Important Questions to Ask when Hiring an IT Support Company

Leave a Comment / IT Support / Pennyrile Technologies

Whether you are hiring your very first IT professional for a new business endeavor or you’re simply interested in moving to a remote IT support solution, there are many options out there in the world. Below are some of the most important questions you should ask an IT support company before you make your hiring decision. How Will We Communicate? The most common issue associated with IT support companies according to business owners is a lack of communication – or a lack of viable ways to communicate. For this reason, make sure you take the time to learn as much as you can about hours of operation, communication methods, and more. If you have an issue, what do you do? Will you be required to submit a ticket online? Can you pick up the phone and call someone? What about sending an email? If that issue occurs after hours, such as late at night or even on a holiday, will there be someone available to help you? These things are very important, so be sure you have the answers before you hire. What is the Process for Handling Requests? Once you’ve determined how you will communicate your need for IT support with the company you choose, the next question you should ask is fairly straightforward: how do you handle requests once you get them? A ticket system is the best way to go, and the system should be reliable enough that the IT support company can see the details, assign the best person for the job, and get that issue resolved quickly. Structure and workflow are crucial, so get a feel for these things before you make your decision. What Other Services Can the IT Support Company Provide? Though you may only need basic IT support services for now, this may change a great deal as time goes on. You might find yourself in need of a complete network overhaul, and in this case, hiring someone to assist with network design or network cabling can benefit you for many years to come. Try to find a company that offers you a variety of other services that you can take advantage of when the need arises. Cloud storage, telephone and VoIP, and even security cameras with remote access are all beneficial in their own way, especially as your company grows. How Do You Keep my Network and Data Secure? Finally, it is important to determine the steps your IT support company will take to keep your network and all its associated data secure. Do they utilize state-of-the-art firewalls? Are their cloud-based systems encrypted and protected? What antivirus do they use, and what are the steps for resolving a breach? Do they offer backup and disaster recovery services? How do they protect your email? Do they offer security awareness training or mobile device management? It’s also important to find out whether the company will run a network analysis to determine where your biggest security risks lie and then make recommendations for resolving them. Though there are certainly plenty of other questions you can ask an IT support company before hiring them, these are by far the most important. Above all else, communication, request processing, and security are the three most important factors, so learning how these work will help you make the best hiring decisions possible. If you are in need of an IT Support Company, please contact us for a free network consultation and see how Pennyrile Technologies can help your business.

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Onsite vs. Remote IT Support – Pros and Cons of Each

Leave a Comment / IT Support / Pennyrile Technologies

If the time has come for your small to medium business to have some dedicated IT support, you have two options: onsite or remote support. Each one comes with its own unique set of pros and cons, as well. Exploring these benefits and drawbacks can help you make the best possible choices for your business. Onsite IT Support Onsite IT support is still by and large the most common route for small to medium businesses to get the support they need. It requires hiring one or more people to oversee and maintain your company’s IT infrastructure. You might choose to hire someone who will work for your company, or you might choose to hire a private contractor who provides his or her services to numerous companies in the local area. The benefits associated with onsite support include: Immediate Resolutions: If you have a support person on your staff, if you experience an issue, he or she can address it immediately. You won’t have to worry about your IT support person being busy helping another client if he or she works for your company, though there may be a bit of a wait if you choose a contractor, instead. Controlled Costs: By putting someone on your payroll, you won’t have to pay extra for help when and if disaster strikes. Your IT person’s salary remains the same regardless of whether issues exist and no matter how much your tech might need to be adjusted for growth in the future. Just as there are benefits associated with onsite IT, there are also a few drawbacks to consider: Unexpected Costs: Although you can control your costs to a degree because your IT professional is salaried, there are times when you may have to pay for things you didn’t expect. What’s more, many businesses simply can’t afford to hire a full-time (or even part-time) IT professional who works onsite. Limited Expertise: Small and medium businesses typically only hire one IT professional, so unless that professional is the best of the best, his or her expertise is likely to be somewhat limited. What’s more, if your professional calls in sick or has a family emergency, you’re left without any IT support whatsoever. Remote IT Support More and more often, companies choose remote IT support. In this scenario, one or more individuals located anywhere from an office downtown to a company across the globe provide all the IT support you need remotely. This is perfect for many companies, but just like onsite support, it has its own unique set of benefits and challenges. The benefits include: Cost-Effectiveness: Small and medium businesses almost always find remote IT support is far more cost-effective than hiring a full-time IT professional. What’s more, there are no training and/or certification costs to worry about. 24 Hour Help: Perhaps the best benefit associated with remote IT is the fact that you can get help at any time of day. An onsite professional will spend eight hours at work, and he or she may not be able to be reached after that. There are a few downfalls, though. These include: Less Collaboration: Because your remote IT support is not employed by your company directly, they will not be privy to what’s happening in your business, which means you may have to spend some time explaining things. You can get around this with managed IT services, which requires the remote support team to better acclimate themselves with your company’s culture and needs. Language and Cultural Barriers: If there’s a lack of communication between your staff and your remote IT support team, this can cause some serious issues. Fortunately, more and more companies work hard to provide access to professionals who are fluent in numerous languages. As you can see, there are benefits and downfalls associated with both onsite and remote IT support. For the most part, though, small businesses will reap the most benefit from remote IT support – especially managed IT support. It’s affordable, it’s convenient, and it’s available around the clock should issues arise.

