Net It On, LLC Blog

There is no shortage of threats on the Internet, from situational issues to deliberate attacks meant to damage your company or steal your valuable data. While new threats pop up almost every day, some have been around for some time--so long, that many seem to not consider them as viable threats.

Unless you’re the trade-in or hand-me-down kind of person, it’s likely that you have a supply of old Android devices squirrelled away somewhere. You know, just in case the one who have now breaks. However, these old devices can be useful in other ways around the office. For this week’s tip, we’ll go over three alternate uses for your mobile device in the office.

To many, email scams have become a joke. Sitcoms have throwaway punchlines that reference a character getting an email from a rich uncle in Nigeria, or some friend needing funds to get home from an overseas trip. One of these scams may not at first seem to be amusing, as it threatens the recipient’s life, but if read further, proves to be quite the drama.

When a business utilizes any kind of technology, there will come a time when that technology needs to be replaced--which means that the business will need to be sure that any data on the old machines cannot be recovered. This, in turn, means that the machine’s hard drive must be destroyed. In order to be absolutely certain that this has been accomplished, it helps to lean on the guidelines established by HIPAA.

The term “best practice” has been used by businesses for years to describe the optimal way of performing a particular task. However, before fully adopting them into business operations, it is important for these practices to be examined and deemed to be beneficial to an individual company’s circumstances. If they are not, a company risks much by adopting a misplaced best practice.

For the modern business, having a strategy to manage your employees smartphone use is essential. This is because most of the people that work for you have smartphones. One study shows that upwards of 90 percent of people under 30 own a smartphone. If you have any design on running a business, or employing millennials (who are the largest generation in the current workforce), you’ll need to know what you are doing to protect your business from the increasing amount of threats that are out there targeting smartphones.

The holiday season is coming to a close, with meals shared and gifts opened. You may have even received a new gizmo or doodad that you’re looking forward to trying out. Not to burst your bubble, but there is unfortunately a chance that the gizmo you had hoped to get (or purchased for a loved one) may lead to a security breach.

One of the most recognizable names in technology isn’t a person, it’s a virtual assistant: Cortana. While Cortana has been of great use to many users, sometimes that user isn’t actually the person who owns the device and is just someone else in the same room. This can be annoying, but there’s a way to acquaint Cortana with a single user’s voice and listen to them exclusively.

Merry Christmas! We know that for the small business owner, even on Christmas day, business doesn’t completely stop. Sure you can spend time with loved ones and take a couple days off from the grind, but tomorrow is another day. According to one study, people are gifting technology more than ever, so much so that new traditions that include technology, are replacing the once-held notion that technology was a distraction.

Identifying a qualified managed service provider can be challenging--especially if you don’t know what to look for. You should be able to gauge the worth of an IT provider based on a couple of key qualifications, just like you would if you were selecting an employee. What are some of the primary features that you want to look for in a managed service provider?