Telesys Voice and Data Blog

The professional services space is filled with important information. Lawyers, accountants, doctors, and many more professionals have access to some of the very most personal information available. For this reason, they are continuously targeted by hackers. Since October is cybersecurity awareness month, we thought we would take a look at modern cybersecurity practices to see which ones were working best for professional services firms. 

All that stands between hackers and your accounts’ data, be it personal information or sensitive business info, is a measly string of characters that may (or may not) be complex enough to thwart their attacks. We’re talking about your passwords, and for many businesses, they are the only thing protecting important data. We’ll walk you through how to make sure your passwords are as complex as possible, as well as instruct you on how to implement additional security features to keep your data locked down.

Password security is a tricky part of running a business. After all, it’s not just dealing with your own password, but those of the many employees all throughout your organization. In times like this, it’s helpful to provide them with a list of how to make the best passwords possible. Here are a couple of examples for what to do, as well as what you shouldn’t do, when building a proper password.

Now that the holidays have come and gone, you might have a couple of new gadgets in your home or office that connect to the Internet. Depending on what these gadgets are, you might have a serious security issue sitting right in front of you without realizing it. Some devices that don’t normally connect to the Internet--also known as Internet of Things devices (IoT)--aren’t as secure as you’d like them to be, particularly in a business environment.

Network security for small businesses is far from simple. There are countless threats out there that want to see your business fall, and it only takes one to see this come to fruition. Unless you take action now to protect your organization, you risk the future of your business. But what is it that businesses need to protect from, and what measures are out there that can accomplish this feat?

Security is an aspect of running a business that absolutely cannot be ignored, regardless of whether or not you see it as a considerable issue in the near future. The fact remains that your organization will always be at risk unless you take actions to keep it safe today. By taking advantage of some of the latest and greatest security tools on the market, you’ll be able to protect not only from the basic threats, but more advanced ones as well.

No matter how advanced technology becomes, it can fall victim to even the most basic of threats if left unchecked. Your desktop workstation is certainly not immune to threats like viruses, malware, spam, and so much more, and even the most vigilant business could expose its infrastructure to these common threats. Since consumer-grade services are likely not strong enough to protect your business’s important data, you’ll need to turn to enterprise-grade solutions that can be tricky for small businesses to afford.

One of the greatest ways you can protect your organization is by implementing a Unified Threat Management tool that fulfills the roles of various security solutions in one convenient package. For example, you could implement an enterprise-grade antivirus and firewall to keep threats out of your infrastructure and promptly eliminate those that do infiltrate your defenses. Furthermore, preventative solutions like spam protection and content filtering can limit your organization’s exposure to threats in the first place, which saves time and money in the long run.

More advanced security protections, however, are certainly important for your business as well. Some of the more powerful measures include two-factor authentication and biometric scanning. Two-factor authentication is particularly important, as it provides a secondary credential that must be used to gain access to important information and accounts. Basically, it forces hackers to do even more work to break into an account, as they would have to physically steal your smartphone or other device to which the secondary credential is being sent to, all just to access an account and maybe find something useful.

Biometrics, on the other hand, are a bit harder to fake. Using fingerprint scanners or iris scanners make it considerably more difficult to unlock devices. A hacker would basically have to have the exact same fingerprint or iris as you, so unless there is some incredibly shady business going on, they won’t be able to access your devices.

How does your business secure its sensitive information and data infrastructure? Telesys Voice and Data can help your business avoid considerable security troubles. To learn more, reach out to us at (800) 588-4430.

The holidays are a time filled with good food, visits from dear friends and family, and exchanging gifts with those you care about. However, to keep the season bright and merry, you need to be a little cautious during your next gift exchange, as many gifts can present some unexpected risks to your recipient’s security. Be mindful if you see the following items on someone’s wish list.

Cybercrime is the fastest growing criminal activity in the world. From the largest enterprise to the individual, it can affect anyone, anywhere. To help ensure the cybersecurity of American citizens and their businesses, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other agencies work together every October to raise awareness about the threats people face online through a series of educational events and activities.

Network security is an important part of keeping both your business and your staff away from online threats, but it’s not enough to implement the best, most comprehensive solutions on the market. There are a surprising number of facets to network security, and in order to optimize protection against online threats, you’ll need to know all of them. Thankfully, you don’t have to do this alone.

Especially with so many people claiming to be tech-savvy, asking a question about IT can be a bit nerve wracking. Because of this hesitation, there are a lot of people who don’t ask questions about technology because they feel like their questions might be stupid. For example, having an updated operating system is a term that is tossed around a lot by IT professionals, and even some not-so-professionals.

While you are probably spending a fair amount of time thinking about your business’ security, can you confidently say the same about those that you’ve employed? Unfortunately, your workers may not put much thought into network security. This could very possibly lead to some severe issues potentially harming your business operations.

Every time you pick up a personal computer from a vendor, chances are that it will have an extremely basic firewall pre-installed. These consumer-grade firewalls leave much to be desired, especially in the business environment. You’ll want to make sure that your organization is equipped with enterprise-level solutions designed to protect on both a fundamental level and an advanced level. To do this, you want to take advantage of a Unified Threat Management solution.

Unfortunately, one of the most effective defenses against phishing attacks has suddenly become a lot less dependable. This means that you and your users must be ready to catch these attempts instead. Here, we’ll review a few new attacks that can be included in a phishing attempt, and how you and your users can better identify them for yourselves.

What crosses your mind when you think about hacking attacks and data breaches? Do you picture a hacker in a ski mask typing furiously, or do you imagine scenes made memorable like those in television and film in works like Mr. Robot or Live Free or Die Hard? In the latter, hacking attacks are perpetrated by masterminds or those with grand ambition. Yet, this trend may portray an inaccurate representation of the typical hacker.

Regardless of where it is kept, your data’s security is of paramount importance. However, this doesn’t mean that the decision between leveraging the cloud or an on-premise server for your data storage needs isn’t an important one. For this week’s tip, we’ll weigh these options against each other to help you establish which is the better option for your business’ needs.

If there is one thing that you can always count on from your business’ technology, it’s that it will inevitably fail at some point in the future. Therefore, your business should have a plan to keep this from happening at all costs. It’s understandable that you would want to make sure that your needs are properly evaluated both now and in the future. To this end, a technology assessment is incredibly helpful.

It’s imperative that your organization’s software is managed properly. If you can’t do this, then your operations can suffer in the long run. While this might sound like a lot of work, software management isn’t as difficult as it sounds if you break it down into compartmentalized tasks. Ultimately, you can group it into three major steps: leveraging available assets, testing strategies, and understanding the software.

Social media - we can’t live with it, but we really can’t seem to live without it. People who frequently read our blog will notice how often we discuss Facebook, one of the biggest players in the social media space. Seeing as privacy is one of the biggest concerns today, we’re wrapping up our short series on Facebook by reviewing the settings you might not have realized were options on your Facebook profile.