Security experts are discovering an emerging trend in cyber-crime these days as more and more SMBs become attractive targets for cyber-thieves because of their inadequate security measures. Reports have shown that cyber-criminals can siphon off as much as $70 million worth of accumulated resources. There is a misconception among many SMBs that they are small targets for would-be cyber-attacks. “We’re too small a company to be of any worth” is the mindset of many. However, there is an ongoing trend in which smaller companies actually find themselves victims of the most elaborate and vicious cyber-attacks. Why? Security experts are discovering that SMBs tend to have less or inferior security protocols in place to counter cyber-attacks. While this was of little consequence in the past, cyber criminals are now starting to take notice of the fact, and are exploiting it to their advantage. And it’s profitable too – an attack on one SMB might not amount to as much as a larger organization, but given the greater ease through which hackers can attack smaller businesses, they more than make up for the difference in the volume of companies they target. According to several news reports, these cyber-thieves can make off with as much as $70 million. The more unfortunate fact is that smaller companies are less able to counteract the effects of losses from cyber-attacks. This is why you should stay one step ahead of cyber-thieves by updating your security systems. Short term or long term, it’s a practical solution to keep information and data safe, and your operations stable. Give us a call today – we can help.

Many users download Adobe Acrobat Reader to open PDF Documents, but it can be slow to start up and load a file. However, you can use Chrome as your default PDF viewer. It’s really fast and unlike other free PDF viewers it’s a breeze to set up and use. Simply open Google Chrome and type chrome://plugins in the address field. Make sure “Chrome PDF Viewer” is enabled in the list of plugins. Next, right-click on any PDF file and choose “Open With” and navigate to the “Choose Program” link. Select Google Chrome in the list of applications provided, making sure to check the “Always use the selected program to open this kind of file” checkbox. Finally, click on Open. The next time you open a PDF document it will open in Google Chrome.

Is privacy in America dead? With all the camera phones, online tracking software and social media sites, you can pretty much bet on it. But that doesn’t mean you can’t protect yourself. For starters, go to Google Maps and search on your name to see if they have a picture of your home mapped out. If so, you can request to be removed. Next, set up a Google alert for your name (and company name if you’re a business owner). Google will e-mail you any time something is posted about you with a link so you can keep an eye on reviews, photos, etc. Next, go to www.Spokeo.com and search on yourself – you might be shocked at how much information is posted about you, your home, your income and personal life. You can request to be removed from this site by going to www.spokeo.com/privacy .

Cloud computing refers to the “next evolution” of the Internet and how users (you and me) access, store and work with applications, files, e-mail, data and more. Instead of having all your files and applications stored on a PC or laptop, cloud computing puts this workload onto a high-speed, high security server that you access via any Internet connection or device. Why do this? Several reasons: You can connect to your files and applications from anywhere on (practically) any device. You’ll save a lot of money on IT support, maintenance and software since those responsibilities are assumed by your cloud provider. You only pay for the applications, storage and software you use. A good comparison for this system is the way you access the electricity that runs into your home or office. To use it, you just plug the appliance of choice into any outlet. Like electricity, which is metered, with cloud computing you just pay for the services you use. Most cloud solutions offer instant backup and the ability to be back up and running again fast. Since your files and applications are hosted online, a failed server or PC won’t put you out of business, and the chances of a data center going down (the place where your files and apps are stored) is very, very slim. Chances are you’re already using cloud computing without even knowing it. If you bank online, access an e-mail service like Yahoo! Mail or Gmail, or use an e-mail broadcasting service like ConstantContact, you’re using cloud-based apps (also called SaaS or “software as a service”). Many businesses are moving to cloud computing because it frees them from having to install, maintain and upgrade expensive, overblown PCs that cost a lot to maintain. It also makes adding and removing users (or employees) quick and easy since you simply pay for what you use each month and nothing more. Other advantages include unlimited storage, automatic backups, higher-level security and the ability to access your information from any device anywhere. Plus, cloud-based networks don’t require the ongoing maintenance that traditional server-workstation networks require. However, not every application or situation is suited for the cloud. While many line-of-business applications still can’t be hosted in the cloud and require a commercial-grade Internet connection with a backup such as DSL or cable, there’s no doubt that cloud computing is here to stay. Advances are being made rapidly to make it the better solution for most businesses. Of course, we’re here to help you understand your options and the pros and cons.

