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Data Management

Guide To Secure File Storage And Transfers

File storage and transferring hold a very dear place in most people’s lives.

However, the safety of files is really tough to maintain. In this guide, we are going to help you protect your files. We will explore ways to store and send files securely.

What is secure file storage?

Secure file storage protects your files. It prevents others from accessing your files or altering them in any way. Good storage grants protection to your files using locks. You alone can unlock such files.

Types of secure storage

Files can be stored securely in various ways, as listed below.

  • Cloud
  • External hard drives
  • Encrypted USB drives

Cloud storage saves files on the internet. External drives save files on a device you can hold. Encrypted drives use special codes to lock files.

Why is secure file storage important?

Secure storage keeps your information private. It stops thieves from stealing your data. It also helps you follow laws about data protection.

Risks of unsecured storage

Unsecured files can lead to huge troubles, including but not limited to the following:

  • Identity theft
  • Financial loss
  • Privacy breaches

These risks give a reason why secure storage is important. You need to protect your personal and work files.

How can I make my file storage safer?

You can do so many things to make your storage safer, such as:

  • Using strong passwords
  • Enabling MFA
  • Encrypting your files
  • Keeping your software up to date frequently

Strong passwords are hard to guess. Two-factor authentication adds an extra step to log in. Encryption scrambles your files so others can’t read them. Updates fix security problems in your software.

Best practices for passwords

Good passwords are important in keeping your files safer. Here are some tips:

  • Use long passwords
  • Mix letters, numbers, and symbols
  • Don’t use personal info in passwords
  • Use different passwords for each account

What is secure file transfer?

Secure file transfer is a way of sending files safely between individuals or devices. It prevents unauthorized access to files and prohibits modification of files in transit. The better methods of transfer protect the files with encryption.

Common secure transfer methods

Here are several ways to securely transfer files:

  • Secure FTP (SFTP)
  • Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)
  • Encrypted email attachments
  • Secure file-sharing services

How to transfer files safely?

These steps will keep your files safer while in transit:

  • Select a secure method of transfer
  • Encrypt the file before you send it
  • Give strong passwords for file access
  • Authenticate the recipient
  • Send the access details separately

How to email attachments safely

  • Encrypt important attachments
  • Use a secure email service
  • Avoid writing sensitive information in the body of an email
  • Double-check the recipient’s email address

Ready to secure your files?

Protect your data from thieves and snoopers. Use strong passwords, encryption, and safe methods of transfer.

Feel free to reach out today and let us walk you through setting up safe systems for your files to take the next step in protecting critical data.

When Was Your Last Permissions Review?

When was the last time you reviewed who in your business has access to which documents?

Do you know who has access to your documents? Or can everyone access everything?

You may need to make some changes. You see, the more people that have access to your business documents, the less secure they are.

Let’s imagine for a moment that one of your people opens a very convincing email, supposedly from a supplier.

The email contains a document to download, which they do, because it’s from a supplier, right? They can trust it.

What your employee didn’t notice was that the email signature was missing or that the email address wasn’t the same as it usually is.

And the document they downloaded has now installed malware on their device.

They don’t notice the malware because it all looked legit and nothing obvious has happened. They continue their working day unaware.

While they’re working, the malware is working too, in the background. It’s accessing and copying all of the data that your employee has access to.

You might get lucky and stop this malware before it enters your network and takes everything, but if your employee already has access to everything, well, it’s gone. Although this isn’t a malicious act on behalf of the employee, they’ve essentially caused a huge data breach that could kill your business.

And this scenario doesn’t even need the malware to become a reality. One day, a member of your team might decide they’d like to make a little money by stealing your valuable data.

By giving everyone access to everything, you’re making it too easy – and too tempting – for them.

So, if you haven’t already done this, I suggest that this week you make it a priority to sit down and work out who needs access to which files and documents and restrict access to absolutely everything.

Keep your own document detailing who has access to what. And update it whenever anyone joins the business or changes roles.

This is also a great way of protecting your data when somebody leaves, because you can see exactly what you need to revoke access to.

If you already restrict access, when was the last time you reviewed it?

