by Felicien | Jun 17, 2018 | Education
Microsoft is considered a key leader in the enterprise software industry. Every year or so, Microsoft releases new products and services and makes updates to their existing software to keep up with the needs of their business users all around the world. Out of all of the products and service offered by Microsoft, Office 365 is arguably the most popular and lauded among business owners of organizations of all sizes.
If you’re thinking about having Office 365 serve as the foundation of the operation of your organization, this business owner’s guide to Office 365 should help you make your decision. This article will highlight the additional features included in Office 365, from collaboration to scheduling tasks.
Office 365 Groups
One reason why so many business owners view Office 365 as an essential rather than an optional enterprise software is the Office 365 Groups feature, which is a collaboration tool that any subscriber on the Business Premium, Business Essentials, or Enterprise E1, E3, and E5 plans can take advantage of. Office 365 groups will make it easier for your employees to select certain people and collaborate with them on a project. Neither you or your employees will need to manage a complex set of permissions for every individual. Users who are in the same group can access shared calendars, inboxes, document libraries, SharePoint planners and team sites, and OneNote notebooks.
Recently, Microsoft made updates to Office 365 Groups to add tools for group management for admin users. Users who are admin level are now able to manage security with retention policies and restore groups that have been deleted. These users can also restrict the ability to create new groups to certain individuals within an organization and can also grant individuals outside of an organization guest access to a group.
Skype for Business
Another Office 365 feature that you will be eager to take advantage of as a business owner is Skype for Business. If you currently don’t have Office 365, chances are your employees use different channels to communicate with each other. Your employees may even use a different set of channels to communicate with individuals outside of the organization. The channel that a certain employee uses will depend on their personal preferences. Unfortunately, the use of many different channels of communication within an organization can make it difficult to create a sense of continuity and cohesiveness. Fortunately, Office 365 offers business owners a solution to this issue in the form of Skype for Business.
Skype for Business offers employees the ability to choose from many different channels of communication condensed into a single platform. Therefore, your employees will be able to choose a channel of communication-based on their preference without harming the continuity of communication within your organization.
Not only does Skype for Business make communication more convenient, but it also reduces security risks significantly. Skype for Business offers enterprise-grade security. Therefore, having your employees shift from email or some other form of communication to Skype for Business will reduce the risk of your employees falling victim to cybercriminals.
Best of all, the monthly fee per user is very affordable, making Skype for Business as a solution even more attractive.
Anytime, Anywhere Access
Business owners are constantly striving to increase the productivity of their employees. If you’re one of these business owners, Microsoft Office 365 should help immensely in accomplishing this goal. One of the main features of Office 365 that Microsoft constantly advertises is the anytime, anywhere access.
Office 365 offers businesses, both small and large, with web-enabled access on just about any device to email, calendar, documents, and contacts. Whether your employees want to access their work inbox on their desktop computer or their iPad, they will be able to do so quickly and easily. Thanks to Office 365’s anytime, anywhere access, your employees will be free to work wherever they choose. They won’t need to rush to their office or find a WiFi hotspot simply to do work. If your employees are on the go and don’t have access to Microsoft Office, they can use Office 365 to view and edit documents from web browsers like Google Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.
99.9% Uptime Guarantee
When it comes to success in the business world, reliability and consistency is the name of the game. Even in the worst of disasters, your business should retain its ability to continue selling its products and services to customers without making compromises in terms of quality. Fortunately, Office 365 and its 99.9% uptime guarantee will help you do so.
Microsoft developed Office 365 with availability and reliability in mind. Office 365 features disaster recovery and enterprise-grade reliability, which is made possible with multiple data centers, a rigid privacy policy, and automatic failovers. The 99.9 percent uptime is guaranteed and financially-backed with a service level agreement.
Scalability
What makes Office 365 even more wonderful is its ability to cater to the needs of any business, no matter the size. Office 365 is very scalable so you will be able to continue using it even as your business continues to grow and flourish. For example, small businesses can enjoy features like a 50 GB email inbox with the ability to scale up the amount of storage. Choosing Office 365 to serve as the backbone of the operations of your business will make your life as a business owner easier from the get-go. With Office 365, your small business will enjoy advanced features and convenient solutions at a price affordable for a budding organization.
As you can see, Office 365 has a lot to offer to businesses of all sizes. For more information about the many features offered by Office 365 that can help your business prosper, don’t hesitate to contact us.
by Felicien | Jun 16, 2018 | Education
Northcentral Technical College (NTC) in Wisconsin has experienced a crippling cyber attack that shut down most of its classes from Monday through Wednesday. The cyber attack triggered system outages all over the school causing school officials to issue a public notice on the homepage of the college website that read:
“We apologize for the inconvenience but we are continuing to experience IT system outages. NTC’s Information Technology team is working diligently to bring information systems back online. We will continue to post updates to this page as they are available.”
