Data Management

Is It Ever A Good Idea To Share Your Password?

August 15, 2016

Luke Gruden is a help desk technician for Tech Experts.

There are times when it can be tempting to share account information or give a coworker access to files and programs to streamline processes. Other times, you might be away from the office and someone may need something on your Windows.

There are many reasons why workers would want to share accounts and passwords that would be in good faith and, on the surface, best for business. Should this be allowed and acceptable in a work setting? The short answer is no, and for several good reasons.

As much as it would seem that sharing passwords and credential information could help workers, this can lead to poor habits and huge security vulnerabilities. All it takes is for one person to write a password down for another person to read it.

It is common for someone using social engineering to go into company buildings and look for sticky notes, note pads, or files on desktops with passwords and account information on them. This way, they have the means to steal company information.
Even worse, it will look like the user account that was used to steal information was the one stealing information instead of the thief.

Another common event at some work places is that some workers will use their coworkers account to do something risky, so if anything happens, the account holder is the one in trouble and not the person borrowing their account.

backup When it comes down to the pressures of keeping a job or to work towards promotions, it can be surprising what some people might resort to in achieving their goals.

Sometimes, a person sharing an account might make a mistake and mean no harm, like deleting some important files on accident or click something they didn’t know about in an area of the computer they normally do not have access to.
This would also look like the account holder made the mistakes and not the actual person. There is a reason why certain people have access to certain drives, websites, and programs. Permissions and restrictions should be respected.

Your Windows account and email are your unique fingerprints and they should be protected. Everything you do on a computer is recorded in event logs and possibly on other monitoring systems on the network. Your account information should serve you as well as prove the work you have done.

It may be tempting to share account information, but there are alternatives. If a coworker needs access to a program or website, let IT know.

If the coworker really needs access for their job, then your manager and IT will change permissions to allow them access and they’ll no longer have to ask for your password.

What about if they need to work on files that you are working on? Your IT can setup a network drive and enable access for both you and your coworker so that files can be edited and changed freely without ever logging into each other’s accounts.

There may be many other reasons as to why people may want to share their account information, but chances are, there are alternatives that your IT can implement so that no one’s personal credentials are given out. Keep your account your own and there will be no unnecessary risk or possible security threat out in the open. If you have security or user concerns or would like to develop a permissions plan, we would be happy to help. Give us a call at (734) 457-5000.

(Image Source: iCLIPART)

How An End User Might Accidentally Undermine Your Security

July 28, 2016

Michael Menor is Vice President of Support Services for Tech Experts.

If you’re like every other small business out there, you know that the more employees you hire, the more technology that you have to procure. However, when you have more end-users, you provide more avenues for threats to slip into your network infrastructure unnoticed.

When all it takes is one simple mistake from a single end-user, how can you minimize the chances of falling victim to an untimely hacking attack? We’ve put together a list of honest mistakes that any end-user can make – and how they can be prevented.

Clicking on malicious links
With so much information on the Internet, it’s easy for an employee to search through countless pages without any regard to the sites and links that they’re clicking on.

You need to emphasize the importance of safe browsing, including double-checking the destination of a link before clicking on it. You can do so by hovering over the link and looking in the bottom-left corner of your browser.

Using weak passwords
Employees frequently use passwords that aren’t strong enough to keep hackers out. Often times, they’ll simply use something of personal significance, like the name of their pet or a specific date.

This isn’t the right way to approach password security. Instead, users should attempt to put together passwords that are private, randomized strings of numbers, letters, and symbols.

Losing unencrypted devices
It’s not unheard of for an employee to use company devices in public places. If they accidentally leave their smartphone on the bus or their tablet on a park bench, there’s always the risk that it can be stolen.

Unless you practice proper encryption protocol, any information available on the device can be accessed by the person who finds it, be it a good Samaritan or a tech-savvy thief.

Implementing unapproved solutions
Some employees simply prefer to use solutions that aren’t provided by the company to get their work done. The problem here is that the employee is moving forward without consulting IT about it and that your data is being used in a solution that you can’t control.

Plus, if the employee is using free or open-source software, these often come bundled with unwanted malware that can put your data in even greater peril.

Personal email use
It’s one thing to check your personal email account while at work, but another entirely to use your personal email account to perform work purposes.

As the recent debacle with Hillary Clinton shows, people don’t take kindly to sensitive information being leaked via an unsecured email server that their organization has no control over.