Are people able to access files they no longer need? And are there people who could benefit from access to more documents to complete their role?

Yes, that’s a lot to think about. But once you have a detailed document to work from, regular reviews are pretty simple and definitely worth your time.

Please give us a call if you’d like to go over the shares and permissions on your network.

Top Reasons To Jumpstart Your Paperless Initiative

Want to “go paperless” with your company? See the many benefits of paperless business and learn how to jumpstart this initiative for effective results.

Many businesses toy around with the idea of “going paperless,” but what’s actually in it for the companies who decide to go through with it? To be sure, not all businesses are cut out to go paperless.

Certain documents in certain industries simply must be in paper form. Therefore, depending on your industry and unique company needs, you may end up unnecessarily complicating affairs if you try to do everything digitally.

At the same time, a great many companies will benefit significantly from making this change. Below, we’ll go over the specific reasons why it might be a good idea for your company. First, though, let’s define what going paperless actually means.

What does it really mean to “go paperless?”
The term “going paperless” simply refers to the shift from printed documents to digital documents. For example, instead of printing invoices, order forms, and tax documents, a company would issue all of these documents digitally, sending them via email or storing them as files.

What are the top reasons to “go paperless?”
You’ll save money. Cloud data storage is a lot less expensive than on-premise data storage. Moreover, on-premise data storage forces you to pay for the maximum amount of storage you may need upfront. With cloud storage, you can easily scale your storage capacity up or down, depending on your needs.

You’ll have document access from everywhere
Most businesses who go paperless store their documents in the cloud. When you do this, access to these documents is available wherever you can find an Internet connection.

This makes it easier to hire remote workers, send employees on work trips, and access important information even when you’re away from the office.

You’ll save time
Consider the time it takes to print, scan, copy, collate, organize, and store all of your paper documents. Additionally, remember that when you have a huge number of documents to contend with, protocols and systems must be developed, instituted, and monitored. Lastly, think about how long it takes to find a specific document within your files. All of these tasks are time- consuming, and in any business, time is money.

When you switch to a digital system of document storage, you’ll be saving an immense amount of time. Documents can be digitally created, copied, sent, edited, and stored.

There’s no need to run to the printer or search through endless boxes for the paper file you need. When searching for files, you can simply pop a few keywords into the search bar of your data storage system, and voilà — it will appear!

You’ll save space
Consider how much space you currently use to store paper documents. From old tax returns and invoices to printed data and memos, an accumulation of individual sheets of paper can actually take up quite a lot of room. Digital documents, on the other hand, are virtually invisible. As long as you have enough data storage capacity available, you’ll gain tons of physical space when you make the switch to a paperless system.

Data Encryption – What You Really Need To Know

Thomas Fox is president of Tech Experts, southeast Michigan’s leading small business computer support company.

In today’s digitally driven world, far too many personal and business devices are left unsecured. These devices don’t leverage strong passwords and fail to have the encryption needed to protect vital data.

Whether companies choose to store data in public, private, or hybrid clouds, they should always ensure that the data is encrypted before it leaves their devices or networks.

Additionally, when employees think that “this data isn’t important,” they are creating the weak links that hackers need to successfully infiltrate a device (or network) and subsequently steal unencrypted data, upload malware attacks, and otherwise wreak havoc on unsuspecting businesses.

[Read more…] about Data Encryption – What You Really Need To Know

What Is The Difference Between Backups And Redundancy?

Chris Myers is a field service technician for Tech Experts.

Modern businesses can generate massive amounts of data in a short period of time. As such, a vital topic of research are ways to project that data.

There are two main categories of data protection: redundancy and backups. These two types of data protection are both very important, but they are not interchangeable.

Both must be understood so that you are not caught unprepared when catastrophe strikes.

What Is Redundancy?
On a single hard drive, data is saved just one time. If that hard drive fails, then that data is lost. In order to prevent this from happening, multiple hard drives are used to store multiple copies of each piece of data.

This setup is called a “RAID,” which stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks.

