutions On-premise solutions are those that a business keeps in their office, on privately-owned and maintained servers. The actual makeup of these solutions varies from business to business, as it is dictated by each business? needs. Cloud Solutions Cloud solutions are mostly those that are hosted off-premises in data centers filled with servers that are dedicated to providing downtime-free hosting, services, and other computing resources for businesses that rent the space.  Benefits of an On-Premise Solution One of the primary benefits of a business hosting its own server is the idea that control remains in the business? hands. If a power outage (which is a basic and common enough business continuity threat) were to happen, a business hosting its own solutions on its own hardware could mitigate it effectively by turning to a backup power source until the outage was resolved. Comparatively, a business relying on cloud-hosted solutions also relies on the cloud provider to prevent downtime. In a similar vein, a business with control over its infrastructure is therefore in more control over its security. This means that a business can ensure its security is best suited for its environment and needs when its resources are kept in-house. Whether or not this is the case, however, also depends on the business. Benefits of a Cloud Solution A cloud-hosted solution is going to be much more cost-effective for a business of any size to implement, but to run for some time, costs may tend to be slightly higher. While you aren?t obligated to pay for any more resources than you need at the moment, the cost of maintenance and management is baked in. Cloud-hosted solutions give you freedom and flexibility to scale your use as needed, however, which keeps costs down. Additionally, since you won?t be tasked with managing the infrastructure, it frees up your internal teams to focus on other priorities and projects. Of course, there are drawbacks to choosing exclusively between one or the other option. With on-premise servers, any upgrades are based on your schedule and your business? financial capabilities, while cloud servers may not always be available (leading to downtime) and potential data security concerns are another issue that an on-premise server doesn?t have. This is why many businesses settle somewhere in the middle and elect to use both, in what is called a hybrid cloud, utilizing the best of both worlds. This carries with it additional cost as well, but the control you have over mission-critical parts of your business? IT infrastructure can be worth it for the right business. The IT professionals at White Mountain IT Services can help you determine which of these options is best for your business. To talk to one of our consultants today give us a call at (603) 889-0800.

You Haven?t Been Given Permission to Email Someone Here?s the big rule when it comes to sending emails and avoiding the spam filter: you can?t send promotional emails to someone who hasn?t given you permission to do so, at the risk of some severe fines. Purchasing an email list or otherwise obtaining contact details without securing the authorization to contact them could easily get you marked as spam for sending unsolicited emails. Your Content Uses Words that Trigger the Filter There is a laundry list of words that spam filters really don?t like? so much so, that including a word from that list significantly diminishes the likelihood that your email will make it through. Do some research into the words you?re including in your subject lines to identify if you?re using terms that are actually working as a detriment to your communications. You?re Sending Too Much as Once If you?re suddenly sending hundreds of emails at once, many email service providers will see this as spam. Of course, when you?re using email for your business? communications, these hundreds of emails stack up pretty quickly. One effective way to sidestep this is to schedule out your emails in what is called a ?drip? campaign. Instead of sending all of these emails en masse, a drip campaign allows these emails to be scheduled out and sent over time. You Included an Attachment While attachments certainly aren?t unheard of in business emails, the context of the email is important to determine whether or not it might be considered spammy. For instance, a lot of threats are commonly delivered packaged in an email attachment. This makes it so that a spam filter will frequently block messages that have an unexpected or unsolicited attachment included. You Haven?t Provided the Opportunity to Opt-Out Finally, spam filters really don?t like email messages that don?t allow their recipient to remove themselves from a mailing list. Neglecting to include a link to this option in your emails could very well get your messages marked as spam, or simply sorted into a folder where they will never be viewed. Allowing a false prospect to opt-out of your communications is the much better option. Don?t Let Your Communications be Foiled by Cybersecurity Precautions While we would never shortchange the importance of proper cybersecurity, it is important that you also ensure that you retain your abilities to communicate with those inside and outside of your business. White Mountain IT Services is here to help you see to both needs, with IT solutions that uphold best practices while also remaining profitable. To find out what we can do for your successful operations, give us a call at (603) 889-0800.

