TechTidBit - Tips and advice for small business computing - Tech Experts™ - Monroe Michigan

Brought to you by Tech Experts™

Five Things Small Business Owners Need To Know About Identity Theft

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

We often hear about issues with personal identity theft, and the havoc it can wreak on your credit and reputation. Less discussed, though, is small business identity theft, and how it can affect your company. Here are five things business owners need to know.

Small businesses are liable for their bank accounts
If someone steals money out of your personal account, chances are your bank is going to cover that. But if a small business account gets drained, small business owners are on their own.

Banks typically won’t cover these types of losses. Sometimes, a computer crime endorsement on your business insurance policy is available, and may cover some of your losses. With nearly all banks offering online access to account information, experts recommend you regularly monitor your accounts. [Read more…] about Five Things Small Business Owners Need To Know About Identity Theft

Strategically Upgrading Your Computer Systems

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

With technology growing faster than most businesses can keep up with, organizations have to continuously upgrade their solutions in order to maintain a semblance of modernity. The only issue with this is that many businesses can’t keep up, simply because they don’t have a team that’s dedicated to this important task.

What technology upgrades should be made a top priority and why?

Naturally, the first thing you need to know about workstation and technology updates is that you need to integrate them periodically in order to ensure optimal security for your organization.

Most viruses and malware will attempt to take advantage of weaknesses in your infrastructure in order to infiltrate it.

These weaknesses in your software and operating systems’ source code will ultimately allow these threats to force their way into your network, putting any contained information at risk.

These flaws are often addressed in software patches and system updates issued by the software developer, but tackling the updates in a timely fashion is a whole other monster.

Managing all software updates is easier said than done, especially without a dedicated IT department watching over your technology. Regular maintenance is often pushed to the back burner and dangerously close to being forgotten about.

Therefore, the best way to make sure that your systems are prepared to handle the threats that are found in today’s computing environment is to make upgrading your technology a priority for your organization.

Software Updates
There are several programs that your organization needs in order to stay functional, so your software updates aren’t limited to just your workstations’ operating systems.

The fewer unnecessary security flaws that can be found in your IT infrastructure, the safer your information will be.

Furthermore, users who are working with top-notch, optimized technology will be far more productive than they would be if they were using sluggish, bogged down computers.

It doesn’t make any sense to let your employees use machines that hold them back from achieving their maximum productivity.

In fact, sometimes you might encounter a situation where using a different software will be better for your business strategy.

It’s always recommended that you consult with a professional technician before making drastic changes to your business’s software infrastructure.

Antivirus Updates
Your antivirus solution is often a software solution, but virus and malware definitions are continuously being updated.

If your antivirus and other security software solutions aren’t properly maintained, it’s like you’re “leaving your keys in the front door,” so to speak.

Your antivirus solution needs to be managed on all workstations – or, better yet, centrally controlled from the server to ensure that all users are protected and up to date at all times.

Hardware Updates
Older hardware that’s been around the block a time or two might have proven reliable, but it will eventually start to show signs of its old age. Hardware failure becomes more likely and you run the risk of losing information due to the degradation of your technology.

This is why monitoring your systems for faulty tech and periodically upgrading to more recent models is preferable, if not necessary.

Granted, all of these software and hardware upgrades may feel overwhelming. This is why Tech Experts offers a remote monitoring and maintenance solution that’s designed to administer patches to your mission-critical systems remotely.

This helps your organization ensure that your systems are always up-to-date. We can also monitor your infrastructure for any irregularities that might be caused by hardware malfunctions, hackers, and much more. Call us at (734) 457-5000, or email info@mytechexperts.com to learn more.

Pros And Cons Of Cloud And Physical Backup Solutions

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

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.

Windows 10 Updates Are Now Mandatory

For those who have made the switch to Windows 10, there are some changes to how the new operating system updates are handled.

While users were previously notified of the availability of updates and were prompted to install them, these changes are now made automatically. Most Windows 10 users are likely unaware of this change because the only notification from Microsoft is a brief line in the licensing agreement that states users will “receive automatic downloads without additional notice.”

Microsoft doesn’t have any nefarious intentions (or at least we hope they don’t) by making this change; its intent seems to keep the most up-to-date version of the operating system on users’ devices.

There are, however, some potential drawbacks to having automatic updates without user knowledge. While the updates make it easier for Microsoft to keep up with changing technology, knowing its users are basically all on the same page and developers have a consistent target audience, these updates can potentially cause systems to interact differently with other hardware devices that aren’t part of the updates.

A particular printer’s driver, for instance, may lose functionality with an automatic update, and affected users would just be dumbfounded as to what happened, ultimately having to replace that hardware device.

