Natural Disasters Destroy – Cloud Data Safe?

Natural Disasters Can Destroy, But Your Data Is Safe If It’s In The Cloud. This past hurricane season has brought some of the most harrowing, widespread destruction the southeastern United States has ever been forced to weather. But, despite the enormous, tragic cost of these natural disasters, the people of these communities persevere. In the wake of widespread wind damage and flooding, communities have banded together. Thousands of volunteers and neighbors are working as one to rebuild and find the way forward. There is no doubt, however, that the havoc wreaked by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma will produce aftershocks that will echo through affected areas for decades.

To anyone who turtled up in their attic in the middle of the storm or just saw a picture of the wreckage in the news after the hurricanes departed, the physical damage caused by the storm is obvious. What’s less obvious is the effect these storms have on the futures of the survivors, the reverberating impact that cuts thousands of life plans short and forces individuals to completely change their course in a cruel reversal of fate.

“Forty percent of small businesses don’t survive these events,” said Russel Honore, the previous Joint Task Force commander for Hurricane Katrina. The electrical grid is knocked out for days, and businesses are forced to close the office for what they hope is a temporary period due to flooding.

Each day that a business can’t provide service, it’s bleeding money — a cost that many businesses, especially the little guys, can’t absorb. So, they close for good, their buildings go up for lease and those who were once the heads of promising young businesses are now unemployed, in the market for a job in a city up to its neck in water.

Just as common is a business that finds its central data structures wiped out by physical damage. Following a hurricane, most businesses near the storm should have little trouble cleaning up and remodeling following nasty flooding, but if their servers, computers and network infrastructure have been wiped out, it’s a completely a different story.

Oftentimes, a catastrophic loss of data will shutter a business for good. A 2010 report by technology research firm Gartner Group stated that 43 percent of businesses went belly-up almost immediately after a “major loss” of data, while 51% shut down within just two years. That leaves a measly 6% survival rate for businesses that suffer company-wide data loss.

These are scary numbers, to be sure, but there is good news: Businesses that migrate their data to the cloud are at significantly less risk of losing vital data. This is not only because your typical cloud service will back up your up-to-date data with several levels of redundancy, but because most cloud services are actually more secure than their on-site counterparts in general.

And make no mistake, businesses with on-site data are susceptible to loss far beyond physical disasters like hurricanes, flooding, earthquakes or solar flares. Don’t forget the risks disgruntled employees, freak accidents and, especially, hackers pose to your precious data. While it’s true that all of these risks still exist with cloud-based services, they’re much reduced. A 2012 Alert Logic report stated that “on-premises environment users actually suffer more [hacking] incidents” than cloud-based users, while also being subjected to “significantly more brute force attacks.” When you think about it, this makes sense. With your entire system backed up on a number of off-site locations, it’s much more difficult for hackers to encrypt the entirety of your data and hold it for ransom.

That said, not every business absolutely needs the cloud to stay secure. Certain business models need on-site structures for various reasons, and a few find it more cost-effective. Still, the cloud is definitely something that any savvy business owner needs to examine closely as a potential option. It could mean the difference between flourishing in the next fiscal quarter and going under.

IT Security Tip #12: The DANGERS of Dropbox and Other File Sync Apps

If you’re using Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive or other consumer-grade file sync and sharing cloud applications, listen up! These applications pose a huge threat to your company because company data can be spread far and wide without central oversight of what information is being shared with whom. Further, over 7 MILLION Dropbox accounts have been hacked, giving cybercriminals a path into the company’s network.

This is even MORE important if your company has access to and/or stores financial, medical or other sensitive data. Using file-sharing applications like these are a clear and direct violation of data breach and compliance laws. Bottom line, DON’T USE THEM FOR COMPANY DATA and use only company-approved, business-grade file-sharing applications.

