by Felicien | Nov 23, 2020 | Education
Microsoft Teams and the Future of Video Calling
Microsoft Teams is a free cross-platform collaboration software that focuses on users, enabling great collaboration with teammates and customers across any device and empowering customers to work faster. Teams aims to propel traditional productivity experiences to the future, giving all kinds of teams a purpose and a reason to stand alone from other software. Team members set their own notifications based on their roles and priorities, so they never get too few or too many messages in their inbox. This flexibility to prioritize notifications with peers and outside users will be appreciated by anyone on your team, and it encourages trust, collaboration, and increased productivity. The Microsoft Teams alert feature alerts team members when necessary, and you can assign a timer to notifications, helping you better manage the number of people and alerts by priority.
Why Microsoft Teams Integrations
Teams has thought long and hard about their integration with Microsoft Office 365. This implementation is available at no extra cost. Teams also integrates with other popular tools from Microsoft, such as Skype, Slack, Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and OneNote. This flexibility helps make collaboration and communication easy and available to everyone on your team that uses other Microsoft products. Team members set their own notifications based on their roles and priorities, and this is a crucial feature to assist in prioritizing notifications with peers. Just like the dial-in phone number in Teams, the notifications now include the message, your team number, and additional information. The call response options are now easier to navigate and make it easier to initiate a group conversation than before. You can call an entire group at the same time to save time when calling similar groups of people. Team members will receive a notification when they get a new call in a conversation screen, so they can respond quickly.
Why Is Microsoft Teams Growing So Fast?
At first, when a topic dominates the news, it is easier to assume that the reality won’t measure up to the hype. But the reason why Microsoft Teams is growing so quickly is because it adds a lot of substance to the hype. All types of teams need this service, so they love that new features are being added at an alarming rate. We’re continuing to see customers and business teams increasing their usage of Microsoft Teams. The stream of good news continues to grow at this time, surrounding the features that make their video collaboration and presentation features rival and exceed competitive online software. Organizations are not just embracing Microsoft Teams; they are making their own success stories. General Mills uses Microsoft Teams to help its broad base of users, along with its IT support team, brand partners, and suppliers on teams worldwide.
More than 500 companies use Microsoft Teams at this time, and big data continues to remain at the heart of every digital transformation project, so Teams has made improvements in facilitating this area as well. Today’s customers expect businesses to leverage the insights provided by big data and to inform decisions for the future – driving better business outcomes. These are never binary decisions: Users want to be part of the conversation. To achieve big data success in partnership with great service that empowers them, IBM collaborates with Microsoft Teams to provide real-time communications, conversational commerce, and customer insights to help understand “what they see, hear and do.” IBM announced a new privacy-focused version of IBM Smart Answer — information about people, tasks, and interests — for Microsoft Teams, giving customers worldwide a secure, central view of their data to learn about their customers, behaviors, and how they choose to interact with their businesses.
by Felicien | Nov 3, 2020 | Education
Does Your Workforce Create Strong Passwords & Have a Plan B Cybersecurity Defense?
As the old saying goes, “a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” Unfortunately, the new saying is that a business network is only as secure as its employees’ passwords.
Despite widespread knowledge that hackers exploit weak passwords to breach entire systems, trusted workers still use ones that are easy to guess at and repeat them across platforms. If that seems counterintuitive, business leaders may want to consider these statistics.
The two most commonly used passwords remain “iloveyou” and “sunshine.”
Approximately 23 million people use the password “123456.”
More than half of workforces use the same password for personal and business purposes.
Upwards of 57 percent of phishing email scam victims do not change their password.
One-third of people stop doing business with organizations responsible for compromising their credentials.
What seems stunningly illogical about rampant password protection failures stems from this statistic: Approximately 90 percent of internet users say they are worried about getting hacked due to a compromised password. Industry leaders may be left scratching their heads. But as a decision-maker responsible for ensuring the integrity of digital assets, something needs to be done. You can set company policy that educates team members about how to create and remember strong network passwords. If that doesn’t work, there’s always Plan B.