Don’t leave it lying around Although this is common sense, you’ve probably violated this rule more than once. iPads are easy targets for thieves, so don’t let it out of your sight when in a public place – and don’t leave it in plain view in your car or you might end up with a broken window in addition to a stolen iPad. Use a passcode Although it’s not 100% hacker-proof, it will block unauthorized users from accessing your information. Consider enabling automatic data erasing You can configure your iPad to erase your data after 10 failed passcode attempts. Clearly this is not a good solution for anyone who constantly forgets a password or those who have kids who might try to endlessly log in to use your iPad. Sign up for MobileMe As mentioned opposite, this software will allow you to locate a lost iPad and, if it’s not recoverable, you can remotely wipe the device of your private information. Limit its capabilities You can set your iPad to restrict certain functions such as access to Safari, YouTube, installing applications and explicit media content using a passcode. In the corporate world, an IT administrator could set these restrictions for company owned devices. At home, you can use this to restrict what your children can do with your iPad. Install software updates As with all software, make sure you have the latest security updates and patches installed to protect against hackers and viruses. Only connect to trusted WiFi networks Public WiFis are open territory for hackers and identity thieves. Whenever you connect, make sure it’s a legitimate, secure connection.  

The ROI Series: Calculating the ROI of a Technology Investment—Part 3. Cost savings are usually important to small businesses even in the best of times. New technology solutions may be necessary for survival and growth, however — and they may not be as expensive as you think when you consider their return on investment (ROI). In this four-part series, we’ll explain what ROI is, help you understand indirect ROI, and provide guidelines for predicting and measuring the ROI of a technology investment. Part 3: Predicting ROI As we explained in part 2 of this series, you can’t measure ROI simply by asking what a technology implementation will do for your bottom line. However, if the new technology leads different parts of your company to collaborate, which in turn produces better goods and services that lead to top-line growth, then your ROI is likely strong. Getting at those indirect ROI numbers, however, may be the greatest challenge of ROI analysis. Few models exist to guide you, and with good reason: determining ROI involves looking at many components, then applying those components to your particular situation. But there are things you must take into account, from both a cost and a benefit perspective, when considering the ROI of a technology investment. Your existing technology infrastructure. There are few companies without existing technologies in place, and any new solution will need to work with these systems to be effective. There will likely be costs associated with the new technology’s impact on existing systems — but there will also be benefits. For example, a new technology might automate the tracking of hourly employees’ work hours. Or, it might offer more efficient collaboration. Your business processes. A new technology can clearly improve your business processes by reducing downtime, improving productivity, and lowering costs. But implementing the new technology will likely involve training staff in using the technology — and that can have associated costs. Your external relationships. Finally, no business is an island. Your systems may link to customer and vendor systems. As a result, any new technology may impose constraints on or require changes of external organizations or individuals — in the way information is delivered or received, for example. To solve this puzzle, it can be helpful to ask three different but related questions about the technology solution’s direct and indirect costs as well as its efficiency. Direct costs: Can you afford the technology — and will it pay for itself? To answer these questions, you’ll need to know the cost of the solution itself and the monetary value of the resources used to implement it, measured in standard financial terms. You’ll then compare the dollar cost of all expenditures to the expected return in terms of the projected savings and revenue increases. You may need to project the cost and return over a multi-month or multi-year time span in order to show a payback period. Indirect costs: How much bang for your buck will you realize? Now the analysis becomes more complex. Analyzing the effectiveness of a technology solution requires you to look at its costs in relation to how effective it is at producing the desired results — in essence, to expand your measurement of ROI beyond cost savings and revenue increases to include performance relative to your company’s goals. Efficiency: Is this the most you can get for this much investment? Finally, you’ll want to ask whether the technology will produce the greatest possible value relative to its direct and indirect costs. That can present difficulties, as it will require you to conduct a similar analysis on many alternatives, perhaps simulating the performance of the alternatives in some way. These three types of measurements differ in several ways. While the first is based simply on financial metrics, the second includes the quality of goods or services, customer satisfaction, employee morale, or in the case of some companies (such as manufacturers of “green” products or non-profits), social or political benefits. All of these measurements, however, will help you answer the same basic question: Which technology investments will pay off in the long term? In the next part of this series, we offer specific tips for measuring ROI.

