Social engineering is the ability to manipulate people into willfully giving up their confidential information. The data varies, but in terms of cyber security this usually means passwords and bank information. Criminals are using social engineering to gain access to your business and its network by exploiting employees who often don’t have a clue about what is happening. Avoiding it is a matter of training, and we’re here to educate you on the subject.

As more and more of our information moves into the digital realm, criminals are turning to social engineering to trick people into trusting them with their delicate information. People often trust others too easily and make themselves the targets of easy attacks from criminals. These attacks may come in the form of messages, baiting scenarios, fake company responses, and many others.

Read More

Delta is paying big for the IT outage that occurred last month: millions of dollars in damages, 2300 cancelled flights, and significant reputational damage. Despite the harsh cut to the airline’s bottom line, Delta will probably still survive. But the real question is this: Can your business survive after long periods of downtime? A natural disaster, power outage, or successful hack can be the downfall of many small- to medium-sized businesses. But if you learn from the lessons of Delta’s IT mishap, your organization has a good chance of staying on its feet.

According to Delta’s chief information officer, a power failure caused the company’s data center to crash, grounding thousands of would-be passengers. Although power was restored six hours after the incident, critical systems and network equipment failed to switch to a secondary site, corrupting valuable data in the process. And while some systems failed over, other vital applications didn’t; this created bottlenecks, decreased revenue, and diminished customers’ confidence.

Read More

As with all technology, trendy phrases come and go with the passing of every IT conference and newly released virus. And when dealing with cybersecurity, keeping up with them all can mean the survival -- or demise -- of a business. If you’re looking for a list of the industry’s most relevant terms, you’ve come to the right place.

For a long time, the phrase ‘computer virus’ was misappropriated as a term to define every type of attack that intended to harm or hurt your computers and networks. A virus is actually a specific type of attack, or malware. Whereas a virus is designed to replicate itself, any software created for the purpose of destroying or unfairly accessing networks and data should be referred to as a type of malware.

Read More

Last month Microsoft announced that over 400 million devices have Windows 10 installed. But despite the general consensus that those adoption rates are a huge success, Microsoft wants more. Because one of the biggest obstacles to large-scale migrations is varied compatibility among workstation hardware and software, a new tool has been released to analyze and report on the feasibility of making the move to Windows 10. If you’ve got any machines waiting for a worrisome upgrade, this article may contain all the information you need to make it easy.

Named the Windows Upgrade Analytics Service (WUAS), Microsoft is gifting administrators and service providers with tools very similar to those it uses to do its own bulk installs. By gathering data on multiple devices, applications, and hardware drivers on a network simultaneously, massive disruptions and troubleshooting events can be avoided entirely.

Read More

The cloud has made it easier for people, businesses, and companies to interact and collaborate. And one of the best productivity tools on the market is Microsoft Office 365, which is making it even simpler to store, organize and share files online. Thanks to its newest update, you can enjoy all these functions when working with teammates, business partners, and customers outside of your organization. Read on for all the details regarding 365’s new guest-collaborator feature.

This new functionality mainly centers around Office 365 groups. A 365 group is essentially an email address with Office privileges that several people have access to. For example, if you have an Editorial Group, each individual writer at your organization will receive emails, calendar invites, and document read/edit privileges sent to [email protected].

Read More

Protecting your business from crime – both internal and external – takes effort. But with criminals looking to take advantage of you on every front, it's an effort you need to make. But where do you start? To non-security professionals, knowing what to do can be difficult. To make your challenge a little easier, we've boiled down business security to three basic, more manageable steps.