Cyber forensics investigation underway
The college would not release any specific information about the data that was lost, but they did reassure their students and faculty that no one’s personal data was stolen. They have since hired a cyber forensics team who will perform a thorough investigation of the cyber intrusion. School officials want to know what type of information was targeted and whether any data was lost or compromised.
Marketing and public relations director, Kelsi Seubert, commented saying, “NTC’s Information Technology team is working extremely hard to bring information systems back online and we will communicate additional updates to students and staff as they are available.”
Seubert also sent an email out to students and faculty that reassured everyone that an investigation was underway but would require some time to complete. She also mentioned that the initial attempted hack occurred on June 4th.
The school has stated that all classes will be resumed on Thursday and that campus life would soon return to normal. A few classes that were not impacted by the breach were carried out as usual.
Summer school
The summer class schedule had just begun on Monday with students showing up to take advantage of Northcentral’s summer learning programs. The school offers a unique array of subjects ranging from technical diplomas to Information Technology training. Students can take summer courses to get additional credits so they can graduate sooner, or they can catch up on classes they may have missed.
The school has a flexible curriculum that includes virtual educational opportunities, online classes, late-start classes, winter enrollments, and many others. They offer associate’s degrees, certifications, and technical diplomas. In the accelerated credits program, students can get three credits in three weeks by taking augmented versions of the class.
Cyber breaches on the rise
Security breaches and cyber-attacks have become common in the news. Though it seems like everyone should know by now what it takes to prevent them, cyber thieves are escalating their tactics with each new attack.
In over 90 percent of these events, human error is to blame. A school official or teacher may have inadvertently clicked on a suspicious link. The latest phishing attacks include emails that look almost identical to what you might get from a bank or credit card company. Often, the email will say that something is wrong with your account. Cybercriminals use fear to gain access to your personal log-in information. An email might say something like:
“Alert! You have been locked out of your ABC Credit Card account due to suspicious activity. Click the link below to sign in and change your password.”
Once you click that link, you may be redirected to a phony website where the hackers will steal your password and username. Now they have legitimate access to your credit card account. They can go online and buy the merchandise having it shipped to an address overseas.
In this situation, never click on the link that’s embedded in the email. Instead, open a fresh page in your browser and navigate to your credit card account the way you normally would. Log in and check your messages. In most cases, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the account; it was just a ruse to get you, the consumer, to give away your password and username to cyber thieves on the other side of the world.
Third party vendors
Colleges and schools do business with a wide number of third-party vendors. If these vendors have access to any of your important data, then they should be thoroughly vetted in advance. Though a school or business cannot control the activities of third-party vendors, it’s important to make every effort to ensure that they are observing stringent security regulations.
Faculty training
All school faculty should attend regular security meetings to learn about the latest cyber threats and how to avoid them. Training employees and teachers have proven to reduce the number of cyber breaches. Training should include facts about how security breaches occur and what to do to stop them. Faculty should understand the difference between ransomware and malware. They should be familiar with the many types of phishing and spear phishing attacks. These are just a few of the many ways an organization can protect itself against cyber- attacks.
Northcentral Technical College life returning to normal
Though school administrators have reassured everyone that no financial, personal, or confidential information was stolen, the investigation into what happened is only just beginning. It often takes months for an organization to realize the full extent of a cyber-breach. It can be years before the true cost of the security breach is fully understood.
Northcentral Technical College located in Wausau, Wisconsin, is a community college and member of 16 schools in the Wisconsin Technical College System.
by Felicien | Jun 16, 2018 | Education
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Have questions? Reach out to me at any time.
by Felicien | Jun 15, 2018 | Education
Vancouver British Columbia is about to experience its largest technology boom in many years. Telus Corporation, a national telecommunications provider, has announced that they will soon be rolling out a one billion dollar fibre optic network. The network will include internet access, voice, video, live streaming, healthcare, and many other entertainment venues.
The TELUS PureFibre network
The company is well-known for its TELUS PureFibre network, an innovative internet technology that utilizes flexible strands of transparent glass thinner than a human hair. Using these new fibre optic strands will allow the company to transmit information as pulses of light, thereby carrying much larger amounts of data across the internet in just seconds. Telus is also known for its speed and reliability, along with amazingly fast upload and download speeds.
In an age where everyone spends much of their lives online, speed has become a major factor. From downloading videos to home entertainment, the future belongs to those who can provide crystal clear video calls, buffer-free streaming, and the ability to capture and share photos faster than ever before. Telus is on track to deliver that and more. In fact, Optik TV from Telus offers 4x the video resolution of ordinary HD.
Plans to roll out the one billion dollars Vancouver-wide fibre optic infrastructure were recently announced by the company’s CEO.
Telus CEO Darren Entwistle commented that “Once complete, our fibre build will have an unprecedented impact on our city, transforming the way we live, work, socialize and raise our families in the digital world.”
He was speaking to an audience that included well-known Canadian politicians. Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, Technology Minister Amrik Virk, and Premier Christy Clark were in attendance, among others.