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Security Alert: Change Your Twitter Password

News / Pennyrile Technologies

Twitter has issued an alert to users prompting them to change their passwords after it was discovered some users’ passwords had been recorded in a plain text log file accessible by Twitter employees. Twitter has issued a message to most users alerting them of the issue with the following statement: We recently identified a bug that stored passwords unmasked in an internal log. We have fixed the bug, and our investigation shows no indication of breach or misuse by anyone. Out of an abundance of caution, we ask that you consider changing your password on all services where you’ve used this password. Twitter masks passwords through a process called hashing using a function known as bcrypt, which replaces the actual password with a random set of numbers and letters that are stored in Twitter’s system. Twitter Chief Technology Officer, Parag Agrawal, stated “This allows our systems to validate your account credentials without revealing your password. This is an industry standard.” Due to a bug, passwords were written to an internal log before completing the hashing process. “We found this error ourselves, removed the passwords, and are implementing plans to prevent this bug from happening again.” While Twitter’s security team determined that it was unlikely that the passwords had been leaked or misused, we highly recommend you change your password for any sites or services that utilized the same password.

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September Camera Sale

Sale / Pennyrile Technologies

Fall into savings this month with our security camera specials! Get 10% off any PoE or HD-TVI camera during the month of September! We love our customers and try to make getting the right security camera for them as great as possible. Discover how easy it is to safeguard your assets, better serve your employees, and improve the day-to-day operations of your business with a surveillance system that’s built to help in more ways than one. You’ll be able to buy great quality surveillance equipment at reasonable prices. At Pennyrile Technologies, we use higher quality components, and that’s a difference you can see. We also offer a 3 year hardware warranty on all security cameras we sell. Many competitors use no-name knock-off parts. Not all HD 1080P cameras are equal. Lower quality processors have slower bitrates which cause motion blur and compression blur. Our cameras have at least 4Mbps in processing power. This means your image will be far more crisp and clear. We offer security cameras with all the features you need to help protect what matter most. We specialize in indoor and weatherproof outdoor security cameras, featuring dome, bullet, PTZ, and low-profile camera styles. Our HD security cameras deliver great picture quality, and our outdoor cameras are designed for all kinds of weather conditions. Most models feature infrared night vision capabilities that will continue to keep your property safe through the night. Vandal resistant designs and rugged exteriors ensure uninterrupted service should someone attempt to disable or destroy them. Pennyrile Technologies can help provide you peace of mind in knowing that your business is protected around-the-clock.

