Coleman Technologies Blog

What Do You Expect from Your Wi-Fi?
Many businesses have a tendency to either deal with their Wi-Fi as-is or will haphazardly add new networking components to their infrastructure as needed. Neither of these approaches is ideal, especially in light of the fact that you’ll need your Internet connections to be reliable as you grow your network.

A much better alternative is to design your Wi-Fi network keeping a few additional factors in mind, including your office’s particular setup and any future growth plans you may have. This way, you will not only create a network that works for your current needs but is also flexible enough to shift and adapt as your business does. Whether you’re first designing your office’s floor plan or taking another look at its setup, the key is to go about it from a strategy-first perspective.

The Process
Your first order of business is to determine where the demand for a signal will be the greatest. After all, if you have a group of employees reliant on their wireless connectivity huddled together in one area of the office, you aren’t going to want to place your equipment in a way that creates a dead zone there. This will help you to identify obstacles and inform you of where you may want to consider placing additional routers to make up for their effects.

Once your Wi-Fi has been set up and your employees are settled, you should still be collecting performance data and listening to the input that employees have about their connections. Remember, wireless is still an evolving technology, so as it develops it is likely that you will need to adjust your strategy to accommodate it.

Long story short, you’ll probably need to make this an ongoing process to ensure that your Internet is as usable as possible for everyone in the office.

The professionals at Coleman Technologies are also here to assist you with any of your technology needs. If you need help with your business’ IT solutions, give us a call at (604) 513-9428.

A Brief History in IT Security (And Why it Matters to SMBs)

Over the past two decades, IT technology has altered the business topography making it easier to produce, collect, and collaborate on data. However, the use of modern-day, internet-connected equipment for any purpose opens your business up to threats. Whether you simply use email for business correspondence, or your point-of-sales solution integrates with your website’s ecommerce system, protecting your data and infrastructure from online threats isn’t something you want to skip.

Without going too deep into the nerdy details of cybersecurity, let’s take a brief look at where the world is at so far:

• In 1988, computer scientist and entrepreneur Robert Tappan Morris developed the first computer worm that self-replicated across the Internet. This worm single-handedly caused an Internet blackout.
• In the 1990s, computer viruses were quickly becoming widespread and were getting a lot of media coverage. You might remember the ILOVEYOU and Melissa viruses that infected tens of millions of PCs. None of these viruses really had any clear objective other than causing disruption.
• These viruses led to the development of Internet security companies and antivirus solutions. It also started to build awareness for online security threats, which only led to trickier types of malware and threats.
• Email was (and still is) one of the prominent ways viruses were spread, so businesses that relied on email were just as susceptible to online threats, however businesses started to have more at stake. If emails were compromised, the integrity of the business, or at the very least, the level of security of the business, would be questioned by clients and prospects.
• During the 2000s, internet threats started to become more organized and strategic. No longer were viruses just an annoying nuisance that spread haphazardly. Instead, many major threats were identified that had serious financial objectives.
• Starting in 2005, Criminal organizations were targeting retail outlets, syphoning credit card information. One of the first and largest was when 45.77 million credit cards were stolen from TJ Maxx, costing the company $256 million to repair damages.
• Finally, businesses were starting to take cybersecurity more seriously, because there were clear and heavy consequences for falling victim to an attack.
• Today, it hasn’t gotten any better. Over the past few years, huge brands like Sony, Target, Apple, Premera Blue Cross, Anthem, Chick-fil-A, Kmart, Dairy Queen, and even the US Postal Service have been targets of very successful, very aggressive, and very expensive hacks.
• With the massive popularity of mobile devices, smartphones and tablets are now being targeted more than ever. It’s estimated that 11% of all smartphone users get hacked each year, and that number is expected to rise.
• Don’t forget data theft. Laptops, tablets, and smartphones are extremely susceptible to this. Beyond the physical device being stolen, hackers can easily intercept data being sent from a mobile device over insecure Wi-Fi hotspots like those found in coffee shops, trade shows, and hotels.

Of course, these are all the big names we’ve heard in the media. Smaller companies don’t get the same publicity (thank goodness), but smaller companies are actually at a higher risk because they tend to have little to no defense. While a criminal organization might like to steal the data of 56 million customers from Home Depot, several hundred records from a small business can be done in a fraction of the time.

The points to take away from this are that cybercriminals are becoming smarter and more organized, and that it doesn’t matter how big or small your business is.

Protecting Your Business

To protect your business today, it takes several different approaches. There’s no single answer or software to purchase that will protect you from each type of risk. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that throwing money and solutions is going to protect your assets.

Beyond the security measures in place, a sense of awareness needs to come into play. You and your staff need to keep security top-of-mind, and rely on an IT security consultant when questions arise.