When a single hard drive fails in a properly set up RAID, the other drives change how they operate and continue saving files with very little interruption and no loss of data. In a business such as a doctor’s office where appointments are booked out three months in advance, redundancy can be the difference between a service call with less than thirty minutes of downtime and a multiple day outage affecting hundreds of patients and staff.

What Are Backups?
There are many other ways in which data can be lost, including file corruption, accidental deletion, fire, theft, malware, and more.

Redundancy can protect against hard drive failure, but in cases such as these, it is of no help. For example, if the user accidentally deletes a file, all redundant copies of that file will be deleted.

This is where backups come in. Backups copy your data onto a completely separate storage device.

The most secure backup systems are called offsite backups, because the data is copied to another geographic location entirely. If a user accidentally deletes a file that is backed up, that file can be restored using the backup copy.

However, restoring files from an offsite backup can take quite a long time depending on the amount of data and available network bandwidth. Due to this, many businesses keep another backup on a different device in the same building.

This is referred to as a local backup. Since restoring from a local backups only involve sending the data over the internal network, or even directly copying onto another drive, they can greatly reduce downtime.

So, Which Solution Should You Have?
None of these data protection methods are mutually exclusive and each of these methods has strengths and weaknesses.

With that in mind, most businesses will get the most benefit by having all of them in place because each one fills a gap in coverage left by another.

Redundancy will save data if a single drive is lost to mechanical failure, with very little downtime. However, it can’t protect against almost all other types of data loss.

A local backup will protect against all types of data loss except when both the default and backup locations are lost at the same time. Restoring takes longer than a redundant drive, but is still quite fast.

An offsite backup takes the longest to restore from, but protects against almost all scenarios.

So, the next time you want to impress your coworkers and possibly save the company, ask whether your server or network-attached storage has both backups and redundancy in place.

What Is Data Retention? Why Do I Need It?

If you are in the medical or legal industry, regulations require you to retain data and records for a certain period of time. The data retention process was a little more clear-cut back when it was only files and sheets of papers in brown boxes that you stored in the attic or the basement.

However, in today’s time, almost everything is in digital form, whether it’s stored locally on a file server, external hard drives, or in the cloud.

This data needs to be secure and easily accessible in the event you need to retrieve any of it. Depending on how much data you have, there are many options.

The one thing you do not want to do is buy a cheap hard drive, move your data over to it, and think you’re safe.

If you only have one copy of that data and you move it to a new location, that is your only copy. You want to have your data saved in more than one location or a mirror copy of it saved.

A business might want to consider a local or cloud server with a RAID setup so that there is a copy of your copy. It creates a copy of your data so that, in the event of a hardware failure or data corruption, the data can be restored from the second copy.

The first copy would be returned to the last version, like nothing happened to it.

If you are a larger business and/or deal with medical or financial information, it would be very wise to utilize data encryption for the stored data.

However, every business should create a data retention policy and follow it. Categorize documents and images, then specify how long the data is to be retained.

Make sure all employees and IT professionals with access to company and client data know and adhere to this policy.

The main thing to keep in mind is the type and quality of hardware that is used. It’s great to have a data retention policy in place and follow it exactly, but if your data gets corrupted, stolen, or a hard drive fails, the policy does you no good.

The key to a rock-solid data retention policy starts with having a robust backup solution in place as well.

The backup solution can either be a cloud-based system or an on-site enterprise storage device or server with a proper RAID setup.

Here at Tech Experts, we can assist you with establishing a file server with the correct RAID configuration to ensure that the retained data is safe and secure, with encryption and redundancy built in. Cloud based image backups are also a great way to ensure the safety of your data.

We can also start you on a managed service plan for monitoring and maintenance of that server and your other workstations, laptops, printer, and VoIP phone systems.

Wherever you decide to store your data, make sure that enterprise hardware and security measures are used to ensure that your data will remain intact.

Five Ways To Take Your Business Paper Free

Thomas Fox is president of Tech Experts, southeast Michigan’s leading small business computer support company.

If you’re a small business owner, chances are you always have one eyes on your operating costs and the best way to reduce or eliminate extra expenses and improve staff efficiency.

One great way in which you can gain some great cost savings is by eliminating paper.

Paper-based tasks increase storage, postage, and compliance costs and can be a major overhead for modern-day businesses.