How To Educate Employees About Strong Passwords
Getting workers to create powerfully secure passwords may not be that difficult. Insisting on a series of unrelated letters, numbers, and characters will fend off most hackers. On the other hand, team members will likely lose productivity, resetting a difficult-to-remember login profile. Fortunately, a happy medium can be achieved without too much difficulty.
Passwords do not necessarily need to be obscure. They just need to be difficult for hackers to unveil. A password employing 8-10 characters can be hard to crack if done cleverly. For example, the too common “iloveyou” can be tweaked to “iLuv2Make$,” which could be a tough one. That’s largely because it uses untraditional “Luv” in place of the spelled-out word, employs uppercase letters, a symbol, and a number. All an employee has to do is remember the phrase “I Love To Make Money” as a trigger.
Repeated passwords also need to be addressed. Consider training those under your leadership to make variations on one primary password. In this case, it could include “uLuv2Make$2” or “iH82owe$.”
It’s also important to share the reason that complex passwords are necessary. Hackers have a toolkit at their disposal that typically includes brute-force and dictionary techniques. When brute-force attacks try to run every conceivable combination of letters and characters possible. This tends to be time-consuming, and digital thieves are likely to give up when faced with strong passwords. Dictionary attacks run common words at the profile. If your worker’s password is “sunshine,” consider your network breached.
How Can Business Leaders Implement a Plan B?
Practical business leaders learn that human error ranks among the top reason things go sideways. Cybercriminals send out thousands of scam emails, knowing someone will open one, download a malicious file, or respond with critical information. Someone will make a mistake. Given that your financial future can be one mistake away from ruin, organizations are using multi-factor authentication as a fallback defense.
Multi-factor authentication requires employees to receive and enter a secondary code before gaining access to the network. This may be sent to another device that hackers cannot access. In some instances, an email alert is sent that must be approved. Even if someone foolishly uses “password123,” a cybercriminal would still need to know the authentication code or approve login access to upend your network.
If you are concerned about password security, consider working with a managed IT professional to educate employees about password protection, and install multi-factor authentication just in case.
by Felicien | Nov 2, 2020 | Education
What Is PCI Compliance?
You’re probably reading this because you looked up information on PCI compliance. This article explores how you can meet PCI requirements and secure your clients’ sensitive cardholder data.
Today’s business world is highly regulated, and while this has its upsides, there is a great deal of pressure on businesses to stay compliant with all the relevant standards. If your business processes, stores, or transmits credit card information, you need to ensure you meet all the PCI requirements.
PCI non-compliance poses a frightening host of risks such as:
Compromised data that can harm your clients and business
A severely damaged brand image
Account data breaches that could result in lower sales, and destroyed relationships
Lawsuits, government fines, insurance claims, payment card issuer fines
If you aren’t PCI compliant, don’t panic just yet. Our team has assembled this article to share what you need to start your journey towards PCI compliance. Let’s first define some important terms.
What Is PCI Compliance?
The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) is a set of requirements designed to create a secure data environment for any business that processes, stores, or transmits credit card information. It’s a legal requirement and assigns two compliance levels for service providers (third-party vendors) and four for merchants (brands). Behind its launch in 2006 was the need to manage PCI security standards and bolster account security throughout the transaction process.
What Is PCI DSS?
The PCI Security Standards Council (PCI DSS) is an independent body that administers and manages the PCI DSS. It was created by Visa, MasterCard, American Express, JCB, and Discover. However, the responsibility of enforcing compliance falls on the payment brands and acquirers.
How Can You Achieve PCI Compliance?
PCI compliance involves consistently adhering to the PCI Security Standards Council’s guidelines (PCI DSS). PCI DSS has the following six major objectives:
Maintain a vulnerability management program
Build and maintain a secure network and systems
Regularly monitor and test networks
Protect cardholder data
Maintain an information security policy
Implement strong access control measures
Apart from 78 base requirements and over 400 test procedures, PCI compliance also has 12 key requirements.
What Are the 12 Key PCI DSS Compliance Requirements?
Use and Maintain Firewalls: Firewalls are highly effective in preventing unauthorized access to private information.
Proper Password Protections: We recommend keeping a secure device/password inventory and implementing basic precautions like regularly changing passwords.
