Firewalls for Small Businesses

Small Business Firewall

Your business’s firewall is the layer of protection that keeps it safe from outside threats. A quality firewall blocks undesirable incoming traffic while still allowing your business to communicate externally. Does your small business really need a firewall? It’s critical to your overall security and helps keep your business running smoothly. 1. Avoid downtime with a quality firewall. Security threats are growing with every passing year, and many of them can bring your business’s productivity crashing to the ground. For a long time, users believed that Apple products were immune to the bulk of viruses. While it’s true that the same… Read moreFirewalls for Small Businesses

Keeping Apple Computers Safe

Apple Security

The special security risk for MacOS owners is complacency. Macs don’t get successfully attacked as often as Windows computers. This is partly because the OS is built on a solid Unix base, but it’s also that Macs are a smaller target. Relative obscurity doesn’t guarantee safety. The Mac has the advantage that Apple controls not just the software but the whole package. This makes it less likely that computers will come with malware already on them, such as “Superfish” on Lenovo computers a few years ago. It allows faster fixes when problems appear, since they only have to be tested on a… Read moreKeeping Apple Computers Safe

What Are Apple’s Biggest Security Threats?

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A major appeal of using Apple products is that the threat of viruses and malware is vastly reduced as compared to other operating systems (particularly PCs running Windows). Apple’s “walled garden” approach to software distribution means that if you install software or an app, you have to do it through Apple’s internal systems, so you can be assured that they’ve thoroughly screened it for threats before allowing it to be hosted with them. That doesn’t mean Apple products are entirely free of security issues, of course. In recent years, malware has even found ways to creep onto Apple devices. While an Apple… Read moreWhat Are Apple’s Biggest Security Threats?

Google’s new amazing collaboration tools

New Collaboration Tools

Google just wrapped up it’s 2017 Next conference where it shared many new products and features. A few stood out to us and our clients: Team Drives This new feature allows you to have shared folders accessible by teams, and secured like an on-site file server. Unlike normal cloud shared folders, these Team Drives are managed by the company not the user. The benefit of this is files are not lost when someone leaves the company, as well as you can control who can edit/delete/access the files, securing them. Drive File Stream When you have hundreds if not thousands of gigabytes of… Read moreGoogle’s new amazing collaboration tools

Have your accounts been compromised?

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Over 189 websites have been compromised over the past few years leaking over 2 billion email accounts and their passwords. Since a lot of us end up using the same passwords for multiple accounts, these hacks can be very damaging. Once websites are hacked user’s passwords are made available to the world. So how do you know if your account has been compromised? There is a great site called haveibeenpwned. You can for free go to www.haveibeenpwned.com and enter your email address to see if any account tied to your email address has ever been part of any of these leaks. Find out if… Read moreHave your accounts been compromised?

“Spoofed” Emails: What They Are And How To Guard Against Them

Spoofed Emails

When you write a letter in real life, there’s nothing stopping you from putting any return address you want on the top of the envelope to potentially mislead the recipient as to its origins. In theory, that’s a security hole that email is not supposed to have; when you send an email to someone, the address you sent it from is attached to it automatically, and you’re not given the option to edit or alter this information. Unfortunately, that’s not exactly true. A hacking technique called “spoofing” does indeed make it possible for emails to appear to be coming from one address… Read more“Spoofed” Emails: What They Are And How To Guard Against Them

2-Step Verification: Make the Right Tradeoff

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People aren’t good at creating strong passwords and remembering them. Far too many people use obvious choices like “password” and “123456.” As a result, criminals can break into accounts and steal information or install malware. Surely there’s a better way. One way to improve security is to require a second piece of information, in addition to the password. That’s called two-step verification. There are a lot of ways to do this, and people are always devising more. All of them involve a tradeoff. They make it harder for unauthorized people to get in, but it’s also a bit less convenient for… Read more2-Step Verification: Make the Right Tradeoff

IBM is saving a minimum of $265 per Mac on average versus a comparable PC

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IBM just presented at JAMF conference. Last year they announced how the Macs were helping them cut the costs of their IT support. Read More about IBM’s initial findings. IBM has found that their total cost of ownership has improved with their switch to Mac. IBM is saving a minimum of $265 per mac on average versus a comparable PC. While the initial cost of the Mac is higher the easier roll out and management lowers the overall cost of ownership. Employees at IBM are now overwhelmingly choosing a Mac over other devices. Their over 217,000 devices are being supported by… Read moreIBM is saving a minimum of $265 per Mac on average versus a comparable PC

3 Common Security Problems Small Business Don’t Know They Have

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Here are three common security problems we see in our work and the strategies we use for keeping our clients’ networks safe. If you run your business on macs, you’ll want to read on.   Problem #1: Improper Network Setup from the Beginning It’s not uncommon for a business’ IT support to have been trained for work in a PC environment rather than a Mac environment. Therefore, the network solutions recommended are often improper for what a Mac-based business truly needs. We found this recently with a client that was having file permission issues, internet interruptions and whose emails wouldn’t… Read more3 Common Security Problems Small Business Don’t Know They Have

Adobe issues Flash Update to deal with major security issues.

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Dear Triad Mac Customers, Today Adobe issues a set of updates to fix security issues with Flash Player. Vulnerabilities were found that could allow someone to take control of a targeted computer through Flash Player. These updates have been released by adobe, to update your flash player you can go to adobe’s website at http://www.adobe.com/go/getflash. If you have a Mac you can also go to your System Preferences, then to Flash Player (normally in the bottom row) then click on Updates, then click Check Now to check for updates. If you are not sure if you have Flash you can… Read moreAdobe issues Flash Update to deal with major security issues.