The convenience and practicality of using public Wi-Fi hotspots is undeniable, but it can also be a problem should hackers decide to exploit network loopholes and gain access to the people connected to it. It’s important to have the proper protection to keep your system safe. These days, Wi-Fi is everywhere. Airports, coffee shops, train and bus stations, malls – almost every public place you can think offers Wi-Fi connectivity. Being connected to the internet has evolved from luxury to necessity, and whether it’s for personal or business reasons people are online as much as possible. This is all well and good, except when you consider that hackers have started to extend their playing field to public Wi-Fi networks. With the volume of sensitive information such as passwords and financial transactions, it’s inevitable that crooks and fraudsters move to public networks where there is more potential to illegally farm large chunks of information. Two things are important about this emerging trend. First, it’s the very nature of public networks that makes them vulnerable to attack. Second, hacking has become much easier these days, with very simple hacking programs such as Firesheep easily downloadable from the web. However, the solution is simple as well: have the proper security protocols on your smartphone or laptop. It’s unfortunate that many people neglect to recognize the importance of such policies, and only have minimal security (if any at all) to guard against attacks. But as long as you have the proper protocols in place, you can stay connected – even through public Wi-Fi – without fear of hacking or any sort of intrusion into your system. If you want to know more about keeping your portable devices safe from attacks, please feel free to contact us. We’ll be glad to explain the issue in more detail and draw up a solution customized to fit your needs.

Are you concerned about the safety of your data if it’s stored “in the cloud”? Cloud computing is a relatively new trend among businesses today, and with the right preparation and knowledge it can be an economical and effective solution to data management challenges. You just need to know the right questions to ask when selecting a provider. A few weeks ago, Amazon suffered several days of outage in its EC2 and RDS service, bringing down dozens if not hundreds of services along with it — including such high-profile sites as Reddit, Heroku, Foursquare, Quora, and many others. Although the cause of that outage has been analyzed extensively in many forums, the discussion is interesting and relevant because it brings attention to the lesson that wherever or whomever you entrust your data to—be it in the “cloud” or to a big company like Amazon — it pays to be smart about how you manage your data, especially if it’s critical to your business. Understand your options. When someone else is managing your data, it’s easy to leave the details to them. However, making sure that you at least have some understanding of what your options are in what different service providers can offer you will pay dividends later if something goes wrong, since you’ll be better equipped to make an informed decision on the spot. Things you should look at include: Who is the service provider? What is their history? Who is behind them? What is their track record? Where do they store your data? Do they own the servers where your data is stored or do they rely on someone else? Is your data stored within the local area (i.e., a drive away) or is it distributed all over the map? Do they provide a mirror of your data within your own server, or is everything in their data centers? What measures do they employ to make sure your data is safe? What methods do they employ to ensure you can get to your data when you need it? Do they provide service level assurances or guarantees to back up their claims? These are just some of the basic questions you should be asking of your service provider. Do a test drive. Often you will not know exactly how a service works until the rubber hits the road, so to speak. Ask your service provider for a demo or a trial period. Test how fast it is to back up your data, but more importantly how fast you can bring it back when you need it. This is especially important if you’re talking about gigabytes of data. Understand that doing backups in the cloud can be hampered by your bandwidth and many other components of your system and theirs. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Some service providers give users the option of storing data in multiple sites, to ensure that your data is safe if one site goes down. But why rely on just one service provider when you can get the services of multiple providers instead? Or perhaps better yet, why not manage some of your data on your own? While it may be complex and costly to reproduce what many service providers can provide today, it is relatively easy to set up a simple system to keep at least some of your really, really important data locally by using an unused computer or a relatively cheap, network-attached storage device or secondary/removable drive that you can buy at your local store. Create a plan and write it down . Unforeseen occurrences can and will happen — not only from your side but from your service provider’s as well. When they do happen, you will need to have a contingency plan ready, often referred to as a Business Continuity Plan. Make sure to document your plan in writing, and communicate it to everyone in your organization so they will know what to do in case disaster strikes. With its promise of unprecedented efficiency, reliability, scalability, and cost savings, cloud computing and storing your data in the cloud is the topic du jour these days. However, it’s sometimes easy to overlook the basic due diligence that’s necessary regardless of how or where your data is stored. Ultimately, it is your business on the line—and being prudent and proactive about how your data is stored, managed, and (most importantly) recovered in times of need will save you much grief when you actually need it.

