Coleman Technologies Blog

1. Compliance Concerns
First, you need to be sure that your data is not only stored securely but is also sent back and forth to your backup solution properly. This is especially true if your industry is subject to any government mandates concerning how data must be handled, as the penalties for non-compliance can be just as severe as the influence of data loss would be.

Whether you manage your own solution or leverage a vendor to keep your data securely backed-up, the same severity applies. The size of your business has no influence, either, despite many smaller organizations having a difficult time keeping up with these regulations. These businesses are especially benefited by the availability of outsourced IT resources, as these providers are better prepared to see to these compliances and minimize any risk.

2. Costs and Scalability
It is also important to recognize your needs, including the costs that fulfilling those needs may incur (like how much a cloud provider charges for you to download your backed-up data). Before you select a particular cloud provider, make sure that you have considered all of these charges.

Furthermore, a backup solution that can only keep you safe from major disasters is one that overlooks a huge percentage of the actual issues you are apt to face. Sure, ransomware attacks and fires happen, but so do hard drive failures and other causes of small-scale data loss. Every strategy you enact needs to be documented properly, with useful information shared clearly, succinctly, and actionably.

3. Lack of Management or Testing
If your company is ever in the position that it needs to lean on a data backup, they’re going to need to lean on a leader to ensure that this process goes without a hitch. In many cases, this role would fall on your shoulders - but what if something goes down while you (or whoever is in charge of managing the recovery process) aren’t there?

This is why you need to keep a comprehensive, up-to-date plan prepared for just this occasion, a hard copy ready to be referenced on-site as well as one digitally stored in your backup files.

In addition to this preparation, you also need to make sure that the backups you’ve prepared actually work in the first place. A backup will do you no good if you can’t recover the data from it, after all. Make sure that, just as you would a fire drill, you practice utilizing the backup on occasion.

How Coleman Technologies Can Help
We have the expertise and capability to put together just this kind of strategy for you and your employees to leverage. That way, you can be confident that your disaster recovery won’t just be a new disaster to deal with. Reach out to us at (604) 513-9428 to learn more today.

The Pros
There is more than one application and way to use automation. While the uses are more general than specific, they can be applied to several different kinds of goals or processes, whether it’s customer service or data processing. In this sense, automation can be used in a pretty universal way.

Efficiency
It’s obvious that certain processes take a considerable amount of time to complete, but if they are handled by automated systems, they can be completed much more efficiently than before. In other words, since you don’t have to focus on these tasks, you can instead devote the time to something else entirely. This effectively adds more time to the workday by removing routine tasks that can be handled by an automatic process.

Minimizing Repetition
If someone has to do the same task over and over again, they are doomed to lose interest and make mistakes. If these tasks don’t require focus, then the employees will likely let their mind wander, and productivity can suffer. This makes even a quick task more likely to be repeated multiple times, making it less likely to yield a return on the investment. Automation makes it more convenient and less risky to leave monotonous tasks to employees. Trust us when we say employees will thank you for taking these tasks off their plate and freeing up their schedule for others.

Convenience
When someone reaches out to your business, it’s likely they need your help with something, and they need it fast. If you can’t provide it on a convenient time frame, chances are they will take their needs elsewhere. Automation gives them the ability to get help from a chatbot or other similar automated system without the need to staff someone at all times to address immediate needs. This gives you a better chance at being able to respond to their needs when they reach out to your organization.

Potential Cons
Automation might be quite helpful for businesses, but there are some issues that should be addressed in order to ensure it doesn’t become a liability for your business. For example, some processes are simply too complex for a machine to handle in the same way a human brain can. Most automated systems are limited by design, thus ensuring that they will be limited to the task assigned to them. After all, an automated system’s purpose isn’t being fulfilled if you have to provide constant feedback to it. Here are some ways you can make sure the faults of automation sting less:

• Use automation sparingly: Some of the services that could be automated likely don’t need to be. This is particularly true for more complex issues. Consider that many of the people who contact your business have a point of contact within your organization and regular requests, meaning that working with a human might not be such a bad thing if they are available at that time. In this way, automation supplements human contact rather than replaces it.
• Have employees direct the automation: If an automation system can’t perform a task on its own, having employees direct it during more complex tasks can work to mitigate the issue. A complicated request can be made, but still processed and understood with the right direction.
• Ingrate your automation: You don’t want to stop processes midway. As long as your automation is well-designed and thought-out, tasks can be integrated with automation to ensure they are handled in the most complete way possible.

What are some ways your organization can benefit from automation? Let us know in the comments.

Threat Background
This botnet was initially discovered in September. Since then, it has infected devices to support a huge spam email campaign. BCMUPnP_Hunter is able to zero-in on victims thanks to its ability to scan for potential targets, like routers with the BroadCom University Plug and Play feature enabled. The system can then be taken over by the hacker.

It is assumed that the network created by BCMUPnP_Hunter was created to send out spam emails. The threat creates a proxy that communicates with email servers, allowing attackers to use botnets to generate profit through fraudulent clicks. What’s more is that the malware seems to have been created by someone who has a considerable amount of skill. To make things worse is that BCMUPnP_Hunter also appears to scan from over 100,000 sources, making this botnet quite large.

