Tag: disaster recovery and backup planning

  • 5 Ways to Think Like a Hacker to Protect Your Business

    5 Ways to Think Like a Hacker to Protect Your Business

    As you’re going about your day-to-day activities online, thinking of how a hacker might take advantage of even mundane aspects of your routine probably doesn’t enter into the equation.

    We all sign on to work for the day, check our emails, maybe post an update on social media and chat with our colleagues before getting into the grind of our daily activities. Already when you first log in, you’re potentially being exposed to potential threat activity.

    Here are five ways you can “think like a hacker” and protect your business and yourself from falling victim to scams, malware attempts and more:

    1. As we mentioned, the first thing almost everyone does is check their emails but how closely are you scrutinizing the items in your inbox? Phishing is still the number one-way attackers gain access to personally identifying information and systems in your business. Here’s some advice on spotting phishing emails and how to avoid falling for them.
    2. Sharing on social media? You’re volunteering personal information that anyone can read and take advantage of. It might be nice to post that lunch selfie you took with your colleagues but maybe wait until you’re back at your desk, especially if you’re a business owner as you’re more likely to be targeted by something called spear fishing. By posting that selfie during lunch you’re letting anyone who may be watching know your office computer is unattended.
    3. In the same vein, the more details you post online the more information can be gleaned to target you. If you post that your Aunt Kathy Isn’t feeling well Aunt Kathy’s “friend” may send you a message offering sympathy and describing their own woes and tribulations while perhaps trying to gain your trust. However, when you go to confirm with Aunt Kathy later on you find out she’s never heard of this so called “friend”. Social engineering is a large part of long-term scams, always confirm with your friends and relatives directly before giving credence to any messages you receive online.
    4. Sending something important? Always encrypt! You cannot account for the security awareness of others; by encrypting important files being sent via email you’re at least protecting your side of equation.
    5. Speaking of security awareness, being up to date on the latest threats is exactly what a hacker would do. With security awareness training, you can “think like a hacker” and avoid many of the traps they try and set up to gain access to your business.

    Security awareness training is just one of the features we include with all of our service plans. On top of that you will also gain access to:

    1. 24/7 Endpoint Detection and Threat Monitoring
    2. Automatic Daily Backups
    3. Disaster Recovery Planning
    4. Consistent Patching & Updates
    5. Ticket Response Times in Under 15 Minutes

    With a Valley Techlogic plan you don’t need to think like a hacker to protect your business, learn more today with a free consultation.

    Looking for more to read? We suggest these other articles from our site.

    This article was powered by Valley Techlogic, leading provider of trouble free IT services for businesses in California including Merced, Fresno, Stockton & More. You can find more information at https://www.valleytechlogic.com/ or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/valleytechlogic/ . Follow us on Twitter at https://x.com/valleytechlogic and LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/valley-techlogic-inc/.

  • Verizon’s massive outage this week and it’s connection to Hurricane Helene

    Verizon’s massive outage this week and it’s connection to Hurricane Helene

    While much of the eastern side of the country continues to grapple with the effects of Hurricane Helene (in particular western North Carolina which had many towns wiped off the map), restoring cellular communication has been a top priority to locate and aid those currently affected.

    In order to do that, cellular communication providers have enabled something called “disaster roaming” in the effected areas, this type of roaming services allows customers of any mobile phone company to use any available cell tower. Normally, cell towers are maintained and restricted to certain companies. So, for example, you may find as an AT&T customer you have better service in one locations vs another. With disaster roaming turned on this would no longer be the case.

    What does this have to do with the Verizon outage that occurred this week? Well, this unplanned outage that affected as of writing caused over 100,000 reports from customers on DownDetector.com, a site that reports service complaints, also affected the areas currently recovering from Hurricane Helene.

    Users reported their phones being stuck in “SOS” mode, and after several hours issued a statement that their engineers had fixed the issue and that anyone still affected should try restarting their phones. During the outage the company’s response was underwhelming, in many cases just informing customers they were “aware of the issue”.

