Business Solutions & Software Group Blog

With so many people working from home due to stay-at-home orders resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, IT security may not be at the forefront of users’ minds. Unfortunately, scammers and hackers aren’t unemployed during this time and are still causing havoc for businesses of all sizes. Let’s take a look at cybersecurity during COVID-19.

Businesses have been leaning more towards using laptops for their computing needs, thanks to the mobility that they offer while also offering comparable performance to modern desktops. There is an important question that you should be asking, though: can a laptop be left plugged in whenever it is left in one spot? Let’s find out for this week’s tip.

We all use email, in fact, without an email account you couldn’t do much of anything online. For those that use it for business, it can be a complete drag, often hindering as much as it helps. Microsoft has improved their Outlook platform with some useful features aimed at cutting down on the time that you have to stare at your email. Let’s take a look at two options you can use to get the most out of your email in Outlook:

Businesses need access to some considerable amounts of data these days, regardless of their size, which means that even a small business has a few things to weigh out. For instance, should they keep their IT in-house with on-premise solutions, or should they cast their gaze at cloud-hosted solutions? Let’s consider the benefits available for either.

Today’s businesses have swiftly adopted video conferencing, even before business continuity required it. Considering this, let’s examine how your team can make the most of their video conferences with a few tips.

In one of the most negative times in recent memory, something positive happened, people started to work from home using technology as a facilitator. This has led a lot of businesses, who hadn’t already, looking to make a digital transformation. As one of the most useful and valuable digital tools, Voice over Internet Protocol is at the center of this shift. Let’s look at VoIP and how it presents the modern business value.

We’re just shy of halfway through 2020, and it is already apparent that this will go down as one of the most challenging years for businesses around the world for some time. With many businesses facing extensive and continued pauses in their operations, many will be looking for opportunities to get more out of their investments. Managed IT services are one such opportunity.

It has been pretty difficult for most small business owners to stay positive lately. They’ve had to deal with more in the past few months than many have in their entire entrepreneurial careers. Today, as businesses are gearing up to get back to work, we thought it would be helpful to explain some ways that you can stay positive. 

Video conferencing has been one of the surprise winners of the COVID-19 era. As large percentages of people are asked to distance from others, one solution that has been extremely popular is to have meetings over the Internet. While seemingly the whole world is using video conferencing solutions, for the business, there are other considerations that have to be made. Today, we’ll hit on some strategies you can use to improve the security of your web conferences. 

Over the past decade we’ve seen the rapid growth of cloud computing, but many decision makers and business owners were skeptical of the actual utility in cloud-based utility computing. With COVID-19-based stay-at-home orders lasting for over six-to-12 weeks in some places, these professional businessmen and businesswomen are seeing just how beneficial the cloud can be for their business. For the very first time cloud computing makes sense to them. Let’s take a look at why everyone is seemingly using computing resources in the cloud. 

While we may talk about computer viruses a lot, we wanted to change tack briefly and talk about the other kind--the kind that makes you sick, rather than your technology. With COVID-19 still plaguing the news, we felt that there was no time like the present to do so.

With remote work becoming a popular option amongst businesses nowadays, concerns and considerations should be raised about how secure the networks being used are: namely, the Wi-Fi connections many have in their homes. Just as in the office, it is important that these networks are properly secured for the good of your business.

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak businesses have been trying to find ways to keep revenue streaming in without having to suspend operations. This week we thought we would take a look at some of the cybersecurity you will need to get through this difficult economic point. 

It may not be a surprise to you that hackers and other scammers are trying to get between you and your stimulus money. Using the COVID-19 pandemic to prey on unsuspecting or ill-prepared people, they have already made off with more than millions of the $290 billion that the U.S. government has earmarked for its citizens. Let’s look at how you can avoid being another unfortunate victim of the modern cybercriminal. 

With many businesses having to close their doors for the time being in response to COVID-19, many have started to see remote work as a preferable alternative to stopping their operations completely. Of course, as this is the first time that a sizable portion of these businesses have ever used remote employees, communications have suffered somewhat.

To help prevent this from being the case in your business, we wanted to share a few practices that will help you to more successfully integrate remote work into your organization.

While one would certainly hope that you would only hire people that you would trust to work for you, the big question still remains of whether or not you should trust them. Our advice: you certainly should, for the good of your business. Here’s why.

With so many people working from home due to the COVID-19 outbreak, organizational IT security is stretched thin. It is important that you know how to maintain operational integrity while prioritizing security when your whole staff is working from home. 

With recent and ongoing world events being what they are with COVID-19 in play, many companies have been forced to find the benefits of remote operations as much as they can. While proper technology is crucial to do this effectively, it is equally important that your team keep some other important considerations in mind… not so much what they’re working on, but how they’re doing so.

We’ll explain.

Before we start on what practices you should be prioritizing when it comes to your cloud resources, we want to recognize that most businesses have found cloud computing to be extraordinarily useful. In fact, that is why we wanted to discuss some actions that you need to implement to help keep your cloud-based resources secure. 

Many businesses will be looking to cut costs as the COVID-19 crisis heads into its second full month in the east. One way that businesses can cut a few dollars off the budget is to finally phase out their wasteful printing practices and adopt a more streamlined paperless strategy. Today, we will go over some tips to help you start moving away from the cost and headache of the printer.