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It should come as no surprise that the practice of business continuity planning is one that every business needs to undergo. This planning serves as essentially your only insurance against some form of data disaster or another. Consider your own business for a moment–could it survive a fire, a critical failure in part of your infrastructure, or theft? With a business continuity plan, there?s a chance it just might. First Things First:In order to create a business continuity plan, you need to first have prepared a compiled list of the impact each department will feel in a worst-case scenario. What would you do if you lost access to your key vendors, your critical IT, your location, or your personnel and staff resources? How long would you take to recover if you lost each of these resources? Once you have established these variables within a reasonable range of success, it is time to develop a thorough business continuity plan. This plan needs to cover four considerations: employee safety, essential business functions, company assets, and communication throughout the event. This will help to ensure that every crucial part of your business is accessible in case of a disaster of some sort. The Four Considerations Communications: This serves a dual purpose. First, you need to be able to confirm that the team made it through whatever disaster took place safely. Second, if your business needs to enact its business continuity plan, there first needs to be an ability to reach out within the ranks of the business. Your strategy should include some means for your team to reconnect and reconvene, with meeting spots decided upon beforehand. Employee Safety: If it weren?t for the need of communication to confirm that your employees were okay, this would top this list. Not only do you no longer have a driving force behind your business if something were to happen to your workforce, more importantly, you will be morally (and most likely, financially) responsible for any harm that comes to them if they were working in unsafe conditions. Ensuring the safety of your employees is more than just a good business decision, it is a moral obligation. Company Assets: Once you have confirmed that your workforce is okay, it is time to evaluate what was able to be recovered from the remnants of your office. This is the main reason that we encourage all businesses to maintain a copy of their digital information in an offsite location that is safe from whatever disaster damaged your original data. Business Functions: Once you have ensured that your workforce is safe and sound and you have established a connection to your backup, your best chance of survival is to resume operations as best you can, given the circumstances. While it is unlikely that you will be able to immediately return to full function, you will be able to prove that you are still working to serve the needs of your clients until you can. With any luck, you will never need to use these strategies. Stress TestingOnce your plan is put together, test it out for effectiveness among your team. After all, a business continuity strategy that fails to enable the business to continue isn?t a strategy worth having. If some part doesn?t serve the way it needs to, go […]
Before the advent of the cloud, data backup was largely considered a manual task. Tape backup was the primary mode of ensuring your data wouldn?t be wiped away in the event of a disaster. This method, however, is a rather outdated concept that can become an inefficient hindrance. Tape backup requires a considerable time investment from your business? employees, as it needs to be set manually at the end of each business day. Furthermore, since tape backup can take a long time and use up a lot of network resources, the number of times you can take a backup every day is limited. Most businesses will opt to start to back up their data at the end of the day, after everyone has gone home and the network resources are no longer needed. This opens your business up to risk from neglect, intentional or otherwise. Plus, since you?re only taking one backup every day, you are potentially losing out on data that isn?t getting backed up. You could lose up to a whole day?s worth of data in the worst-case scenario. Unlike a tape backup solution, a cloud-based backup and disaster recovery system allows for a quick and efficient data backup process. Instead of relying on employees and risking user error, these systems are automated. This automation is one of the major draws to a cloud-based backup solution, as it eliminates much of the risk and helps to keep your organization?s data protected in the event of a disaster. Cloud-based BDR also makes data backup easier because it allows for more than one backup every single day. Tape backup is so intensive that it can only be performed once a day, but by taking ?snapshots? of data that has changed since the last backup was performed, cloud-based BDR aids redundancy in a significant way. Since the backups are only happening on files that are either in-use or those that have been changed, they are less intensive, and can happen much more frequently. We?re talking about at least every fifteen minutes or so, which is practically negligible data loss in a disaster scenario. Finally, the most important aspect of cloud-based BDR is, without a doubt, the ability to quickly recover in the event of a disaster. Tape backup solutions can take several hours (all of which is downtime) to restore. On the other hand, cloud-based BDR can happen almost instantaneously with minimal downtime. You can even restore data directly to the BDR device so that it can act as a temporary server in the event your computing infrastructure has been damaged or malfunctions. Your business can?t afford to waste time or resources on downtime. To learn more about how you can implement cloud-based BDR, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.