Add in the fact that personal email accounts are often not as secure as those in a professional productivity suite and you have a recipe for disaster. You need to reinforce that your team should keep their work and personal email separate.

Leaving workstations unattended
Besides the fact that some tech-savvy employees are practical jokers, it’s a security risk to leave a workstation unlocked and unattended for long periods of time.

Imagine if someone from outside of your organization walked into your office and accessed confidential files without authorization; that’s on the employee who got up and left the device unattended.

Encourage your employees to always log off of their workstations, or at least lock them, before stepping away from it. User error is a primary cause for concern among businesses, but it can be mostly avoided by providing your staff with the proper training. For more information on IT best practices, give us a call at (734) 457-5000.

Technology Considerations When Moving To A New Office

June 27, 2016

Moving your office is never an easy task. You have to move furniture, personal objects, and above all else, your technology infrastructure. There’s nothing simple about moving your office’s technology, but it’s still nothing to get worried about. That’s why we’re here to help – from suggesting the optimal network cabling, to the proper deployment of new and improved technology solutions.

For example, let’s take a look at your office. You have a certain number of workstations, one for each of your employees. These workstations need to be connected via cable to your business’s network. Otherwise, your team could go without required software, data, and other important resources. Your cabling infrastructure could quickly grow to be uncontrollable, especially if you don’t approach your cabling procedures correctly.

How Cloud Computing Can Benefit You

May 26, 2016

Is your business using the cloud in 2016? If not, you should know that it’s a great tool that’s designed to help your business better manage its data and application deployment.

However, the cloud can be used for so much more and it’s quickly becoming an indispensable tool for SMBs.

Here are four ways that cloud computing is changing the way that small businesses handle their technology:

Data Storage
The cloud is a great way to share data among your entire organization and deploy it on a per user basis.

Businesses can store their information in a secure, off-site location, which the cloud allows them to access it through an Internet connection.

This eliminates the need to host your data internally and allows your employees to access information from any approved device through a secure connection, effectively allowing for enhanced productivity when out of the office.

Microsoft Office365
Access Office from anywhere; all you need is your computer – desktop, laptop, tablet, or phone – and an Internet connection.

Since the software is running in a data center, you just connect to the Internet to access the software.

Another benefit to this is that you have a central location for all your data. If you need to make a change to an Excel spreadsheet from your tablet and you share the file with your colleague, they will be able to view the changes that you just made.
Gone are the days of emailing files between members of your team and losing track of the most up to date file version.

Virtualization
The cloud can be an effective tool for virtualization, which is a great method for cutting costs for your business. By virtualizing physical IT components, you’re abstracting them for use in the cloud. This means that you’re storing them in the cloud.

Businesses can virtualize servers, desktop infrastructures, and even entire networks for use in the cloud. Doing so eliminates the physical costs associated with operating equipment, allowing you to dodge unnecessary costs and limit the risk of hardware failure. For example, you can deploy all of your users’ desktops virtually from the cloud so you don’t need to rely heavily on more expensive workstation technology and can instead use thin clients. Simply log into your company cloud and access all of your applications and data on virtually any Internet connected device.

Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR)
A BDR device relies on the cloud to ensure quick and speedy recovery deployment. The BDR takes snapshots of your data, which are sent to both a secure, off-site data center and the cloud.

From there, you can access your data or set a recovery into motion. If you experience hardware failure, the BDR can temporarily take the place of your server, allowing you ample time to find a more permanent solution.

The cloud is crucial to the success of a BDR device, simply because the cloud is where the BDR stores an archive of its data.

Storm Season Is Just Around The Corner… Are You Protected?

April 18, 2016

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

We’ve just celebrated the first day of Spring, and before you know it, the weather will warm up and tulips will bloom. Of course, we’re also headed into Spring storm season.

If you haven’t already, it is time to prepare for those pop-up storms that occur randomly at this time of year. These unexpected storms often result in everything from ice damage to lightning fires.

During this time of year the threat of fire, flood, severe storms, water damage from office sprinklers, and even theft is very real.

One of the most valuable assets for any company is its data. Hardware and software can easily be replaced, but a company’s data cannot! As a reminder to all of our clients, here are some simple things you should do to make sure your company is ready for any natural disaster. [Read more…] about Storm Season Is Just Around The Corner… Are You Protected?