When Windows 7 was released, it introduced a new feature called Snap — which allows users to easily resize windows when they are dragged to the edges of the screen. Depending on where the window is dragged, it expands vertically, takes up the entire screen, or arranges itself side-by-side with another open window. If you find this feature more annoying than helpful, you can disable it in the “Ease of Access Center” in the Windows Control Panel. Click on the “Change how your mouse works” link, scroll down to the “Make it easier to manage windows” section, then check the box labeled “Prevent windows from being automatically arranged when moved to the edge of the screen.”

The ROI Series: Calculating the ROI of a Technology Investment—Part 2. Cost savings are usually important to small businesses even in the best of times. New technology solutions may be necessary for survival and growth, however—and they may not be as expensive as you think when you consider their return on investment (ROI). In this four-part series, we’ll explain what ROI is, help you understand indirect ROI, and provide guidelines for predicting and measuring the ROI of a technology investment. PART 2: The Indirect Benefits of Technology Implementation It’s easy to see the direct benefits of new technology, such as reduced headcount or increased revenues. That’s because they show up as line items on financial statements. But it’s also important to consider the indirect benefits: an ROI that cannot be easily quantified but is nonetheless realized. A good example of an indirect ROI is employee productivity. When you implement new technology, employees can perform their jobs better and faster. For example, an application that facilitates better communication between attorneys and clients at a law firm may not generate a direct return by reducing head count, but it can significantly improve the quality of service clients receive while giving attorneys more time to focus on value-added tasks, such as sales. That, in turn, will increase clients and profits—a very clear indirect return. All technology generates some indirect returns, but how much is direct and how much is indirect? One research firm found that direct returns account for only half of technology ROI. Less than 50 percent of companies that implemented a document management system saw a direct ROI, while 84 percent saw an indirect ROI in the form of measurable increases in employee productivity. To determine how much of a proposed implementation’s ROI is indirect, you must consider three key factors: the kind of technology being implemented, the areas in which it will be implemented, and your current IT environment. The kind of technology being implemented. While all technology provides some indirect ROI, some technology generates more. For example, supply chain software can improve productivity, but most of its ROI is direct, in the form of reduced inventory and transportation costs. On the other hand, collaboration software may have a huge impact on worker productivity by reducing the time it takes to execute group-oriented tasks, such as sharing information and coordinating meetings. Likewise, content management systems tend to generate significant indirect ROI by leading to faster filing and decreased retrieval times. The areas in which technology will be implemented. Where and how you deploy technology will also impact the portion of its ROI that is indirect. As an example, consider a business intelligence dashboard. Depending on how it is used, ROI could be more direct or indirect. If it is used to give a logistics manager the ability to better monitor and control transportation costs, the ROI is primarily direct. If it is used to provide financial analysts with quicker access to monthly metrics, the primary benefit will be time savings, an indirect ROI. Your current IT environment. Finally, the extent to which a new technology’s ROI is direct or indirect may depend on how much change the technology leads to. Consider an application that tracks employee hours. A company that has manually collected time will see significant direct ROI in a reduction of the number of timekeepers needed. On the other hand, a company that already has an automated attendance process will see more indirect ROI in the form of efficiencies through time savings. Indirect ROI may not be readily visible, but it is critical to driving business value. A business that ignores indirect ROI, choosing not to improve its technology because there is no direct ROI, will not be able to keep up with competitors. In the next part of this series, we offer specific tips for predicting ROI.