Recent Blog Posts
First of All: What is Network Segmentation? Network segmentation, or the act of segmenting your network into different parts, is a practice intended to help protect different resources. Think about a bank, for instance, and the safety deposit boxes held within it. It isn?t as though the bank is only secured at the front door, is it? No?the front door is locked, sure, but there are also security cameras watching the inside, with assorted additional locked doors providing obstacles, with the vault door heavily secured and all the safety deposit boxes inside also locked up tight, requiring multiple keys to open them. Network segmentation effectively does the same in regards to your business? infrastructure. Firewalls, authentication requirements, and assorted other access controls are all used to accomplish this segmentation?which both helps protect data from external threats as well as internal overreach or malice. If you?ve ever heard of a zero-trust architecture, network segmentation is a big part of that. How Can Network Segmentation Protect My Business? It?s simple?by restricting different areas of your network to certain people based on their roles or work responsibilities, you reduce the risk that different data or resources will be accessed by those who shouldn?t. Not only does this help harden your business against cybercrime, it also helps to keep your employees from accessing data they have no reason to access. For instance, let?s presume that one of your employees works making sprockets, another works to sell the sprockets, another works to distribute the sprockets, and you have HR working to keep the entire sprocket-making system running by handling employee needs. Naturally, each of these departments has its own data, as well as data that needs to be shared amongst the different departments. If your sprocket-making business didn?t segment its network, your sprocket-producing employee would not only have access to the documents they need to create the sprockets, they would also be able to access every other department?s documents?including the personal and financial information that HR has on the rest of the team. Yikes. However, if your sprocket-producing business? network was properly segmented, this wouldn?t be an issue. Your employee in charge of production, for instance, would only have access to the documents and data that their production-based responsibilities required. The same would go for your sprocket salesperson, your sprocket distributor, and yes, your HR person. Not only does this help keep your team focused on their individual tasks, it also helps prevent a larger cybersecurity incident by ensuring that one person or department?s vulnerability doesn?t enable access to the entire network. We?re Here to Help You Segment Your Network, and More! Give us a call at (603) 889-0800 to learn more about what we can do to help your business in both its operations and its security!
We wanted to share a few warning signs that your technology has reached the point where you?re ready to upgrade it. Your Technology Has Slowed Considerably It?s pretty predictable that, as it ages, your technology will gradually work more and more slowly?both due to its age, of course, but also compared to the newer devices that your coworkers may have access to. If the reduced speed becomes a challenge for your daily processes, that?s a pretty reliable sign that an upgrade is in order. Your Productivity Has Suffered On a similar note, you need to consider if your technology and its aforementioned slowness is having an impact on what can be accomplished during the day. If it is, or if you?re dealing with persistent crashes and other issues, that?s another good sign that an update or upgrade is in order. Your Devices Are No Longer Compatible with App Upgrades or Necessary Security Patches This is how you know beyond any doubt that an upgrade is in order. Upgrades and security patches are implemented for a reason, so going without puts you at risk of data theft or other security breaches. If a hacker sees an opportunity, they?ll take it. Applying these updates and patches?and ensuring that your device can handle them?is something you need to prioritize as a result. Having said that, it is important that you keep these devices maintained and fully repaired to ensure that they can accept these patches and updates. Desktop workstations are complicated pieces of hardware, so asking a professional to give a problematic device a once-over before committing to an expensive investment is a practical course of action. We can serve as that professional for you. We?ve assembled a team that is more than capable of assisting you with your updates and upgrades, regardless of where you may be in the process. Whatever your needs may be?from acquiring new devices to properly wiping the data from your existing ones before disposing of them appropriately?we have you covered. Get started today by giving us a call at (603) 889-0800.
