What is the Biggest Risk Businesses Face?

Businesses large and small have to manage risk. They invest in risk-reduction measures, including fire sprinklers, alarm systems, security cameras, and employee training programs.  The remaining risk is transferred through insurance.

What is the single biggest risk businesses face?  It is not fire. It is not break-ins, shoplifting, or other traditional crimes.  It is not floods or other natural disasters.

For the past two years, the biggest risk faced by businesses is……..Cybercrime.

Cybercrime has become more profitable than the illegal drug trade.

Who are the criminals? They are not just casual hackers or “script kiddies”. Cybercrime is perpetrated by highly organized and very well-funded criminal organizations. These are the same criminal organizations that rob banks, run illegal gambling operations and smuggle illegal weapons. Smart criminals go where the money is. The word “cybercrime” suggests something less nefarious than extortion or drug trafficking. That is unfortunate, because cybercrime is as ugly and malicious as it gets. Lives are ruined and companies are put out of business by cybercrime.

Who is helping you understand the risks?  Who is helping you understand the importance of investing in cyber security?

As “business consultants” and “trusted advisors”, managed service providers (such as SageIT) have an obligation to their clients to identify and manage business risks.

Even the most effective preventative measures cannot eliminate all risk.  Despite investments in fire prevention and suppression measures, fires do occur. Few businesses could survive the catastrophic losses associated with a fire, so they transfer the remaining risk through fire insurance.  What about the greatest risk businesses face – cybercrime? Are you covered for those losses?  In a future article, we will discuss ways to transfer the risks associated with cybercrime through cyber-insurance and disaster recovery.

Call us anytime for a consultation on how to protect yourself and your business against cybercrime… 1-866-272-4514

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How secure are your network passwords?

Does your staff know each other’s passwords?  Can employees freely move from one user workstation to another? Consider this: When was the last time you had a disgruntled employee leave the office and as a preventative measure, you renewed the passwords for EVERYONE?

None of us want or expect breeches in network security, but that should not stop us from preparing for the potential. Network security should be set in place to create clear boundaries, staff and management alike should respect any business necessity to protect its Intellectual property at all costs.

In Windows servers the Active Directory and Group Policy Orchestrator with auditing functions make for more than sufficient means to implement and retain effective security solutions.

Helpful Industry tips for basic network security:

Recycle your passwords every three months at the very least

Rename your Administrator account and let it remain dormant

Ensure all Administrators use their own usernames for record and logging

Ensure passwords are alpha numeric and at least six characters in length

Ensure all user accounts are active, disable or delete inactive accounts

Consider visitor accounts with limited access and expiration dates

Remove the “everybody” user from network shares

Try to avoid unnecessarily permitting full control to network folders

Ensure encryption is used for any Wi-Fi Access Point passwords used

Ensure any VPN (Virtual Private Network) users are required to authenticate connections

Ensure your Anti Virus is up to date and scanning for threats on ALL equipment

Install effective Malware and Spyware applications

Consider the prevention of surfing certain types of unsavoury websites

Implement policy preventing the unauthorised installation of software on workstations

If you are ever unsure contact the Administrator or an expert for advice and guidance

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Fact: PCs need maintenance!

It’s true! Your office (and home for that matter) PCs and servers require regular clean up and maintenance in order to maintain performance and reliability levels.  Just as your car or truck relies on oil changes, your PC needs a regular set of systematic clean up processes to prevent degradation and disaster. Cached memory, defragmented files, unnecessary applications, temporary install files, and even unused data logs clog up and slow down your operating system, leaving you hanging waiting for files to open and save.  In our years of performing proactive and preventative PC maintenance we have experienced as much as a 15% improvement in performance and reliability in older office equipment. This not only leaves users more effective having more responsive terminals but extends the life cycle of the workstations, which has enormous financial benefits to any company.

We employ various forms of preventative maintenance for our clients:

Onsite, Automated, and Remote or a combination of the three

  • Onsite preventative maintenance requires that an experienced technician spend time at each workstation performing a set suite of maintenance services. Many clients appreciate this method since it enables the technicians to remain “intimate” with the equipment, they can hear if fans are failing, if hard drives are knocking heads, or if there are other physical hardware issues. However there is a labour element to this form of service and not all businesses can budget for it regularly.
  • Automated maintenance is made possible by a uniquely engineered software suite that Sage employs known appropriately as S.A.M. or Systems Automated Maintenance. S.A.M. is installed on a Domain network where scheduled modular tasks are performed after hours and reports generated and mailed to administrators in order to maintain the highest levels of user convenience and network management for system engineers.
  • Remote Maintenance is made possible by using remote control software whereby a technician is allowed remote access to the workstations by the business and performs all the necessary tasks from the office, this way they are able to perform maintenance on workstations  simultaneously. There is a distinct convenience factor and a time saving element however there is a distinct lack of the intimacy for the physical condition of the machines being worked on.

