Articles

A Manager’s Guide for Full Remote Working

While you might have managed a couple of team members remotely to date, managing a fully remote team, while balancing the challenges of being remote yourself, might be a new experience for you. The following are some best practices to help guide you through it.

Mac Threats Are on the Rise

In the past, Mac devices have largely been out of cybercriminals’ crosshairs. While hackers occasionally launched malware attacks against Mac machines, they targeted Windows devices much more often. But this is no longer the case.

Are you subject to the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)?

The California Consumer Privacy Act is designed to educate and protect California consumers about personal information that is being collected and sold, primarily by large, California companies.

5 Things to Know About Phishing Attacks

Only 66% of working adults correctly answered the question “What is phishing” in 2019 Proofpoint survey. This means one-third of adults do not know that phishing is a form of fraud in which cybercriminals try to scam people into providing sensitive information (e.g., login credentials, account information) or performing an action (e.g., clicking a link, opening an email attachment) in…

Business App Upgrades to Consider for your 2020 IT Budget

Microsoft will no longer support many business apps in 2020 because they are reaching the end of their lifecycles. Find out which popular programs are reaching this point so you can plan any needed upgrades and adjust your 2020 IT budget accordingly.

How to Manage Those Annoying Auto-Play Video Clips in Microsoft Edge

Microsoft Edge has several features to manage auto-play clips. For starters, Edge is designed to automatically silence these clips on background tabs — in other words, on web pages that are open but not currently being displayed. (Their tabs are greyed-out.) Edge also lets you mute auto-play clips on individual web pages as well as stop clips from running automatically…

The iPhone 11 Is Here But Is It Worth the Upgrade?

Apple has rolled out the new iPhone 11, but many iPhone users are wondering whether its enhancements are worth the cost of an upgrade. Here is how the phone compares to its predecessor.

Using Strong Passwords Is Not Always Enough to Stay Secure

Cybercriminals commonly use compromised passwords in cyberattacks. For example, in ransomware attacks, compromised passwords have now surpassed phishing scams as the No. 1 way to gain access to the systems in which the ransomware is planted, according to F-Secure’s “Attack Landscape H1 2019” report. And compromised passwords is No. 2 on hackers’ list of tools to use to gain access…

OneDrive Versus SharePoint Online

I am so excited about OneDrive, my cloud-based file sharing and storage application. Accessing it is as easy as logging into Office.com on my home computer or opening the OneDrive app on my work computer or phone. And now that I’ve been using it a while, I can’t imagine using anything else – it makes my life easier and allows me…

Mitigating the Risk of a Ransomware Attack

Xantrion’s cybersecurity program takes a risk based approach to preventing, detecting and recovering from a potential ransomware attack. We provide multilayered protections which consider the various methods criminals might use to penetrate a client’s network and protect against each of these attack vectors.  We monitor client systems so that, should compromise occur, it can be quickly detected and shut down. Even…

3 Ways to Cultivate a Collaborative Workforce

In a study conducted by Microsoft and YouGov, more than 14,000 people in seven countries shared their views on collaboration and the tools they use to achieve it. The results reveal three insights that can help you cultivate a collaborative workforce: 1. Different Generations Prefer Different Collaboration Tools The Microsoft-YouGov study found that the collaboration tools people use most often…

15 Keyboard Shortcuts for Microsoft Excel and Word

Microsoft Word and Excel have been around for a long time, so they have many features, including more than 200 keyboard shortcuts. Using these shortcuts can save you time because you just need to press a combination of keys to perform an action. While trying to remember every single shortcut is impractical, it pays to learn the shortcuts for operations…

5 Ways to Ensure Your Data is Safe in the Cloud

While there are many services that fall under cloud computing, businesses often use the cloud to store data. Although security experts note that storing data in the cloud is a relatively safe practice, businesses should still take certain measures to protect their files. Here are five things you can do to help keep your business’s data safe in the cloud:…

Are your Employees Inadvertently Exposing Data?

The number is eye-opening: 83% of companies believe that employee errors have put sensitive business and customer data at risk of exposure, according to a study by Egress. More than 1,000 security professionals at US-based companies participated in this study. The study also identified the technologies that most often involved in this type of accidental data leak. Email services provided…

How to Choose Default Apps in Windows 10

It is common for people to have multiple apps that perform the same function on their Windows 10 computers. For instance, people might have several web browsers or email apps. Similarly, people often can open certain types of files with more than one program. For instance, they can open PDF files with a web browser such as Google Chrome or…

3 Ways Your iPhone Can Keep you Organized

If your iPhone is running iOS 11 or later, you can use it for more than just staying in touch with the office. Here are 3 features you can use to help your business trip go more smoothly: 1. Check a Flight’s Status If you are traveling by plane, you can use your iPhone to check your flight’s status before…

Is the Desktop Computer Becoming Obsolete?