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Run your Business, not an IT Company

Informative / Pennyrile Technologies

You went into business because you have an interest and expertise in some particular product or service. You began the firm to offer that product or service, but a dirty little problem came along with that new company. IT requirements. You need equipment, and you need networks, printers, and data storage to keep the company up and running. As a consequence, you’ve become responsible for managing something you probably don’t care very much about or even understand especially well. Managed Service Providers can be a solution. A small business can off load a variety of IT tasks that are becoming a distraction to everyday business operations and strategy.Here are just two examples. Software updates and security audits: Your present in-house staff may be spending most of its time fixing everyday problems. As a result, they may have to delay vital security measures, such as applying tested security patches or updating virus software programs. Working with an MSP will eliminate much of the work overload that leads to system or security vulnerabilities. An end user help desk: If you have any in-house staff, they are probably well-trained and very qualified. Are their skills being wasted on all the little daily issues of cranky printers and broken keyboards? MSPs can offer an end user help desk that can handle all those calls that pull your own staff away from larger efforts that can enhance productivity and move the business forward.

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What is the Cloud: A Simple Analogy

Informative / Pennyrile Technologies

You use the cloud and don’t even know it. Do you go to Amazon and create a wish list? Do you have an email account on Yahoo? That is cloud computing. All your emails are stored on Yahoo servers somewhere. They are on physical servers, of course, but they aren’t on your laptop. The advantage is that when you spill your coffee onto the laptop keyboard, you haven’t lost all your emails even if you never backed up your hard drive. ( If you haven’t, shame on you, by the way.) Here is a simple analogy to explain how the cloud works and why it might be a very useful part of your business model. Picture the small, very cramped office space of a little start-up. You and a few coworkers sit in tight quarters with messy desktops buried in mounds of papers, files, and pizza boxes. There is absolutely no room for storage. (Throw the boxes out yourself. There are limits even to cloud technology) It will be a long time until you can afford a larger office space. Your building manager offers to rent you an empty file cabinet in the basement. Although the basement space is shared with other tenants, only you and your team have keys to this locked cabinet where you will store all those piles of paper. Your rent is relatively cheap compared to other tenants since you’re only paying for the cabinet and not the larger lockers they have leased. Suddenly, those once covered desktops are clean, leaving space to work. More importantly, the papers are all nearby, each of you has a key, but they are safe from everyone else in the building or outside. They are also safe from spilled coffee and pizza crumbs. You’ve avoided the dramatic jump in fixed costs required to find bigger office space when all you needed were several feet of filing cabinets. Even better, the money saved is put back into the core goal of providing a product or service to a customer. The cloud does the same thing. You rent only the space you need, it is safer from hackers than your on-site server will ever be, secure from thieves, and protected from accident-prone employees. Unlike the rest of us, cloud service providers don’t have coffee cups near their keyboards or forget to do monthly backups. In short, the cloud provides scalable storage without large incremental leaps in fixed costs you really can’t afford. Email us at sales@pennyriletech.com or use our contact form to see how Pennyrile Technologies can help your business today.

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Loss of Data: Causes and Prevention