To begin, it?s important to acknowledge how severe and prevalent cyberattacks can be. How Common are Cyberattacks? Based on the data returned by this survey, just over half of surveyed respondents saw an increase in cyberattacks, 53 percent confirming that there was an increase in attacks throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. 84 percent of these respondents have seen a significant cybersecurity incident sometime in the past two years. These attacks broke down as follows: Email compromise attacks (42 percent) Data breaches (39 percent) Mobile malware (37 percent) DDoS attacks (36 percent) Phishing (33 percent) Ransomware (31 percent) Compliance and regulation violations (28 percent) Costs Associated with These Cyberattacks Of course, these various attacks can result in an equal variety of consequences and costs to the businesses impacted by them. For instance? 40 percent of surveyed businesses stated that the cost of the time spent by IT to resolve the impacts of security incidents was the largest expense that these incidents caused. 36 percent cited lost productivity as their primary cost. 35 percent blamed system and application disruption. 32 percent prioritized the disruption that their business processes experienced. 28 percent were most concerned about breaches of confidential data (with 19 percent concerned about disclosing these breaches). 18 percent stressed about their employees being prosecuted or terminated. It also should be said that security leaders and professionals alike have reported their jobs becoming more challenging, 49 percent reporting in the affirmative. Furthermore, they specifically cited a shifting landscape in terms of threats (48 percent), transitioning a business? workload into the cloud and the challenges that this process brings about (32 percent), and workplace hiring (28 percent). Furthermore, the rushed adoption that the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged of cloud-based solutions has led to a few shortcomings and challenges related to cloud usage. Therefore, Businesses Need to Ensure their Cloud Solutions Are Properly Secured With more threats leveraged against businesses via cloud solutions, it is all the more important that these solutions are properly secured. White Mountain IT Services can help your business accomplish this. To find out how our team can assist you in terms of your security, give us a call at (603) 889-0800. 

A Necessary Shift For years, workers had been chomping at the bit to be allowed to work remotely. Some companies made it work for them, while others attempted it only to realize that it was too difficult or in some cases costly to permanently utilize the strategy. The lion?s share of companies axed the idea from the get go. This all changed when jobs that could be done remotely were moved offsite due to health concerns surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Companies that for years had been denying their workforce the ability to work from home, now needed people to. Obviously, some businesses weren?t set up for this. Others, that had invested in cloud-hosted tools as a way to control capital costs, were miles ahead. Most businesses needed to make adjustments, as did most workers. Regardless of how management viewed the work-from-home model, the sustainability of many businesses was at stake, and as a result, it was clear how the situation had to be approached. Business owners and managers needed remote workers to keep their businesses running. Workers From Home For many workers there was some excitement when they were forced to work from home. Over time, however, some workers have shown fatigue. Others have prospered. Workers with children who were also home for much of the time due to the same health concerns, found it to be both a benefit and a curse. As regulations start to ease some workers, who have thrived during this period, are afraid that the good work they put in during the pandemic won?t be rewarded as their management teams bring people back to the workplace. Others just want to get out of their houses and are looking forward to the personal interaction they typically have at work. There are a lot of different situations and a lot of different perspectives. Ultimately, given the flexibility that remote work provides, a lot of workers simply don?t want to go back to how it was before. The studies that have been conducted over the past several months make this clear. In fact, one survey found that 87 percent of workers that worked remotely over the past year would like the ability to continue to do so in some fashion after the risks subside. The Compromise With the lack of concert expectations from management and the workforce, the workforce of the future will likely adopt some type of hybrid model. What this means is that workers will be asked to be in the office on certain days and be able to continue to work from home on the others. This is not just because workers want to work from home. It is also because people are going to be worried about going back to work with the COVID-19 pandemic still an issue, even if they are vaccinated. It?s just an uncomfortable situation, especially as tens of millions of people outright refuse to get the vaccine.  The hybrid model still needs to be hashed out for a lot of businesses, including who would work from where when. Do you need to schedule specific days for people to be in the office, or would it be more about who needs to collaborate or use internal resources that are more secure and more readily available from the confines of the office? […]