The final option is a combination of automated or remote maintenance with the onsite maintenance on a periodic basis. This allows for the majority of maintenance to be automated or remote, with only a rare (quarterly or bi-monthly) physical maintenance. This is preferable for many budget-conscious businesses as it allows for the cost benefits of remote or automated maintenance with the in person maintenance and assessment periodically.

Ultimately, PC and Server maintenance are an integral component of any businesses IT infrastructure. It allows workers to work freely and with higher productivity. It extends the lifespan of existing hardware and software, saving a business significantly in both the short and long term.

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Network Attached Storage: How to affordably expand your data storage

When your SMB server that you invested heavily into just a few years back runs out of storage, you may be put into a bit of a conundrum. Expanding your server’s existing storage array is costly and usually results in at least a day worth of down time. External hard drives are quite cheap, but provide slow data transfer and zero redundancy.

Luckily, advances in Network Attached Storage (or NAS for short) have all but resolved this issue for the SMB. A NAS is a networked system containing a number of disks configured in a redundant manner. The NAS provides fast (gigabit) access to stored data. A business-grade NAS is priced between $400-$900 depending on required functionality plus disk drives.

We at SageIT generally deploy a NAS by QNAP called the “Turbo NAS” (pictured below) which enables us to directly link the storage to the server using a protocol called iSCSI.

With iSCSI your server sees only the storage — it does not even know the NAS exists and neither do any end users. It provides a seamless, low cost method of adding additional redundant storage transparently to your server.

The NAS devices contain multiple drives and account for drive failures — if one of the drives in your NAS fails, the system just keeps on going with no data loss and only slightly diminished performance. It alerts you or your technical staff that the failure has occurred and it is as simple as putting in a new disk and allowing it to rebuild its array. The devices also contain a built in back up mechanism, allowing you to plug in an external drive and press one button to do a full backup of all of your data.

There are also downsides to a NAS. Because they are running over the network, if supporting network infrastructure fails the NAS will also be unavailable. The other primary downside is that they are slightly slower than a native drive plugged in to your server because of the network overhead. That said, unless you are doing work that is extremely disk intensive, such as video editing, it is insignificant enough not to impact work.

All in all, a NAS system can significantly benefit your small business if you find yourself running out of space. It provides a cheap, easy, and effective way to increase your storage space with or without a server, and it’s ease of management and “just works” design means implementation and maintenance costs are low.

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The Value of Offsite Data Backup

The concept of the “paperless office” is one that comes with substantial benefits to any manner of business. Businesses save money, increase productivity, save space, and minimize environmental impact by transitioning to primarily computerized data storage. The other side of this coin, however, is that IT infrastructure becomes increasingly important and adequate backup is nothing less than essential.

Most small-medium business environments employ a back up of some kind — whether that be to DVD, tapes, external hard drives, or to a backup device. These backup methods are thoroughly successful at what they do: back up your data in case of a server crash. However, in a modern paperless office, there are other principal concerns: What happens if my office is robbed, or catches on fire? In this case it is likely that your existing storage mechanism is either destroyed or stolen, rendering your backup solution ineffective and potentially leaving your business in runes.

Offsite backup is a backup system designed specifically to avoid this pitfall of traditional backups, ensuring that even if your main office is destroyed, robbed, or otherwise unavailable, your data is secure in an off site facility, waiting for you to resume your business.

Offsite backup solutions operate over the Internet. Every night while your office is closed, your data is backed up over the internet to (generally) world class data centers, securely encrypted every step of the way. Once there, your data is cataloged, deduplicated (any duplicated data removed as only 1 stored copy is required), and stored. In the event of a catastrophic emergency, your data is stored in the “cloud” and is available on demand.

Typical offsite backup solutions are billed at a per gigabyte stored rate. This means that you pay for only what your business. 1 gigabyte is about 20,000 average length documents,  roughly 100,000 emails, 10 hours of video, or 50 hours of audio.

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