What is Business Email Compromise? Unlike other threats out there, business email compromise, or BEC for short, does not require incredible technical skills to pull off, making it a dangerous prospect indeed. BEC is when a hacker or scammer convinces the user that they are someone within the organization?usually an authority figure or executive?and asks them to transfer funds for a variety of reasons. You wouldn?t believe it, but this kind of request actually works. After all, nobody likes to turn down a request for help from the boss, right? According to the FBI, BEC has cost businesses upwards of $43 billion, and this number is growing larger by the day. Furthermore, companies in at least 177 countries have been reported. How Does BEC Work? Really, all it takes is for a hacker to do a little bit of research into the organization, determine who they can feasibly impersonate through email, spoof that email account, and contact employees within the organization using that spoofed email address. These types of social engineering attacks are uncomplicated and can pay off in spades if the hacker can manage to pull them off. Other types of BEC are more dangerous and difficult but are equally lucrative, if not more so. Hackers can break into the actual email account of the executive or employee and keep watch over their inbox to look for legitimate purchases that need to be fulfilled. This combination makes for a dangerous and convincing request, and an eager employee might not think twice before fulfilling the hacker?s request. What Can You Do About It? We always like to recommend that you implement the best and brightest email security solutions out there, as well as multi-factor authentication to ensure that anyone who logs into your business-critical applications is who they say they are. Ultimately, however, who falls for business email compromise attacks will largely depend on how well you have trained your staff to identify and respond to these types of attacks. Security training should not be a one-and-done deal; you need to provide comprehensive training during the onboarding process while also providing periodic refreshers to keep security at the top of your team?s mind. White Mountain IT Services can equip your business with the comprehensive security tools to keep themselves safe, as well as the training needed to identify these types of hacks before they accidentally allow a hacker to make off with your business’ hard-earned capital. To learn more about what we can do for your business, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.
This trick can be used in Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Google Chrome. It?s incredibly helpful, too, since it works on just about any mobile device, desktop, or laptop. How to Save Pictures and Files on the Internet as PDFs The functionality enabling users to save files as PDFs comes from the browser?s feature called Print to PDF. This feature is built into most web browsers, and if you are using Mac and Apple devices, you can use the free Shortcuts app to create your PDFs. To keep this blog simple and easy to follow, we?ll cover Google Chrome in our examples, but know that the process is largely the same for other devices, as long as you know where the Print option is for your preferred browser. First, you?ll have to navigate to the file you are trying to save as a PDF. It doesn’t matter whether it?s an image, a web page, or otherwise. If you?re trying to save a web page, then you don?t have to do much else. If it?s an image, however, you?ll want to open it in a new tab. To do this, right-click the image and select Open image in a new tab. Next, select the three-dot menu near the top of the screen. You?re looking for the Print option. You can also opt to use the keyboard shortcut, which is fairly universal: Ctrl + P. This is where you want to follow closely. For your print Destination (where the printer is normally selected, you want to Save as PDF instead. Once you are ready, you can click Save and you?ll be all set. Just determine where you want to save the file to. This basic process is largely the same on other devices and operating systems, with hardly any exceptions; one notable exception is that Firefox doesn?t have this feature on mobile devices. For more tips on how to use technology to its fullest potential, reach out to White Mountain IT Services at (603) 889-0800.
Before we get started, keep in mind that if it sounds like too much to handle, White Mountain IT Services has your back! All you have to do is call us at (603) 889-0800. Maintain Your Security Solutions This might seem a little obvious, but it?s really the most important part of keeping your network secure. Missing patches and updates or having inconsistent standards or practices with your devices can lead to security discrepancies. These problems only get worse when your employees aren?t involved with such practices, too. Thankfully, there are a couple of different ways you can improve the efficacy of these security practices. Here are some of them. Establish Standards for Your Devices If there?s one thing that hackers are, it?s efficient. They will always look for the easiest way to infiltrate your network, i.e. the path of least resistance. You can prevent a lot of security issues if you simply establish a security standard for all devices on your network. This means that the weak link isn?t so easily leveraged or identified. Look at it from the perspective of the robber. If they know the back door is unlocked, they aren?t going to climb in through the second-story window, right? Manage Your Patches Similar to the above analogy of the robber, they might discover that the windows of the house might lock well from the inside, but are remarkably easy to open from the outside. On the surface, it looks like the home is protected, but it?s really quite vulnerable. If the manufacturer offers to solve the problem, you?d want to take advantage of the opportunity. This is what patch management is all about. These types of solutions deploy security improvements to address vulnerabilities and other security issues. Reliably testing and installing these patches will ensure you are playing your part in protecting your organization. Keep Tabs on Permissions and Access Control Taking the analogy even further, you might give a set of house keys to your neighbors who you have known for a decade, but you wouldn?t give a set to the newbie on the block. This is a simple form of access control, and you delegate access to your home in a specific way to keep it safe. Access controls for your network and data work in the same way. You don?t need everyone accessing the same parts of your infrastructure or the same data. You want to limit exposure to those who need said data to perform their day-to-day tasks and responsibilities. Simply put, the fewer people who have access to resources, the less opportunity there is for user error to strike or for security issues to come into play. Don?t Stop There; Do All You Can Today! If you want to optimize security for your organization, don?t stop here; call us at (603) 889-0800 today to find out even more about what you can do to keep your business safe.