Microsoft Teams: Connect Your Team to the World with Connectors

Did you know you can set up a Twitter feed for your Team? And many other services, too, including Trello, GitHub, Bing News, and more. With Office 365 Connectors, it’s easy to connect many of your favorite apps and services. Here’s how:

1. Right-click the channel you want to add a connector to.
2. Select Connectors.
3. Search for the connector(s) you want to add to the channel.
4. Click Add, and follow the prompts.

Shortcut of the Week

Forgot to bookmark a web page you once visited? Don’t fret! Quickly find your site by searching your browser history. Press Ctrl + H or Command + H on a mac to open the browser’s history. Once there, type a keyword that you remember about that page.

Tech Corner

“A security vulnerability in one of the world’s most commonly used enterprise video conferencing tools could have allowed hackers to eavesdrop on private business meetings. researchers at cybersecurity company Check Point found it was possible to exploit the way Zoom generated URLs for virtual conference rooms and use this to eavesdrop on meetings. By using automated tools to generate random meeting room IDs, researchers found that they could generate links to genuine Zoom meetings without password protection 4% of the time during tests. In order to counter the potential for cyber criminals exploiting any form of teleconferencing software by using any potential vulnerabilities in other platforms, it’s recommended that businesses ensure that calls are password protected.”

Have an unfortunate co-worker that’s not getting a copy of the TCC Tuesday Tidbits? Forward them your copy. Or, better yet, have them sign up at http://computer-center.com/tidbits/

Submit your TCC Tuesday Tidbit requests and ideas to me by calling (608) 755-1524.

Sincerely,

James Pearson, President The Computer Center 39 S. Main St. – Upper Janesville, WI 53545 (608) 755-1524

IT Security Tip #11: What to do BEFORE you go to Starbucks

So you’re in the car on the way home from Starbucks, basking in the glow of consuming your triple-shot, low-foam, extra-hot pumpkin-spice latte when you suddenly realize your laptop has gone missing. You drive back like the caffeinated lunatic you are, only to discover no one has turned it in. What do you do? That depends on what precautions you have (or haven’t!) taken.

First, if you’ve properly encrypted your data, password-protected the access to your device and shut down and logged off all key applications, you’ve got a bit more time to respond. But the first thing to do, whether or not you’ve taken those precautionary measures, is to notify your IT department (us) that you’ve lost your device. That will allow us to change passwords and lock access to applications and data a thief may gain access to via your unprotected laptop. We can also remotely wipe your device to make sure no one will be able to gain access to the data stored on your computer. (Which is also why it’s CRITICAL to back up your data on a daily basis!)

Next, change ALL the passwords to every website you log in to, starting with any sites that contain financial data (your bank account) or company data. If your laptop contained medical records, financial information or other sensitive data (like social security numbers, birthdays, etc.), then you need to contact a qualified attorney to understand what you may be required to do by law to notify individuals who may be affected.

Quite simply, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure; so make sure you’re engaging us to encrypt and back up your data, as well as put remote monitoring software on all mobile devices. Put a pin-code lock or password requirement to access a device after 10 minutes of inactivity, and get into the habit of logging out of websites when you’re done using them.

Microsoft Teams: Keep Communication Fuss Free – Title Your Chats

Use a subject line to make your topic stand out and help you search for it later.

To add a subject, select the formatting button (it looks like an “A” with a pen) and add a title in the Subject line. Type your message and press Enter to post your new conversation.

Shortcut of the Week

Create tables in Microsoft Word by typing a plus (+) to start the table and tab until you want the table cell or table to end. Hit Enter at the end and an empty table will appear.

Jason’s Tech Corner

Submitted by Jason Risner – Solutions Engineer, The Computer Center

Big Microsoft data breach – 250 million records exposed and what to do.

Have an unfortunate co-worker that’s not getting a copy of the TCC Tuesday Tidbits? Forward them your copy. Or, better yet, have them sign up at http://computer-center.com/tidbits/

Submit your TCC Tuesday Tidbit requests and ideas to me by calling (608) 755-1524.

Sincerely,

James Pearson, President The Computer Center 39 S. Main St. – Upper Janesville, WI 53545 (608) 755-1524