Here are five ways you can reduce paper usage and save yourself some cash in the process.

Smart Project Management

Traditionally, the process of managing company projects that involve different departments and multiple people generates massive amounts of paperwork.

More contemporary organizations are taking the smart project management approach through the use of cloud-based solutions, such as Basecamp, Asana or Trello, which allow you to ditch the paper while running a project online with unlimited users.

Electronic Payroll

Rectifying payroll issues costs half of all small business an average of $850 annually. Using decent payroll software reduces the errors and facilitates paperless processing. An electronic payroll system automates all the manual calculations such as tracking hours worked, calculating salaries, and filing taxes.

Salaries can also be paid electronically rather than printing checks or visiting the bank.

The additional benefits of electronic payroll include self-service functionality, and allowing staff to view their payroll data, such as personal details, tax deductions and pay slips online from any device.

Receipts and Invoices

Eliminate paper (and postage costs) by offering customers the option to receive electronic receipts either by email or text.

Your customer will then have it for future reference. Ask suppliers to issue and email digital invoices, which you can save into your accounting software.

Cloud Storage

Small businesses spend a lot of money to purchase, fill and maintain filing cabinets!

Switching to cloud storage can reduce most of this cost as many services, like Dropbox, offer a free allowance.

Most cloud-based options also allow you to organize documents into separate folders.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software

CRM software can reduce the extent to which you rely on paper to store and track customer details, purchase orders, quotes and other correspondence.

Features include the ability to store customer data and interactions, manage staff details and vendors, and store documents.

What Is Credential Management And Should I Have It?

Ron Cochran is a senior help desk technician for Tech Experts.

In the world today, we have many things to remember and passwords are one of those. We have alarm codes, website logins, usernames, passwords, passphrases, bank account information, and everything in between. However, if you’re on top of your password game, then none of your passwords match and that can be quite the chore to keep up on.

This brings me to a product called Passportal.

Passportal eliminates the need to remember all those different passwords, websites, and passphrases. With Passportal, once you have your account set up – and have entered your websites, usernames, passwords, and passphrases – you will only need to remember one password to sign into anything. There is also an extension for one of the most popular web browsers.

Once you create your account with Passportal, you’ll be able to enter your website of choice, username, and password; then, when you revisit that site, you will be notified that Passportal has saved your credentials for that site. You’ll click one button and Passportal will automatically enter your information in, then you’re logged in to your favorite websites, social media, or message boards.

While it may sound like you’re putting all of your eggs in one basket, Passportal’s main focus is password security. The website, application, and process was created with military-grade password data security in mind while maintaining ease of use for the end user.

In the event of a mugging or break-in, you can lock your Passportal account and disable your usernames and passwords, instead of trying to remember everything you need to change. It’s one less thing to worry about when recovering from identity theft.

Let’s say your credit card and bank information have been compromised. Once you receive your new card and password, you revisit the website. Passportal remembers your password, but it doesn’t work. You will be able to seamlessly add the new password to the Passportal extension with just a couple clicks and keystrokes. Passportal has saved many users countless extra clicks, time, and hassle by keeping their valuable personal information secure.

If you are the owner of a company, you can utilize Passportal and have control over the passwords and when/if they expire. If you have an employee that quits or is terminated, you can lock that username out of your company information with just ONE click of a button. This feature saves valuable time that a human resource manager would have used to track down all the user information, gain access to their workstation or laptop, and remove their profile, or gain access to the server to remove their Active Directory profile.

Passportal also has two-way syncing with Active Directory for Windows Server. With Passportal, there is even a mobile app and phone number you can text to get a password reset. This feature will save employees who are locked out of their accounts – and allow your IT department to focus on more in-depth issues.

If you’re the human resource manager, general manager, or owner of a company, your company will most likely be able to benefit. Ask your IT department or managed service provider about Passportal and how you can implement it within your company.

Data Redundancy And Why You Should Have It

Ron Cochran is a senior help desk technician for Tech Experts.

Data redundancy is the making of an exact copy of the data that you are currently working with, in the event of a hardware failure, theft, or those pesky mistakes where you delete something that you really wanted.