How Does This Prove That Patches Aren’t Working?
In order for BCMUPnP_Hunter to work as intended, it must target devices that have BroadcomUPnP enabled to take advantage of a vulnerability. The thing is that this vulnerability has been patched since 2013 when it was first discovered, meaning that most manufacturers have issued a patch since then. Therefore, the majority of devices being used by this threat are those that haven’t been patched for some reason or another.

The Lesson Learned
A simple lesson can be learned here. It goes to show that any equipment on your infrastructure that’s not maintained could be putting your business at risk. This includes making sure that you implement patches and security updates as soon as they are released. Of course, they aren’t always broadcast to the public--after all, who would want to admit that the product they have created is vulnerable to attack, and that the vulnerability is being exploited? As a business owner, it’s your responsibility to keep up with the latest threats.

Granted, not all business owners have the time or luxury to focus on something like this. For those who want to minimize the threat posed by vulnerabilities, give the IT professionals at Coleman Technologies a call at (604) 513-9428.

We’re here to help your organization make better use of its wireless connection.

The Router
Your router will determine the general range of your wireless network, as well as its security. Depending on your business’ specific needs, a router can be a tricky investment. You have to consider several aspects, including how much range you need and what kind of options are available for it. Here are some of the variables you’ll need to consider:

• It is within your budgetary constraints
• It supports Internet speeds you pay for
• The space your router needs to cover
• The devices the router has to support
• Ensure that any router you choose supports WPA2 encryption

Once you’ve determined which router you’re going with, you can set it up in a place that is most effective for your purposes. If you want your router to broadcast a signal through your entire office, you’ll need to test it out and see how the location works. Try to find a nice central location. If the router doesn’t work as intended in specific parts of the office, you might need to include a Wi-Fi repeater to get the range you’re looking for.

The Repeater
If your signal isn’t extending as far as you’d like, a repeater (or extender) can be used to extend the wireless signal to reach a larger area. This way, the signal will reach any area you need it to reach. A Wi-Fi repeater contains two wireless routers. One of them picks up the wireless signal coming off of your network’s central router, while the other picks up the signal and transmits it in much the same way as your network’s central router. Thankfully, the wireless repeater only needs to be in a location within the broadcasting range of the central router. Just plug it into an average outlet and you’re good to go.

Security
Security is another important part of your business’ wireless network that requires you to think about it during the setup phase. The router doesn’t necessarily have to be hard to set up, though. First, make sure you have WPA2 encryption turned on. Some models don’t default to this and instead use the ineffective Wireless Equivalent Privacy (WEP) encryption that can be broken through easily enough. With WPA2, you’ll be much more secure.

Next, you want to name your wireless network to something that can help you identify it, as well as assign a complex password to defend it. This ensures that only those who need the network for work will be logging onto it, and that they will know which network belongs to your organization if multiple are available. Once you’ve finished with this task, you want to enable the router’s firewall. Doing this provides an additional layer of protection against potential threats.

One more thing: be sure to change the admin’s password on the actual router, as most default passwords can simply be looked up online.

For more information on how to optimize the use you get out of your business’ wireless connection, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.

If you don’t have guards or security cameras in place, you’re more likely to suffer from a physical security breach, which can be just as devastating as a digital breach. Ask yourself how comprehensive your security really is. After all, the new year has just hit, so why not use it as an opportunity to protect your business’ physical assets? With so many cyber threats out there these days, it’s no surprise that organizations focus on the digital aspect of security, but some people are just old-fashioned and would rather infiltrate a business the traditional way.

It’s also important to keep in mind that not everyone is going to be the perfect employee. You might have a couple of bad apples in the bunch that see technology and want it for themselves. In this case, digital security might not mean much, but physical security like locked doors and so on could make all the difference in keeping them from making decisions that are bad for both themselves and your business.

Basically, you need to take this two-pronged approach--one that considers both digital security and physical security--for the following reasons:

• Data access is restricted to those within your organization, but even the best employees make mistakes.
• A tiered approach means that employees only have permission to access data they need for their immediate work responsibilities.
• Knowing who is accessing devices and data, as well as when they are doing so, can help you to resolve issues as they occur.

Let’s consider a couple of scenarios where it helps to have physical and digital security. Access control limits who can access specific information, so if the data is corrupt or missing, then you’ll have a clear idea for who is responsible for it. On the off-chance that it wasn’t the employee, then you know their credentials have been stolen and abused by a cybercriminal. Access monitoring is helpful for this, as it can also determine when someone is accessing data, as well as where they are located. Thus, if someone from another country is accessing data in the wee hours of the morning, it’s likely that you have a digital security problem on your hands.

As far as physical security goes, consider what would happen if you didn’t keep track of who checks out devices. For example, let’s say you have company laptops that can be checked out for use by your employees. If you’re not keeping track of who checks out what device, you’ll never know who currently has the devices in their possession, as well as when they were last taken out. It makes it astonishingly easy to get away with stealing a device.

Therefore, in order to make sure that you’re keeping your data as secure as possible from all avenues of attacks, we recommend you work with the folks from Coleman Technologies. We can help you ensure security. To learn more, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.