Protect Cardholder Data: By encrypting data and performing regular scans to ensure no unencrypted data exists.
Encrypt Transmitted Data: Even data sent to known locations need to be encrypted.
Use and Maintain Anti-Virus: This is required for all devices that interact with primary account numbers (PAN).
Properly Updated Software: This includes firewalls, antiviruses, and any other piece of software.
Restrict Data Access: Cardholder information should be exclusively “need to know.”
Unique IDs for Access: These enhance security and reduce response time in case data is compromised.
Restrict Physical Access: Cardholder data needs to be kept in a secure physical location and access locked.
Create and Maintain Access Logs: You must document any activity involving cardholder information and PAN.
Scan and Test for Vulnerabilities: This will help you identify potential weaknesses at any stage of your compliance efforts.
Document Policies: Everything needs to be recorded, from equipment to software to authorized employees to access logs, and so on.
Need Reliable IT Support with PCI Compliance?
Our experienced team is eager to help your organization achieve PCI compliance and safeguard your sensitive cardholder data.
Contact us now to schedule your first PCI compliance consultation.
by Felicien | Oct 25, 2020 | Education
Getting Started With Microsoft Teams?
What drives workplace performance? A few years ago, a Stanford study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology suggested that workplace performance was driven by collaboration. In fact, just the thought of collaboration was enough to improve performance. One interesting statistic: 64% of employees working collaboratively had higher success rates than those working independently.
So, what drives successful collaboration? It’s the people collaborating as much as it’s the program used to facilitate collaboration. A program that cultivates different ways to communicate, share, and grow is fundamental to success. Microsoft Teams has been proving to be critical to this end. Here’s how you get started using it.
What Is Microsoft Teams?
Microsoft Teams is a Microsoft 365 tool that allows you to meet, chat, call, and collaborate with anyone and everyone in the workplace and beyond. Microsoft Teams is more than a collaboration tool but an inclusive program with tools to create “teams” of people and content. It’s where Slack and Zoom meet, plus much more.
Though Microsoft Teams is rather new, launched in 2017, its growth has been exceptional––a testament to its unique and handy features. The number of daily active users, according to Statista, has doubled this year, “from 32 million users on March 12, 2019, to 75 million as of April 30, 2020.” Part of the growth is driven by the coronavirus pandemic but much of it, too, is simply based on the quality of the program.
How Do You Get Started with Microsoft Teams?
To get started with Microsoft Teams, you must be a cloud-based Microsoft 365 suite customer––the program is included free of charge though you can upgrade it for a fee and receive much more in the way of features.
An Overview of the Free Version of Microsoft Teams
The features included in the free version of Microsoft Teams include:
The ability to involve up to 500,000 members (per organization)
File storage of up to 2 GB per user and 10 GB of shared storage
The ability to allow guests access to the program
Person-to-person and group online audio and video calls and channel meetings
Unlimited chat messaging
Unlimited searches
Background blue on video calls (to protect privacy)
Channel meetings––these are the groups you create
The ability to shared screens during video-conferences and chats
The ability to schedule meetings
Microsoft Teams is also thoroughly integrated with most other Microsoft Programs, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, OneNote, Planner (Tasks), Microsoft Lists, and Power BI. So, if your company already benefits from Microsoft 365 (or wants to start benefiting from it), it’s time to start incorporating Microsoft Teams.
An Overview of the Paid Version of Microsoft Teams
The paid version of Microsoft Teams includes all of the above and much more.
Scheduled meetings that are integrated with your company’s Exchange calendar
The ability to involve potentially unlimited members with an enterprise license
File storage of up to 1 TB per user
The ability to record the meeting (available with Microsoft Stream)
The ability to make phone calls and/or audio-conferencing
The ability to host online events for up to 10,000 participants
Cool first line worker features, like Shifts, Walkie Talkie, and more
A set of useful administration tools, like:
Tools to manage users and apps
Usage reporting fro Microsoft 365 services
99.9% financially-backed SLA uptime
User settings that are configurable and customizable.