Informative / Pennyrile Technologies

The adoption of technology from the simplest of matters to the most complex problems has rendered us heavily dependent on it. We love paying our bills minutes before they are due. We enjoy seeing loved ones face-to-face on our computer screens. We can access and print our extremely sensitive records from government and financial websites in a matter of minutes instead of waiting for the mail for days. The time and resources that technology saves are invaluable, but this convenience has a very ugly side. This convenience brings costs, which could include irreparable financial, professional, and social damage. The technology that is designed to make life easier can also wreak havoc when criminals use it to breach secured, personal information. So how do we tame this beast called ‘breach of data security’? Background: The gravity of the problem: To look for a solution, we first need to understand how serious this problem is. Breaches in data security and loss of data could spell imminent demise for many small companies. According to the National Archives & Records Administration in Washington, 93% of companies that have experienced data loss resulting in ten or more days of downtime have filed for bankruptcy within a year. 50% wasted no time and filed for bankruptcy immediately and 43% that have no data recovery and business continuity plan go out of business following a major data loss. In the past, small- to medium-businesses (SMBs) thought that data security problems were reserved for large corporations, but cyber criminals are finding out that SMBs are more complacent in securing their data thus making themselves easier targets. More importantly, the lightly guarded SMBs can provide backdoor access to the large entities hackers really want to hit. Fewer than half of the SMBs surveyed said they back up their data every week. Only 23% have a plan for data backup and business continuity. That is why the number of cyber attacks on SMBs has doubled in the recent past. Causes of lost data: Loss of data can be attributed to two factors. Breach of data security: As we discussed above, theft is the main reason for loss of data. Hackers can get into networks by installing their own software hidden inside emails and other Web content. They take over PCs and networks and then access files containing personal information. They can then use that information to empty people’s bank accounts and exploit data for other purposes. Human error and employee negligence: Humans still have to instruct technology to perform as desired. Examples of negligence include unattended computer systems, weak passwords, opening email attachments or clicking the hyperlinks in spam and visiting restricted websites. Fortunately, this type of loss of data is easily preventable, but it is just as detrimental and can bring your business to a halt. Downtimes can be very harmful to your business continuity and revenue. Five ways to minimize data loss Enforce data security: More than technology, this is the management of human behavior. SMB management must communicate data protection policy to the entire staff and see to it that the policy is adhered to. Rules and policy must be enforced very strictly regarding the use of personal devices. Tell employees to create passwords that are hard to crack and change them frequently. Stress the consequences: Rules are only good if there are consequences for not following them. Define what those consequences mean for the both the individual and the organization. Mobile device management: Mobile devices may be the weakest link in data security. “Mobile device management” refers to processes that are designed for the control of mobile devices used within the company. Devices tapping into company systems are identified and monitored 24/7. They are proactively secured via specified password policies, encryption settings, etc. Lost or stolen devices can be located and either locked or stripped of all data. Snapshots: Fully backing up large amounts of data can be a lengthy process. The data being backed up is also vulnerable to file corruption from read errors. This means sizeable chunks of data may not be stored in the backup and be unavailable in the event of a full restoration. This can be avoided by backing up critical data as snapshots. Cloud replication and disaster recovery services: For SMBs who consider data backup to be too costly, time-consuming and complex there is an answer. The Cloud provides a cost-effective, automated off-site data replication process that provides continuous availability to business-critical data and applications. Cloud replication can often get systems back online in under an hour following a data loss. To conclude our conversation, it is very important to understand the causes and consequences of data loss. Be proactive and minimize the likelihood of a data breach and data loss, so you can stay in business without interruption. Make sure you have a solid data recovery and business continuity plan so you don’t become another statistic about small firms who didn’t make it. Email us at sales@pennyriletech.com or use our contact form to see how Pennyrile Technologies can help your business today.

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Be Proactive: How to Avoid Potential Network Failures