The first step is to navigate to the folder you want to change. To change its color, right-click on the folder. This opens up a menu. You?ll have to scroll down about halfway, but you will see the option to Change color. An image of a palette with an arrow will also open up further options, including 24 colors for the folder display. Once you?ve found the color that you want, click on it. You?ll then see the folder change before your eyes. You?ll know for sure if it?s the color that you want, and you can always take a moment to change it to something else if you desire. However, it?s important to note that this feature won?t colorize the contents of the folders. If you have Google Docs and Sheets files in your folders, they will stay blue or green. It?s also crucial to remember that the color changes will be exclusive to your Drive. In other words, if you change the color of a folder in a shared Drive, only you will be able to see the change. If you tell your team to look for the red folder, they?ll have no way of knowing what you?re talking about. How will you use this color changing feature for your Google Drive? Let us know in the comments.
Considering how often hackers target financial credentials like credit card numbers and expiration dates, it?s not surprising that ATMs can provide a wealth of information to them. Hackers are willing to go exceedingly far just to get their hands on these credentials–including physically altering the devices themselves to install skimmers and other technology on them. Unless you know what to look for, it can be difficult to tell if a machine has been tampered with. For example, this news article from this past July shows a rather troublesome case of ATM skimming. The device used is a piece of plastic that slips right over the ATM card reader, and it?s designed to do so without being seen by the user. If you?re not paying attention, you could accidentally expose your credentials directly to the hacker. There are a considerable amount of cases that involve a hacker installing custom hardware onto ATMs that can wirelessly transmit credentials, who might be lurking somewhere nearby. They can then harvest credentials at their leisure. What would you do if you took a look at your bank account and found that you no longer have a balance in your checking account? What if you wound up going into debt because of this? What if someone has stolen your identity and is making purchases in foreign countries? The best way to keep this from happening is to be careful of ATM skimmers in the first place. Keep the following tips in mind when using an ATM. Cameras surrounding the ATM: Before you stick your card in the ATM, make sure that there are several cameras pointing directly at the machine. This usually means that a hacker likely won?t try to mess with the device. ATMs usually have built-in cameras anyway, but it can never hurt to take another look around. Tampering with the device: Give the device a once-over before you try to use it. Are any faceplates removed, or devices sticking out of it? If there is anything that doesn?t look natural, chances are that it?s been tampered with by a hacker. Additional testing: Before you place your card in the device, take a look at the insert slot. Has it been placed on artificially? Just look for anything that?s out of place. Remember, it?s better to be safe than sorry. What do you think about ATM skimmers? Do you think you can identify threats to your financial credentials? To learn more, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.
The Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Improvements Act, also known as Bill 2763, could provide small businesses with the most beneficial positioning they’ve had in decades in terms of securing government contracts. As stated in the bill, the Small Business Administration would be required to provide Congress with detailed reports of their many programs, a clear shift in transparency that could only work to help small businesses. Additionally, under this proposed legislation the Department of Defense would have to consider (and select) small businesses for their contracted work more than they have in recent years. Bill 2763 was authored by Steve Knight, representative of California?s 25th congressional district. According to Knight, not only do programs like these improve safety and economic stability, but also ?give the opportunity for America?s small businesses to participate in the national security needs for innovation in our country.? Knight also said, ?These programs sponsor developments that allow us to compete in the international marketplace and provide innovative tools supported and created by local entrepreneurs that contribute to American security.? The Chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, Representative Lamar Smith from Texas? 21st district, provided some background in a statement. ?The SBIR [Small Business Innovation Research] and STTR [Small Business Technology Transfer] programs, through their $3 billion in annual awards to small businesses, spur many innovations and create thousands of jobs. This legislation updates these crucial programs.? At White Mountain IT Services, we understand how important the right technology works for small businesses and can help your organization get the most out of your technology investments. For more information, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.