The fate of the desktop computer has been the topic of debate for several years. Knowing both sides of the argument can be beneficial when you need to purchase new computing devices for your business. Why Some People Believe the Desktop Computer’s Days Are Numbered Some people believe it is only a matter of time before desktop computers become obsolete,…

The Five Most Important Files to Back Up

While regular backups are an important part of any disaster recovery plan, not every file on your system is mission critical. It’s always good practice to back up your systems daily, but often that isn’t practical or doable. Whether because of financial or time constraints, full backups often have to be done less frequently. So which files should you backup…

What you Need to Know About Google Tracking Your Location

Google is tracking the whereabouts of billions of its customers, even when they tell the tech giant not to. Here is what you need to know about this practice, including how to minimize the amount of data being stored about you. What the Commotion Is and Isn’t About When people use Google’s apps and services, the company collects data about…

How to Stop Annoying Chrome Website Notifications

If you use the Internet regularly, you have probably encountered them — those pesky boxes that pop up when you visit a website for the first time and it wants to send you notifications. Fortunately, it is easy to stop these notifications from appearing if you use the Google Chrome web browser. Open your browser and follow these steps: Click…

10 Keyboard Shortcuts for Most Browsers

You can use many of the same keyboard shortcuts when working in Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Mozilla Firefox web browsers. Here are 10 keyboard shortcuts that are handy as well as easy to remember: 1. F3 Pressing F3 in Chrome, Edge, and Firefox opens the search box so that you can search for text on a web page. Once…

Select the Best Backup Solution for Your Business’s Laptops

Ever since laptops first came on the market there have been challenges reliably backing up the data to protect against loss or failure. The reality today is that laptop backup solutions are still not flawless and shouldn’t be exclusively relied on to limit the risks of data loss or corruption. For example: Manual backup (for example to USB) suffers both…

What Is Digital Transformation and Why Are Companies Pursuing It?

To understand what is meant by the term “digital transformation”, it is helpful to know what it is not. If a company simply moves applications to the cloud, upgrades its IT infrastructure, or implements some other one-off IT project, it is not digitally transforming itself. Digital transformation involves more than just adding new digital technologies to business operations. It requires…

5 Ways to Spend Less Time Dealing With Emails

Business professionals often spend a lot of time reading and responding to emails. If you are one of them, follow the 5 tips below to reduce the amount of time you spend dealing with emails. 1. Read and Respond to Emails Only at Designated Times When you get a notification that an email has arrived, what do you do? If…

What does Downtime Really Cost your Business?

When preparing your technology budget, it is useful to know the costs associated with downtime. This information can help you prioritize IT expenditures so that critical systems and operations receive the funding needed to keep them running efficiently. Knowing the downtime costs can also motivate you to create business continuity and disaster recovery plans if you have not created them…

Cryptojacking: The new Ransomware and what to do About it?

Cryptojacking might not seem as dangerous as ransomware or data breaches since cybercriminals are stealing a computer’s processing power rather than money or data. However, companies that dismiss this threat might be putting their businesses at risk. Cryptojacking malware is becoming increasingly sophisticated, which could spell trouble for companies unprepared for it. The Changing Face of Cryptojacking Cryptojacking was born…

Data Backups vs. Replication: Which do you need?

Data backups and replication are both related to disaster recovery, but they aren’t the same thing. There are important differences in what they are used for and how they are set up. Only by understanding the differences can you determine whether your business needs just one solution or both of them. Data Backups Data backups involve copying both critical and…

How to Develop a Vendor Risk Management Program

If you’re like most businesses, you have a variety of third-parties that you rely on to support your core business functions. And in many cases, they have the ability to connect to your network. By providing them remote access, you are effectively increasing your potential attack surface for cybercriminals to exploit. So what happens if their systems aren’t secure? They…

How to Get the Most from your Cloud Services Investment

Companies often turn to the cloud to save money. However, many businesses spend more than they need to on cloud services. Analysts have found that companies overspend by an average of 35%. Why Companies Overspend There are several reasons why companies spend more money than necessary on cloud services. For starters, companies often over-provision. They pay for more storage space…

Microsoft Office 2019 vs Office 365

Do you want to replace an old version of Microsoft Office on your company’s computers or add this productivity suite to some new machines? If so, you might be wondering whether it is better to use Office 2019, which Microsoft released in the fall of 2018, or Office 365. Here is what you need to know to make the best…