    The timing of this outage and the announcement that disaster roaming was turned on in certain areas is also possibly worth investigating, though no announcement on the cause of the outage has been revealed at this time.

    This is also not the first time we’ve written about a major cellular outage (AT&T and T-Mobile have had their fair share as well). Disasters like the one currently ongoing in North Carolina highlight our need to have effective ways to communicate in times of an emergency and it is past time that cellular companies be held to a higher standard when it comes to communicating and addressing outages that can have drastic consequences for their customers.

    Effective communication is an important part of running a business, if you’re not making your customers aware of your intentions then you’re leaving it up to them to draw conclusions on your behalf. Below are five ways Valley Techlogic addresses communicating with clients who have a technology service plan with us:

    Don’t settle for underwhelming or non-existent communication on the services you pay for, learn more about how Valley Techlogic can support your business today with a free consultation.

    Looking for more to read? We suggest these other articles from our site.

    This article was powered by Valley Techlogic, leading provider of trouble free IT services for businesses in California including Merced, Fresno, Stockton & More. You can find more information at https://www.valleytechlogic.com/ or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/valleytechlogic/ . Follow us on Twitter at https://x.com/valleytechlogic and LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/valley-techlogic-inc/.

  • Inclement weather, solar flares, earthquakes – how disaster proof is your businesses technology?

    Inclement weather, solar flares, earthquakes – how disaster proof is your businesses technology?

    We’ve written quite a bit about cyber security disasters and disaster recovery in that context (here are just a couple options Why every business needs a documented backup and disaster recovery strategy and Data Breached? 5 ways to reduce the impact on your business), but what about a disaster that’s truly out of your hands?

    Depending on where you live there are different types of types of disasters to worry about, and some disasters such as solar flares or geomagnetic storms are a global concern.

    While it’s been hyped by certain news outlets that a solar storm of spectacular magnitude could wipe out our global network and cause nationwide blackouts, solar events of the level required to cause mass destruction are spectacularly rare. Nasa rates solar flare levels on a scale that includes B Class which is the smallest, through C, M and X class which is the biggest. Within each scale there is a rating from 1-9 for the first three levels of solar flares and X class flares can be rated up to 17.

    X-class flares actually occur fairly frequently, with there being 11 so far in 2023 at the time of writing. These flares are strong enough to disrupt satellite signals or deliver a minor dose of radiation to passengers on an airplane when they occur.

    The best defense against solar events such as these is to advocate for improving our electricity grids, above ground electricity components are the most vulnerable if a significant solar flare were to occur. We do want to stress again though that an event of that nature would be exceedingly rare.

    Let’s now take a look at events that are much more common, such as inclement weather or for California based businesses such as ours, earthquakes.

    While you most likely have insurance that would cover your physical property including your office building, hardware and office furniture, it might be important to ask your insurance broker if it will also cover intangible assets.

    It is likely you’ll need a cyber liability policy to provide coverage for your data, below is a chart for what we typically see is covered (and not covered) by cyber liability coverage.

    As you can see most cyber liability policies cover business interruptions and data loss even if the cause is not cyber security related. What’s often not covered is events that fall within your control (such as the human element we’re always mentioning when it comes to common hacking techniques such as phishing).

    Another good way to protect your data from disaster events that may impact your business is to have most of your data located off premises in the cloud.

    While the cloud is often construed as a nebulous concept, really hosting your data in the cloud just means it’s on a server somewhere else. If your on-premises server is subject to catastrophic system failure for any reason, the cloud copy of your data would be safe.

    There are many low cost or free cloud options you can take advantage of for your data, we have a guide to the best way to use the free OneDrive storage that comes with your Microsoft 365 subscription here.

    Also, if you work with a managed IT provider such as Valley Techlogic, backups and backup maintenance is often included as part of your service plan. We have information about our own back program, TechVault.