Does Your Backup Plan Stand Up To A Disaster?

March 8, 2016

Technology, while a great asset that can be leveraged for your benefit, can also frighten businesses due to how unpredictable it can be at times. The constant threat of data loss, identity theft, and hardware failure can cripple your business’s ability to retain operations.

Specifically, businesses can learn about risk management by analyzing the processes used by an industry where risk management is absolutely critical: nuclear power plants.

In the wake of two of the most destructive and violent nuclear disasters, nuclear power plants have begun to crack down on how they approach risk management. The Chernobyl incident of 1986, as well as the tsunami-induced disaster at Fukushima in 2011, are the only nuclear disasters to reach the peak of the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) at a rating of 7.

This means that they had an immense impact on the immediate vicinity, as well as the environment on a worldwide scale.

The meltdown at Chernobyl was the result of an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction, ending in an enormous explosion that resulted in fire raining from the sky and radioactive core material being ejected into the vicinity. A closer inspection of the incident revealed that the explosion could have been prevented, had the plant practiced better safety measures and risk management, like having a containment system put in place for the worst-case scenario.

In comparison, the Fukushima plant was prepared to deal with a failure of operations.

The problem that led to a disaster was one which couldn’t possibly have been prevented: the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and the resulting tsunami. The Fukushima plant had a contingency plan to shut down the plant in the event of a disaster, but tsunami prevented this from happening properly by flooding damaged power lines and backup generators, leading to heat decay, meltdowns, and major reactor damage.

Disasters like these lead to professionals searching for ways to prevent emergency situations in the future. For example, the Fukushima incident kickstarted conversations on how to prevent problems caused by the unexpected issues.

In response to emergency power generators being flooded or destroyed, off-site power generation will be implemented as soon as November 2016.

One other way that nuclear plants have chosen to approach these new risks is by outsourcing this responsibility to third-party investigators, whose sole responsibility is to manage the reliability of backup solutions. In a way, these investigators function similar to a business’s outsourced IT management, limiting risk and ensuring that all operations are functioning as smoothly as possible.

What we want to emphasize to you is that businesses in industries of all kinds expect the worst to happen to them, and your business can’t afford to be any different.

Taking a proactive stance on your technology maintenance is of critical importance. While your server that suffers from hardware failure might not explode and rain impending doom from the sky or expel dangerous particulates into the atmosphere, it will lead to significant downtime and increased costs.

In order to ensure that your business continues to function in the future, Tech Experts suggests that you utilize a comprehensive backup and disaster recovery (BDR) solution that minimizes downtime and data loss risk.

BDR is capable of taking several backups a day of your business’s data, and sending the backups to both the cloud and a secure off-site data center for easy access.

In the event of a hardware failure or other disaster, the BDR device can act as a temporary replacement for your server. This lets your business continue to function while you implement a suitable replacement.

Maintaining Workstation Data Protection

December 21, 2015

Making sure your workstation’s data is backed up and ready for deployment in the case of workstation failure is vital to any business. Once the workstation has been replaced or repaired, it’s key your employees are able to pick up right where they left off. This means restoring their data as soon as possible.

Three of the more common methods of maintaining data protection on a workstation can be deployed on business networks, as well as home user environments.

Roaming profiles are the method most commonly used in larger businesses. A roaming profile stores user data on a file server or storage device located on the network. This allows the user full access to their data no matter which workstation they log into, as long as it‘s connected to the business’ network.

The roaming profile allows the user to have a consistent desktop experience, such as appearance and preferences.

The downsides to using roaming profiles are that they can be difficult to set up and if the user has a large amount of data contained within their user account, there can be a delay when logging in. User profile folder migration is a method in which the local user data folders are moved to a file server or a secondary hard drive. To migrate your user profile folders, you first need to create new folders located on the storage device, keeping the names similar for ease of use (such as My Documents, My Pictures, etc).

Once the new folders are created, you can change the location of your user profile folders to save to the new folders. After that, all of your data files will be copied to the new location and the original folder will be removed from your local profile.

If the workstation ever needs replaced, you would repeat the process on the new workstation and all of the existing data will be available. However, if you migrate folders to a network attached device and lose network connectivity, you also lose connectivity to your folders and their data.

Simple file storage is the simplest and most common form of data protection on a workstation. This method is accomplished through either hardware or software means, such as connecting an external storage device to the workstation or using a web based file backup such as our Experts Total Backup service.