What happens is you will have 1 or more hard-drives used for backups, housing those files that are kept nearly current. You will go through the steps to rebuild or restore the files or programs that were removed, then you will be back at the point you were at before the files were lost.

The above is extremely important when you are working with money or medical records. Let’s say you were working with a customer on their tax returns and your office experienced a power outage, which turns your computer off in the middle of saving data. A short while later, the power is restored and you turn your computer on and open the data to resume where you left off — and you find out that there is no record on your computer of your client and you start to panic.

If you had a redundant data solution, then you could restore the data, but if you didn’t, then you will need to call that customer and explain that they will need to bring all of that data back in so you can enter it into your system again. Now, consider how this customer could begin to think of you and your business.

If you have a safety net, you would follow the steps from your program and, in a short while, all of that data that you lost will be restored and you’ll be back at the point when the power went out, with all of your data intact. There are several different ways you can set up a system backup. One of the ways is to have more than one storage solutions to send data to.

With this solution, you will have more than one drive that is saving that information, which will do a couple of things. It will speed up the read/write times and you take less of a chance of losing more data. It’s always wise to have more than one solution for data recovery. You don’t want to wait until it’s too late and find out that in order to recover the data on your drive it’s going to be thousands of dollars.

You can have an image copy of your hard-drive made one time a day (or once a week or maybe twice a month) with a scheduled back up. You could have an application running in the background of your computer that would take up very few resources as it copies your data to a drive or an offsite storage facility.

We offer quite a few different data redundancy solutions to our clients. Those options range from on-site RAID drives to a cloud-based solution that is off-site. With either option, you can have a data backup or an image of your operating system — or even a direct mirror copy of your hard-drive in real time.

If you are worried that you might lose valuable information, then some sort of data redundancy is probably something you should be actively seeking. If you’re overwhelmed by the options and aren’t exactly sure which method would suit your business best, contact us and we can help you narrow it down, as well as provide a solution.

Why Is A Server Important For Your Business?

Anthony Glover is Tech Expert’s network engineer.

A server is a very important asset to any small business as it provides many features that can help your business run safely and efficiently.

For instance, when lending out a new or existing computer to employees, you can prevent unnecessary access, change passwords, or unlock accounts in one location. This allows management of the computers, enabling full control at all times.

It also allows you to have a centralized location for many of your functions: the server. You can share files and applications and reduce redundancy for all files. Since servers primarily run in a RAID configuration of some sort, you will have extra protection for your most important files.

Another great thing about a server is you can set up a domain for your business, enabling automation features like backups in one place.

This also allows for profiles, including files and applications, to be accessible from any workstation connected to the server. Not to mention, a server will keep you organized and running more efficiently in general by keeping your email, contacts, calendars, and files safe.

Data transferring to and from a server is much faster than transferring from a computer due the overall design of a server. Servers are built for speed, reliability, and security purposes.

This means you are going to get through the day with your time and resources spent more wisely, allowing you to continue with what matters in your business.

This efficiency and organization will increase customer relationships and help build retention with new and potential customers.

Best of all, you can set up a server to curve toward your needs. You can use a server for hosting your own websites, as a backup server, fileserver, or even run your database. You can also upgrade (to an extent) if your needs grow.

Keep in mind, these are only some of the many server configurations available for your server.

File or Backup Server
This server is for file-sharing, active directory, and domain services. It’s primarily used for backups and storage of user files.

This is the best option if you are going to need safe storage services for your business since a server is going to have redundancy storage to keep data safe.

Database Server
This server configuration is for database storage and management of SQL, Oracle, etc. This is a necessary option if you are utilizing a database for your business.

Again, utilizing a server is going to allow safe keeping of your files – this includes your critical files such as your database files.

Web Server
This configuration is for webhosting services and will allow hosting and management of a website from your office.

This is a great option for running web-based applications through your server. This option can also be done off-site by a website host if you prefer to go that route for faster access or security.

Utilizing a server is important for your business and choosing a server can be tough, let alone installing one yourself. Let Tech Experts help you decide and make sure you get the best option possible for your small business.