    If disaster proofing your business in 2024 is on your to-do list, why not collaborate with us? We have experience in creating plans for businesses to make sure we avoid all preventable downtime and to protect your data from catastrophic events. If you’ve already suffered a data breach or other system outage and need assistance in data recovery that is also a service Valley Techlogic can provide. Reach out today for more information.

    Looking for more to read? We suggest these other articles from our site.

    This article was powered by Valley Techlogic, an IT service provider in Atwater, CA. You can find more information at https://www.valleytechlogic.com/ or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/valleytechlogic/ . Follow us on Twitter at https://x.com/valleytechlogic.

  • Five Must Have Features in a Business Continuity Plan

    Five Must Have Features in a Business Continuity Plan

    While business continuity plans should cover topics that extend beyond the realm of technology, it makes sense that technology naturally moves to the forefront when much of the focus of a good business continuity plan focuses on the ability to perform business functions as normal.

    Business continuity is defined as “”the capability of an organization to continue the delivery of products or services at pre-defined acceptable levels following a disruptive incident”, and disruptive event can have many meanings. It could be a natural disaster, a cyberthreat, or even a short-term outage situation like if your office loses power or internet access.

    You should have plans for both short-term and long-term outages written into your plan. However some studies have shown that as high as 51% of businesses globally do not have a business continuity plan in place at all, and what’s worse – only 10% of businesses who experience a disaster and do not have a business continuity plan survive.

    Who should make plans for your business if not you? If you have no continuity plan in place you may find that you’re scrambling to make decisions under duress and attempting to delegate to third party vendors who have their bottom line in mind, not yours.

    So, how do you start in creating that plan? The first step is to have an honest look at your businesses risk factors. This includes environmental factors, does your area face brown outs when the heat starts to peak in the summer? Or snow that prevents employees from reaching the office in the winter at times?

    Maybe there are some things that are individual to you, such as touch and go internet access in your office building or phonelines that are less than reliable. Do you have a server on its last legs that’s been acting finicky? Its eventual failure should be written into your continuity plan.

    You also need to look at your cyber risks, if your employees aren’t being training on cybersecurity safety then that’s a huge factor that must be addressed and planned for. You need to ask yourself what you would do if your data was breached, or an employee email was compromised.

    It’s overwhelming but as with most things starting the process is the hardest part and having a candid look at your business could mean eliminating certain risk factors (like moving data away from the server on it’s last legs into a cloud solution).

    You may even find ways to make your business more efficient, if you know brown outs are common where your office building is located in the summer perhaps you would make a plan to have employees work from home more during that time. Or having your internet service provider address the issue of frequent outages rather than just rolling with them as they occur.

    All in all, these are the five things we would suggest you focus on as you make your business continuity plan:

    1. Technology – How will employees continue to work if your office operations have been waylaid.
    2. Power – If power goes out what kind of backup plan will you need to have in place, such as a generator to keep your server online.
    3. Communications – Do you have a standard way with communicating with your employees? If you need to get a message out quickly to all of them, could you presently do that?
    4. Vendors – Inform your vendors of the provisions you’ve put in place in case a disaster were to occur, and inquire what plans they have in place on their end (because a disaster for them could be a disaster for you).
    5. Data Protection – Most businesses require an online presence to continuing operations, you will need provisions for if your data is compromised or inaccessible. At Valley Techlogic we suggest having a multi-layer backup approach, so if one backup is compromised you will have the others to fall back on.

    To get you started, we’ve prepared this emergency contact worksheet for your employees. You can fill in who they should begin to reach out to and what steps they should take if an emergency occurs. If you would like us to personalize it with your logo just let us know.

    Click to grab the full size version for your business. Need it personalized? Contact us.

    Valley Techlogic can help you to begin establishing a business continuity plan and also help you with mitigating risks to your business, learn more today.

    Looking for more to read? We suggest these other articles from our site.

    This article was powered by Valley TechLogic, IT service provider in Atwater, CA. You can find more information at https://www.valleytechlogic.com/ or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/valleytechlogic/ . Follow us on Twitter at https://x.com/valleytechlogic.