24/7 phone and web support
Additional compliance and security features
Recommended Steps to Get Started with Microsoft Teams
You may be anxious to get started with Microsoft Teams today and, as a consequence, may want to ditch the other programs you have. But you should roll out the new program with a plan, not as a knee-jerk decision.
It’s recommended that you:
Prepare to sample Microsoft Teams by preparing your network, including licenses for all participants and configurations for Microsoft 365 or Offie 365 domain, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and OneDrive for Business
Create a few teams and channels (two or three). For the sake of clarity, a team is the group of people assigned to one goal while a channel is the collaboration space within the team where members get the work done.
Select a small group of people to use these teams and channels.
Install both the desktop and mobile applications so that both experience and feedback are comprehensive.
Monitor the members’ usage and analyze their feedback.
Create a plan based on this data to roll out the program to everyone in the organization.
Starting small means you can “test” it out on certain members of your company and get a good feel of the program and all that it has to offer. This process will also provide insight into how Teams work but also how to deploy the program across the whole of your company.
Why Choose Microsoft Teams?
It’s not about choice but about performance. Today, we need tools that are functional, strategic, and cost-effective. Microsoft Teams offer these things and more. For example, rather than having to spend all morning sorting through emails that are related to a number of different projects, Teams cuts out this mindless work for you by sorting information into the appropriate channels, so all messages related to the one project are already there within the work station of that one project.
Also, as work spaces diversifyy and grow, Teams promote transparency. It can be a huge challenge to keep all employees or the relevant employees updated on what’s going on organization-wide or project-specific. Teams keep everyone in the loop and minimize the need for excessive and redundant emails. As such, employees can focus more on getting work done then spending time trying to figure out how to get the work done. Teams is essentially a way to optimize productivity.
To get started on Microsoft Teams, get Microsoft Office 365. If you already have it, then download the program and start implementing the benefits of it today.
by Felicien | Oct 20, 2020 | Education
New and heightened digital threats develop every day, and having standard security software may not be enough to protect your personal data and business from exploitation from malware attacks. Businesses across industries are vulnerable to new attacks, as many security software lags behind. Hackers find ways to work around the most common security platforms to find new ways into systems to gain access to all sorts of information, and the only way to ensure that you are as protected as possible is to work with an IT expert who knows how to take the preventative measures to keep up with the latest malware developments.
One of the latest bugs causing a lot of damage to businesses is a vulnerability to the Microsoft-based cloud office platform, Microsoft 365. This platform allows businesses to push their productivity almost entirely online, giving employees access to their data from literally anywhere in the world while still collaborating in real-time. The use of cloud platforms allowed businesses to stay productive during the 2020 shutdown. The use has grown exponentially in popularity as everything from law firms, doctors’ offices, and schools have shifted as much business as possible over to the virtual platforms.
Hackers recently exploited a bug present in the multi-factor authentication system for access into the Microsoft 365 platform, which meant that there was a somewhat easily accessible back door into the otherwise secure cloud system. There is a lot of damage done when a hacker can get access to your business or personal data. Information can be stolen or deleted, which could lead to costly repairs as you spend time re-collecting data or ensuring that your employees and clients are protected from additional attacks on their finances and identity based on the type of information accessed by the hackers.
System flaws happen, and typically patches are issued to fix bugs that may allow hackers into programs — especially in the case of well-funded, popular programs like those owned by Microsoft. However, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a chance of an attack before that patch being issued. Also, if your employees aren’t receiving guidance on keeping up with regular updates and maintenance on their work computers, they could be putting everyone at risk as those updates are how patches are installed. A single point of access through an outdated computer can allow hackers to access all sorts of data.
In the case of the latest vulnerability that impacted Microsoft 365, the issue was present in the WS-Trust, an OASIS standard that delivers security extensions and is used to renew and validate security tokens, thus ensuring identity. A bug in this system could be disastrous, allowing for the easy manipulation of security tokens and identity, allowing hackers in. The attacker could easily access mail, files, data, contacts, and more — depending on the amount of information stored on the cloud.
Working with a strong IT support team is the best way to ensure that you are protected from the latest developments in malware. Keep your computers up to date and your employees knowledgeable on the best ways to stay protected by having a strong IT support team to rely on.