Let’s start with the basics - the solutions on your network that should handle the heavy-lifting of your IT defense plan.

Backup and Business Continuity Planning

While data backup isn’t really a preventative security measure, it is a major player when it comes to your security plan, as well as a fundamental piece of your business continuity plan. A managed, properly monitored backup solution is basically the last line of defense. If all else fails, at least you can restore your data. It should be hoped that you never need to come down to this, because if you are compromised, much of the damage is already done, but if you are compromised and your data is gone, there’s little chance of survival.

Your backup solution should store data securely offsite, and backups should be ran regularly, several times per day. Other features to look for in a good backup solution would be fast restore times (image-based backups instead of file backups), versioning, and virtualization capabilities.

Managed Antivirus

A staple of traditional IT security, having antivirus properly installed and managed across your entire network will prevent the millions of different viruses and basic threats that cause computer downtime and other issues. Antivirus isn’t going to prevent more targeted attacks, but all businesses should have it in place.

Although there are plenty of great free antivirus solutions for home users, your business will want a solution that is centrally deployed and managed to ensure virus definitions and other updates are always in place, and that scans are ran regularly.

Firewall

Equipping a centrally controlled firewall will block incoming attacks. Not to be confused with the software-based firewalls that piggy-back on many antivirus suites, a business-class firewall typically sits on your network between your other devices and the wild Internet.

Spam Protection

As mentioned before, email is one of the main ways threats get into your business. Although most email clients have decent spam filtering, junk email is still getting into your organization. Utilizing a separate spam filter solution blocks these threats from getting delivered.

Secure WPA2 Wi-Fi

Unsecure Wi-Fi can give a user full access to your network and your data. Although this only opens you up to localized threats (the user has to be within range of your company Wi-Fi), ensuring that your routers are locked down and secure is a best practice. Many modern routers have this functionality built-in, it just needs to be properly configured.

Secure VPN Access

Data theft is a huge problem when traveling. Wireless hotspots, like those found at airports, coffee shops, and hotels can be very insecure. Hackers can easily intercept your data without your knowledge. A VPN (Virtual Private Network) solution lets you access your company files and applications securely without transmitting sensitive data. This also means that sensitive data doesn’t need to be stored on the device.

Mobile Device/BYOD Policies

With the widespread usage of devices like smartphones and tablets, employees are becoming much more likely to use these devices for work. This can improve communication, collaboration, and productivity, however there are downsides certain precautions aren’t put into play. Your organization needs to develop a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy with specific rules corresponding to the storage and transferring of company data on personal mobile devices. These policies need to be read and understood by all employees, and enforced by the organization.

While you don’t want to be so strict that you prevent engaged users from utilizing their own smartphones or tablets for work, you need to enforce the protection of your data (and your clients’ data). Setting up the ability to remotely wipe a lost or stolen device, or revoke the access to company email if the employee quits is a good start, while establishing document management solutions like cloud hosting or a VPN provides even more incentive to follow best practices.

Industry-specific Compliances

Depending on your business, there may be other regulations and compliances that you need to meet. It’s best to cover these on a case-by-case basis, as each regulation will have very specific requirements. We highly recommend you reach out to the IT security experts at Coleman Technologies for an evaluation.

Ongoing Management, Updates, and Testing

What good is a smoke detector if the batteries are dead? The same goes for IT security that isn’t properly managed, kept updated, and regularly tested.

Don’t wait for a security breach or data loss to start thinking about IT security. To get started, and to find out what it would take to establish the solutions found in our fundamental IT defense plan, give us a call at (604) 513-9428.

Customer Service
Your customers are one of your most valuable assets, so it’s natural that you want to build a powerful bond with them. If you can’t support the products you sell to them, you’ll have a difficult time keeping your business in good standing with both current and prospective clients. Technology can help you maintain this positive relationship through the use of a ticketing system to handle customer complaints and concerns, and it also makes it easy to handle support for various services you might offer.

Social media and social networking in general provides businesses with more direct ways of interacting with consumers. Sites like Facebook and Twitter essentially offer a platform to promote a brand and knowledge base. Of course, this advantage can quickly become a detriment if it’s not managed properly, as you’re (again) dealing directly with customers--if they aren’t satisfied by your interaction, they’re more likely to share it and complicate public relations.

Productivity
To be successful as a business, you have to accrue money somehow. This is where productivity comes in--technology helps by enabling workers to get more done throughout the workday, building more value for your organization in the long run. For example, time-tracking software can help with task scheduling, giving employees the opportunity to accomplish more during the time they spend in the office. Moreover, you’ll be able to assign a monetary value to the time your employees spend on various tasks and streamline their work processes.