Details of the billion dollar roll-out
The details of the roll-out include a promise to deliver download speeds of one gigabit per second, though, in the initial release, download speeds will be around 150 megabits per second—still 30 Mbps more than their closest competitor.
In his announcement, CEO Darren Entwistle stated that the project was designed to “future proof Vancouver’s digital demands for decades to come.”
The project is slated to be phased out over the next five years. It will begin with Vancouver’s west side, an area that is home to many popular stores, restaurants, and other business establishments. Areas like this always demand better, faster internet services.
Many city leaders and respected business owners agree that this move will positively affect Vancouver’s economy for years to come. Other technology experts chimed in saying they believed the Telus fibre optic network would put Vancouver squarely on the map in terms of its advanced fibre infrastructure.
Having high-speed internet that addresses the future needs of citizens should make the Vancouver area much more attractive to tech companies of all sizes.
The spinning wheel of death
For years, both residents and business owners have complained about the “spinning wheel of death”, that wheel that all consumers get while trying to stream a movie on Netflix. With the new Telus fibre optic network, users can expect an end to this with faster download speeds and higher capacity streaming, even with high-definition movies.
In households where there is more than one device going simultaneously, the new fibre optic network should also put an end to slow internet speeds. Family members in several different rooms can watch movies, play games, and surf the internet, all at the same time without vying for bandwidth.
President of Telus’ broadband networks, Tony Geheran, explained that the new service would be rolled out, “neighbourhood by neighbourhood.” Telus has stated that their rates will not go up for top tier services, but that internet speeds across Vancouver will increase over the next 18 to 26 months.
Though there are other internet service providers in the Vancouver area, in the past these services have only provided area-specific or building-specific high-speed services. The new Telus fibre-optic installation will include the entire city covering businesses, residents, hospitals, factories, and others.
Telus has also announced that the company is addressing slow internet speeds in smaller city centres and rural areas. Last year, they announced a program to invest $60 million toward extending their fibre optic network to 90 percent of the residential areas of Kamloops.
Extending dependable fibre optic networks into the future
It is estimated that only about 10 percent of all North Americans currently have access to a reliable fibre optic network. Many professionals believe that this is completely unacceptable in a day and time when so much business and entertainment is conducted online.
Vancouver is rated as number 20 in terms of technology for larger North American cities. Entwistle believes the new fibre optic infrastructure will greatly improve their standing among other cities their size.
“With our Telus fibre investment, I believe Vancouver will soon be in the top 10 and thereafter, in the top five, such is the potential and competitive advantage our investment exudes for our city,” Entwistle said.
Though consumers are excited about the new changes in internet speeds, business owners are also expecting great things. As technology has increased across the globe, the world moves only as fast as local internet speeds will allow. Add to this, the significant expansion of the Internet of Things. In the future, fibre optic networks should be able to handle innovative new medical equipment, connected appliances, enterprise server networks, business requirements, home networks, and many other technology needs.
by Felicien | Jun 15, 2018 | Education
Phishing is one of the most dangerous forms of identity theft. It’s usually presented in the form of pop-ups or spam emails. The majority of account takeovers come from simple phishing attacks where someone in an organization gets tricked into releasing private credentials and information.
Never give your contact details over the phone. This includes user IDs, passwords, Social Security numbers or other personal information. The IRS, a bank, Microsoft or other legitimate organizations will never call and ask you for this information.
Be suspicious of every email. Never click on a link or open an attachment in an email without verifying the sender’s identity and intent. Always be suspicious of any email asking you to verify information, send money or pay an overdue invoice.
Don’t respond to a CEO request for urgent payments. There have been numerous cases where a CEO’s contact information was spoofed and used to convince employees to send money to scammers. Contact the CEO directly to determine if this is a fraudulent request.It doesn’t take long for a hacker to steal your company secrets.
More Tips To Share With Your Staff
Be cautious about opening attachments. They may contain malware that can infect your computer.
Type in URLs and email addresses, don’t click the link email.
- Use Two-Factor Authentication. It requires both your password and an additional piece of information to log in to your account.
- Always update your applications and operating system. Don’t delay, as they will protect your computer and network from the latest threats.
- Back up your files to an external hard drive or cloud storage to ensure you have a duplicate of all your files and applications if your network is compromised.
What Else You Can Do
Ask our IT Security Experts to provide a layered and managed security protection for your technology. A layered security approach combines best-in-class firewalls, web-filtering, and software-update services to protect your network from viruses, malware, and hackers.
Tell your employees to let you know if they experience the following:
- They can’t open their files, or they get error messages saying a file is corrupted or contains the wrong extension.
- A window pops up with a ransomware program they can’t close.
- This window may contain a message about paying a ransom to unlock files.
- A message says that a countdown has started for a ransom to decrypt files and that it will increase over time.
- They see files in their directories with names like “How to decrypt files.txt or decrypt_instructions.html.”
Have questions?
Our team can conduct Security Awareness Training for your employees. This way they’ll know what to do if they get a phishing email.