Although Microsoft isn’t making any settings changes widely known, there is a way to configure your device to only install security updates automatically. This keeps your PC or tablet safe from the latest security threats while keeping your computer system as stable as possible.

Unfortunately, this option is not available to users running the Home version of Windows 10. Thus far, only the Enterprise Edition provides this capability, which is an important consideration for business owners.

The Three Scariest Threats To Small Business Networks

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

While spam, pop-ups, and hackers are a real threat to any small business network, there are three security measures that you should be focusing on first before you do anything else.

Worry About E-mail Attachments, Not Spam
Sure, spam is annoying and wastes your time, but the real danger with spam is in the attachments.

Viruses and worms are malicious programs that are spread primarily through cleverly disguised attachments to messages that trick you (or your employees) into opening them.

Another huge threat is phishing e-mails that trick the user by appearing to be legitimate e-mails from your bank, eBay, or other financial accounts.

Here are three things you must have in place to avoid this nightmare: [Read more…] about The Three Scariest Threats To Small Business Networks

The Benefits Of Managed IT

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

It can’t be denied that cost drives business. When the technology your business relies on fails, you have to get it repaired or replaced quickly in order to keep the resulting downtime from damaging your business.

The traditional method of computer repair is much like when your car is in disrepair: when your technology isn’t working properly, your organization reacts to the problem by calling your friendly, neighborhood computer repair guy.

The technician will come to your office and try to fix the technology that is broken. When they figure out they can’t fix the problem on the spot, they will give you a quote.

The time and materials of summoning these technicians to the office will cost you money, so will the replacement technology, and most notably, the downtime you accrue.

Add that to the variable cost of fixing the malfunctioning technology… and your business has a real problem.

At Tech Experts, we offer a proactive IT support platform that utilizes remote monitoring and management software to ensure that the technology that’s attached to your network – and your network itself – is up and working properly. Additionally, our whole IT services platform is billed in one monthly payment.

If you add it up, you are saving money in every aspect of your business.

You not only remove the variable costs of keeping your IT running smoothly, but you also get proactive support that, in many cases, gives you the time to replace hardware before it fails, saving you from the doldrums of companywide downtime.

The fact is that small and medium-sized businesses (SMB) need to cut their technology support costs if they want to compete with larger organizations.

There are a myriad of benefits that come from a managed services provider like Tech Experts handling the administration and support of your technology. Besides the obvious cost savings, four other huge benefits include:

Comprehensive Support
A major speedbump SMBs have when shopping for any service that claims to help their business is the quality of that service.

For those that worry that our managed services are too good to be true, we employ certified and trustworthy technicians that are proficient in finding solutions for today’s most challenging business technology problems.

Single Point of Contact
As an alternative from having to manage several vendors, our IT service provides you with a single point of contact for all of your technology needs. Since we understand the intricacies of your network, we can get issues resolved faster.

Faster Support
Through the use of remote support that we offer to all managed clients, we can more quickly address issues you might be having.

Many problems can be solved without an on-site visit. Additionally, annoying obstacles like forgotten passwords and account lock-outs can be resolved in a few minutes when we already have account configurations on file.

HIPAA Compliance
While it may not apply to all businesses, doctors’ offices and other related medical facilities can maintain HIPAA compliance when using our services. By collaborating with us on your organization’s policies, you can avoid costly government fines in the event of a medical breach or network inspection.

Managed IT services can provide you with many other benefits. For more information about how our managed IT services can benefit your organization, call us at (734) 457-5000 today.

Beware The Fake Microsoft Cold Calls

Scott Blake is a Senior Network Engineer with Tech Experts.

The phone rings and you don’t recognize the number or name on the caller ID. You pick up anyway and the caller tells you that they work for Windows Support or Windows Service Center and they are a Microsoft Certified Technician.

They go on to say they have received log files or have determined that your computer is infected and causing corruption throughout your Windows operating system.

They ask if you’re at your computer now and, if not, to go there. Once there, they walk you through how to open your Event Viewer and show you the Administrative Events under the Custom Views folder.

They are quick to point out all of the red circles labeled “Error” are all Malware infections. They then ask you to look at the number of events listed and they go on to advise this is the total number of infections currently on your computer.

The caller then says they can clean your system of all infections, but they will need to have remote access to the computer.

At this point in the call, most people have been thoroughly convinced by the voice on the other end of the phone that their system is indeed infected and needs to be cleaned. After all, the caller knew where to look for the so-called infections and they do sound like they truly want to help.

The Microsoft “employee” will even tell you that if you don’t let them remove the infections, the “hackers” that placed the malware on your system will have complete access to all of your information.