Many of today’s most helpful technology solutions come with built-in productivity solutions that allow for collaboration through the cloud. These cloud-hosted applications provide flexibility to workers so they can communicate in the way most efficient for them. Since these solutions are flexible and scalable, your business can adjust them as needed.

Finance
Money is a big part of why you’re in business, but you can’t do anything without funding of your own. You have a bottom line to keep in mind, after all. Technology can help businesses better manage their finances through online invoicing services to collect payments and reduce paper expenses. If you use software to manage payroll and other accounts, you’ll be able to handle them easily and more efficiently. If you can streamline these processes at all, your business can run much better and you’ll be better off in the long run.

Security
Security plays a critical role in the sustainability of your business, both on your network and in your physical office. You can’t let workers or other entities waltz around your network and your office uninhibited, as the opportunity to cause major damage is practically omnipresent in today’s business world. You need to implement not only network security solutions such as antivirus, firewall, content filtering, and spam blocking technology, but physical security solutions like security cameras, biometric security locks, and other measures as well. Doing so ensures the protection of all your business’ assets, whether it’s from a hacker or a careless employee.

A lot goes into making a business successful, and technology plays a large role in doing so. How does your business use technology? Coleman Technologies can help you get started thinking about the future for your organization. To learn more, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.

Collection Concerns
Data collection is one of the current big concerns in technology. With another newsworthy data breach practically every other day, companies that accumulate data for seemingly little reason effectively put their clients and customers at a greater risk of having this data stolen. Reflecting upon this, it is no wonder that 75 percent of consumers are concerned about brands keeping track of their browsing habits.

Facebook has been the focus of some negative attention in past months thanks to these concerns. In addition to the Cambridge Analytica situation, Facebook has adopted artificial intelligence technologies to analyze their users. This analysis is used to predict future behaviors, these insights being sold to advertisers. While this brings up many legitimate concerns about data privacy, it also introduces a different topic: the need for a code of ethics surrounding the use of collected data, as well as how much data is collected.

Why This Is a Real Issue
It should come as no surprise that businesses and individuals have different priorities, and that these different priorities shape their ethics in different ways. Likewise, the primary purpose of any business is to generate revenue through profit. Therefore, it only makes sense that a business as a unit would have the motivation to collect as much data as they can - after all, the more data available, the more insights that could be presumably be gleaned, and the more successful the business would be… in theory.

However, as mentioned above, many businesses seem to collect as much data as they can just so they can have it. This is not a great approach for them to take for a few reasons. Most obviously, because it just enables more data to be compromised if a breach was to occur.

Without the guidance of a code of ethics leading your business decisions, the likelihood of risking your clients’ data for the sake of advancement - be it more insight, improved automation and artificial intelligence, or another business goal - becomes much higher.

Enforcing Ethics
In order to create a workplace that is in alignment with your determined ethics, you need to make sure of two things. One, that you clearly establish and share them within your business so that your employees are on the same page as you are, and two, that you stand by these ethics.

To accomplish this, learning your company’s ethics should be a part of an employee’s onboarding process, with a written document leaving no questions as to what will and won’t be tolerated. Then, you need to make sure that you not only listen when ethical violations are reported, but also allow those reporting them to remain anonymous.

What would be the most important aspect of your policy for employees to follow? Share it in the comments!

Extension Restrictions
One of Chrome’s largest advantages over its competition has to be its library of add-on extensions. Unfortunately, any kind of functionality with these additional “programs” can lead to security concerns. Google has had to slow down the production of extensions to create new requirements for developers to adhere to. One example is how cryptocurrency continues to be a major talking point, prompting extensions to include cryptocurrency mining and cryptojacking in their features. Google is shutting down these supplemental programs, as well as generally holding developers to higher standards than they previously were. It now demands that developer accounts be protected by two-factor authentication, as well as paying closer attention to apps that require lots of permissions or host their code remotely.

Security Measures
Chrome 70 is also packing in all kinds of new security features to keep phishing attacks away from end users. In particular, Chrome is trying to push education of its native password management tools, as well as warn users when the links they are about to access aren’t secure. In essence, this simply states that websites need to be secured if they want visitors, reinforcing the fact that websites need to prioritize security these days.

Login Concerns
While some changes have been accepted with open arms, others… not so much. While Chrome has allowed users to use the browser without logging into the browser, some have noticed that Chrome appears to log a user in, even if they are only using one service out of the many provided. This is primarily an issue because Google could potentially share the user’s data (think browsing history), which is not something that users traditionally take lightly. In the time since then, Google has announced that Chrome isn’t necessarily logging users into Chrome--it’s more of an in-between measure to show a user which of their accounts is currently logged in.

As with any new solution, there will be roadblocks and concerns that users might be faced with during the experimentation phase. What kind of experiences have you had with Chrome 70 so far? Let us know in the comments.