Simple file storage method is the least costly, which is why it’s often utilized by small businesses and home users. Attaching an external storage device such as a large USB flash drive or hard drive to the workstation allows the user to save the data to the device.

This method is also a way of increasing storage capacity of the workstation without having to install internal hard drives. The drives can be left connected to the workstation or removed for safe storage. Using a web based file backup is another commonly used way of backing up your data files.

Once the backup software is installed and configured, the backup process becomes fully automated. The downside to web based backup is that it’s web-based – so data restore time is based on your Internet connection speed. It can take anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of days to restore your data depending on the amount of data that was backed up.

If you have any questions on workstation data protection or would like to implement a backup method, call us at (734) 457-5000.

Pros And Cons Of Cloud And Physical Backup Solutions

November 24, 2015

Scott Blake is a Senior Network Engineer with Tech Experts.

When it comes to backing up data, you have two choices – you either maintain physical copies of your data or you utilize cloud services to host your data. Before you make a decision, you should look into the pros and cons of each and determine which one is a good fit for you.

Pros of Cloud-Based Services
Utilizing the cloud requires no capital investment for additional hardware or personnel to monitor and maintain your data locally.
Cloud service providers offer scalability to your data needs. No more adding additional drives or servers to maintain your data.
Data stored in the cloud is safe from any disasters that your office may have.
Your data can be accessed from any Internet connection in the world.
No maintenance of data drives. The cloud service provider takes care of everything on their end.
Cloud-based storage for your data will remove any risk of data corruption or hardware fault. This will allow you to reduce overhead by reducing the amount of IT staff personal assigned to manage and maintain your company’s data.

Cons of Cloud-Based Services
Cloud storage requires an Internet connection for uploading and downloading of data. If your connection is slow, you should expect slower uploads of data and increased access time to your data.
While almost every cloud service provider offers plans that come with data encryption, not all do. Make sure your cloud provider is securing your data.

Pros of Physical Backup
No vendors to deal with. You are in complete control of your data. You control how it’s backed up, accessed and maintained.
Data backups tend to take less time. There is no dependency on an Internet connection for backing up or accessing your data.
You are in complete control of the security process that protects your data.

Cons of Physical Backup
Localized data storage does offer the sense of control and knowing where your data is. However, that piece of mind can incur some high costs and overhead.
As the size of your data grows, so does your investment in storage media such as flash drives, external hard drives, internal hard drives and additional servers.
Physical devices will fail. It’s not “if,” but “when.” All mechanical devices will fail at some point in their life cycle. Additional IT staff will need to be put in place to monitor and maintain the physical equipment to ensure data integrity. This increases overhead.
In the event of a disaster in your business, data accessibility and recovery will be dependent on if extra steps were taken to secure physical copies of your data off-site.
Doing this will require the purchase of additional hardware and additional manpower to ensure the data is corruption-free.

Again, before deciding which method to implement, figure out which solution will work best for your business. Not every company’s backup or data storage needs are the same.

For assistance in setting up either cloud-based or local backup solutions, call the experts at Tech Experts: (734) 457-5000.

Have A Disaster Recovery Plan? Consider An Update

November 24, 2015

Much of one’s vital information may be stored digitally that its loss could be potentially devastating.

Although we all know the value of backing information up, it’s often not performed as regularly as it should be, in reality.

Think about how you and your business would cope with a natural disaster or hardware malfunction that wipes all of your precious data. Do you have a plan in place to recover it?

Chances are, you do have a recovery plan: it may be shooting your files into cloud storage or backing your data up periodically on USB drives or other external storage.

While such plans are certainly better than nothing, they may not be the current best choice for your needs.

After all, the potential threats to your data security are constantly changing and growing, and in order to protect yourself and your business files, your disaster recovery (DR) plan needs to evolve, too.

Your computer systems and hardware have also likely evolved since the last time the DR plan was created or updated. These changes can greatly impact the efficacy of your current DR plan.
Just as your software needs occasional updating, your recovery plan also needs periodic tweaking to best protect your data.

Set up a schedule to review and adjust your plan regularly, and always give it some extra care when your business undergoes a significant change. You may even consider testing your current plan to identify its strengths and weaknesses.

The important thing, however, is that your business does make updates to how you intend to deal with disaster, so those hurdles can be overcome with as little headache, downtime, and cost as possible.

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