They warn that your identity is in jeopardy of being stolen. You must give them remote access to your computer. They are your only hope and you must trust them. After all, they say they work for Microsoft.

The fact of the matter is that the caller does not work for Microsoft in any capacity. They don’t work for any of their third party vendors nor any security firm that has been retained by Microsoft.

They are in fact the “hackers” attempting to convince you to give them access to your computer to infect your system and steal your data.

If you allow them remote access, they will start to install malicious programs on your computer. They’ll copy all of your information and, in some cases, encrypt your data.

They will tell you that that the infection is too severe for a “standardized” cleaning and you will need to pay money to have them install removal programs to clean the system.

In mid-2013, NBC News Technology reporter Frank Catalano, reported on receiving one such phone call himself.

After his ordeal with the fake Microsoft, Mr. Catalano contacted the real Microsoft. He received the following reply:

“In 2010, Microsoft began receiving reports of scammers making phone calls or sending emails to people,” replied a spokesperson for Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit. They advised that they had referred the cases to the Federal Trade Commission.

One very important thing to remember is that Microsoft (or any of its partners) will never cold call you. They will never ask for remote assistance. They will never ask for usernames and passwords.

If you have fallen victim to such a scam, disconnect your network cable and take your computer to a trusted service center or repair facility and explain in detail what happened as soon as possible.

For questions or advice on what to do about cold call scammers, contact Tech Experts at (734) 457-5000, or by email at info@mytechexperts.com.

Should You Eject USB Drives Before Unplugging Them?

While it is possible in some cases to remove a USB drive without using the eject option and not cause harm, you should always eject a drive before removing it from your PC’s USB port to be on the safe side.

Some USB drive users thought this was only necessary with Linux and Mac because the dialog to eject a device is so prominent, and Windows doesn’t make it as clear to safely eject a USB drive.

It is, however, possible to accidentally lose or corrupt the data on the thumb drive even when using Windows.

The information stored on USB drives can become corrupt when the device is pulled out because most operating systems employ something called write caching, a fancy way of describing how Windows sometimes saves tasks to do all at once in order to be efficient.

When a computer user initiates the proper ejection process, it tells the OS to complete all those tasks first before it’s safe to remove the drive from the USB port.

Windows handles removable drives a little differently than Mac and Linux, which is perhaps why the way to safely eject USB drives isn’t as easy to find.

Often, Windows doesn’t recognize or categorize these drives as removable, and this actually makes proper ejection even more important. When a removable drive is identified as a non-removable one, Windows automatically uses write caching.

This means that any data associated with a saved task can be lost in the event that a user pulls the drive out without first clicking the “Safely Remove Hardware” option in the system tray.

Tips On Buying Smart Watches

The smart watch is one of the hottest new products in the tech market today, and it’s with good reason. These devices give users the ability to monitor and control more than one device simultaneously and can even eliminate the need for some items.

In addition to the obvious time function, you can make and receive calls and monitor fitness activities among a host of other features straight from your wrist. However, with the number of smart watch manufacturers growing, it can be hard to decide which one is best for your needs. Consider the following before making any costly purchase:

Is it compatible with your smartphone? Since most smart watches are designed to be a companion to your cell phone, it is important to check their compatibility. Some devices are designed to work only with the iPhone while others are mainly for Android products. Then, there are third-party manufacturers producing watches that are compatible with all smartphone operating systems. If in doubt about the compatibility of a smart watch with your smartphone, ask a salesperson or search for the product online.

How important is a full-color screen to you? When presented with the choice between a black-and-white E Ink and a full-color screen, you likely choose color without any other information. There are, however, some great benefits that come with the monochrome E Ink screen.

For starters, full-color screens produce more glare in the outdoors while E Ink ones are visible virtually anywhere. Monochrome screens also save considerable battery life compared to their color counterparts, lasting up to days longer between charges. They do, however, have a dated and less visually appealing look.

Do you want a touch screen or old-school button gadgetry? While most consumers opt for the familiar touch screen technology featured on smartphones, the simpler button styles have a following as well.

A touch-display interface usually has easier navigation, but the small screen size can cause lots of pressing errors. Smart watches with physical buttons also run a little cheaper, but the choice is ultimately based on personal preference.

What types of design extras do you value? Smart watches vary greatly when it comes to design and little extra touches. While a fashionista may delight in the ability to swap out bands to coordinate with particular outfits, this may not impress another consumer who consider the extra pieces a hassle to keep away from kids or pets.

Look at a variety of products, weighing the importance of certain features with any additional costs, and then make a decision.