Informative / Pennyrile Technologies

Network failures for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) can be devastating because they don’t have the resources of large corporations to bounce back from such disasters. Preparation against such devastation may be the only course for them to avoid failure and survive with the least damage if failure occurs. SMBs must be proactive in recognizing the eventuality of a cyber attack or human error that can cause data loss and disrupt business continuity. This is what needs to be done to help prevent a potential failure. Be prepared for network failures Being proactive is an essential step for preparation against a disaster. There are two ways to determine how to best prepare to prevent potential failure of your infrastructure. First, you need to identify the weaknesses throughout your systems, and second, determine how you are going to eliminate those weaknesses and protect your network. Identify the weaknesses that cause network failures Determine how and why your system could fail. Examine all aspects of your hardware and software. Assess all the internal and external factors that could contribute to failure of your networks. Here are some questions you need to know the answers to. Does customer access and/or employee productivity often stall because of downed systems? In these situations, how quickly is your IT support able to minimize the damage? Can you say with certainty that your business will be back on line and be able to access lost data with minimal disruption in case of failure? Your critical data should be backed up frequently. The data on personal laptops, iPads and other mobile devices should also be backed up. Are all these steps being taken, and how often? Are all backups stored in a location off-site and are they quickly accessible in the event of corruption, fire or flood? Are you using any custom made software? Can it be reinstalled and updated when needed? Are your systems truly protected from hackers and viruses? Do you change passwords when employees leave the company? How often do you test your backup processes? The answers to all these questions should give you a clear picture of your network’s ability to survive in case of a catastrophe. Five steps to help protect or shield your business against network failures Backup files every day: There are a large number of businesses that never backup data. Only 23% of SMBs are backing up their data daily, and only 50% are doing it weekly. A number of issues can result in loss of data. You should backup data every day. Check backup procedures regularly: Don’t find out accidently that your backup system is not working properly. By then it could be too late. Make sure to have a backup procedure in place. Also, it may seem like your data is being backed up normally, but check frequently if it is backing up the way it should be. In this age of BYOD make sure all employees are also following procedures to backup data on their laptops, iPads, etc. Make sure virus protection and firewalls are always enabled: Many companies either don’t have virus protection installed or it is disabled. That renders their networks vulnerable to virus attacks from emails, spam and data downloads. Corrupted files will not only bring your systems down but they can spread to your customers and email contacts. That will spell disaster for your reputation. Hackers are always looking for unprotected and open ports online that they can attack with malicious code or files. That can cause permanent data loss. Monitor server drives: Dangerously full server drives can cause many problems, ranging from program crashes to sluggish email delivery. Servers should be monitored and maintained regularly to avoid these problems. Check built-in logs: Frequent reviews of built-in logs can reveal small issues. You will have a chance to prevent them from becoming bigger, harder-to- manage problems that can bring your systems down. Network Failures Summary We now know IT system and network failures have very serious consequences for SMBs. We also know that they can avoid such failures by being proactive. Many SMBs are now turning to cloud-based services and virtualized backup solutions to mitigate downtime and network failures. Virtualization and cloud computing have enabled cost-efficient business continuity by allowing entire servers to be grouped into one software bundle or virtual server – this includes all data, operating systems, applications, and patches. This simplifies the backup process and allows for quick data restoration when needed. See how our backup and disaster recovery solution can help you. Email us at sales@pennyriletech.com or use our contact form to see how Pennyrile Technologies can help your business today.

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Protecting Against DNS Attacks

Informative / Pennyrile Technologies

Not too long ago, the New York Times’ website experienced a well-publicized attack, which raises the question – how can this happen to such a world-renowned corporation? If this can happen to the New York Times, what does this bode for the security of a small company’s website? What’s to stop someone from sending visitors of your site to an adult site or something equally offensive? The short answer to that question is nothing. In the New York Times’ attack, the attackers changed the newspapers’ Domain Name System (DNS) records to send visitors to a Syrian website. The same type of thing can very well happen to your business website. For a clearer perspective, let’s get into the specifics of the attack and explain what DNS is. DNS Targeted Attack The perpetrators of the New York Times’ attack targeted the site’s Internet DNS records. To better understand this, know that computers communicate in numbers, whereas we speak in letters. In order for us to have an easy-to-remember destination like nytimes.com, the IP address must be converted to that particular URL through DNS. Therefore, no matter how big or small a company’s online presence is, every website is vulnerable to the same DNS hacking as the New York Times’ site. The good news is the websites of smaller companies or organizations fly under the radar and rarely targeted. Larger targets like the New York Times, or LinkedIn, which was recently redirected to a domain sales page, are more likely targets. For now… There is no reason to panic and prioritize securing DNS over other things right now. But there is a belief that DNS vulnerability will be something cybercriminals pick on more often down the road. Here are a few ways to stay safe Select a Registrar with a Solid Reputation for Security Chances are, you purchased your domain name through a reputable registrar like GoDaddy, Bluehost, 1&1, or Dreamhost. Obviously, you need to create a strong password for when you log into the registrar to manage your site’s files. Nonetheless, recent DNS attacks are concerning because they’re far more than the average password hack. It was actually the security of the registrars themselves that was compromised in recent attacks. The attackers were basically able to change any DNS record in that registrar’s directory. What’s particularly frightening is the registrars attacked had solid reputations. The New York Times, along with sites like Twitter and the Huffington Post, is registered with Melbourne IT. LinkedIn, Craigslist and US Airways are registered with Network Solutions. Both had been believed to be secure. So what else can be done? Set Up a Registry Lock & Inquire About Other Optional Security A registry lock makes it difficult for anyone to make even the most mundane changes to your registrar account without manual intervention by a staff registrar. This likely comes at an additional cost and not every domain registrar has it available. Ask your registrar about registry locking and other additional security measures like two factor or multi-factor authentication, which requires another verifying factor in addition to your login and password, or IP address dependent logins, which limits access to your account from anywhere outside of one particular IP address. While adding any of these extra safeguards will limit your ability to make easy account change or access your files from remote locations, it may be a worthwhile price to pay. Email us at sales@pennyriletech.com or use our contact form to see how Pennyrile Technologies can help your business today.

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Stay Secure My Friend… More Hackers Targeting SMBs

Informative / Pennyrile Technologies

Many SMBs don’t realize it, but the path to some grand cyber crime score of a lifetime may go right through their backdoor. SMBs are commonly vendors, suppliers, or service providers who work with much larger enterprises. Unfortunately, they may be unaware that this makes them a prime target for hackers. Worse yet, this may be costing them new business. Larger companies likely have their security game in check, making it difficult for hackers to crack their data. They have both the financial resources and staffing power to stay on top of security practices. But smaller firms continue to lag when it comes to security. In many cases, the gateway to accessing a large company’s info and data is through the smaller company working with them. Exposed vulnerabilities in security can lead cyber criminals right to the larger corporation they’ve been after. Cyber Criminals Target Companies with 250 or Fewer Employees Research is continuing to show that cyber criminals are increasingly targeting smaller businesses with 250 or fewer employees. Attacks aimed at this demographic practically doubled from the previous year. This news has made larger enterprises particularly careful about whom they do business with. This means that any SMB targeting high-end B2B clientele, or those seeking partnerships with large public or government entities, must be prepared to accurately answer questions pertaining to security. This requires an honest assessment of the processes taken to limit security risks. View Security Measures as Investments CEOs must start viewing any extra investment to enhance security as a competitive differentiator in attracting new business. Adopting the kind of security measures that large enterprises seek from third-party partners they agree to work with will inevitably pay off. The payoff will come by way of new revenue-generating business contracts that will likely surpass whatever was spent to improve security. Would-be business partners have likely already asked for specifics about protecting the integrity of their data. Some larger entities require that SMBs complete a questionnaire addressing their security concerns. This kind of documentation can be legally binding so it’s important that answers aren’t fudged just to land new business. If you can’t answer “yes” to any question about security, find out what it takes to address that particular security concern. Where a Managed Service Provider Comes In Anyone who isn’t yet working with a Managed Service Provider (MSP) should consider it. First, a manual network and security assessment offers a third-party perspective that will uncover any potential business-killing security risks. A good MSP will produce a branded risk report to help you gain the confidence of prospects to win new business. An MSP can properly manage key elements of a small company’s security plan. This includes administrative controls like documentation, security awareness training, and audits as well as technical controls like antivirus software, firewalls, patches, and intrusion prevention. Good management alone can eliminate most security vulnerabilities and improve security. Email us at sales@pennyriletech.com or use our contact form to see how Pennyrile Technologies can help your business today.

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Pennyrile Technologies

Important Questions to Ask when Hiring an IT Support Company

Onsite vs. Remote IT Support – Pros and Cons of Each

Security Alert: Change Your Twitter Password

September Camera Sale

Run your Business, not an IT Company

Loss of Data: Causes and Prevention

Be Proactive: How to Avoid Potential Network Failures

Protecting Against DNS Attacks

Stay Secure My Friend… More Hackers Targeting SMBs

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