by Felicien | Jul 26, 2019 | Education
8 Essential Reasons to Outsource Your IT Services
Technology moves fast and furiously. In this modern world, you need IT services for your business to run as smoothly as possible. The last thing any well-run company wants is for their IT issues to trip up working conditions so your employees are frustrated, and not being as productive as they should be. Ideally having the right technology in place can help your business to be more profitable in the long run. The question then becomes, is it better to have your IT department in-house or outsource those services? There are actually many terrific benefits to outsourcing your IT services to the right qualified professionals.
Here are 8 essential reasons to leave it to the pros at a managed IT service company for all your technology needs.
Reason #8: Increased Productivity
When companies have their IT services in-house, this can take up time and reduce productivity among the staff. It’s been shown that Managed Service Providers (MSP) who have all the right credentials can implement IT solutions for you in a much faster way. The speed and efficiency an outsourced IT company can give you will allow your business to operate at full capacity much faster in the long run. Less IT distractions equal a better working environment for your staff.
Reason #7: Focus on Core Operations
If you and your employees have to worry about IT glitches and struggles, it’s going to carry over into your daily working environment. That takes away the focus on your core operations. Your managers and employees have limited time to do their job. There are only so many work hours in a day. They can do their jobs better without having to get sidelined by IT problems they shouldn’t have to deal with.
Reason #6: Smaller Business Can Compete
Smaller companies sometimes can’t afford the kind of IT services that larger, more established companies use. By having an MSP who can give you the kind of technological advance that larger companies can afford, will make it easier to compete with the “big guys” on a global scale.
Reason #5: Risks and Threats Are Handled
Most outsourced IT companies are available for risks and threats 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It’s something they monitor all the time. They will be able to handle and manage these threats for you seamlessly to keep your company operationally rock solid.
Reason #4: More Security
Security and compliance issues are less of a problem with experienced IT professionals. Hardware crashes, viruses, data corruption, and backup failures are less of an issue when outsourced IT people are constantly looking out for your company’s security.
Reason #3: Implement New Technology Faster
When you outsource your IT and need updates to be made to your technology, the professionals are going to be able to put that new technology in place much faster. They can also do these updates in off-hours that won’t interfere with your working day.
Reason #2: More Experienced IT Professionals
A company that focuses solely on IT is going to have all the right credentials and certifications in place that will allow you to have the most experienced professionals in your back pocket. A highly qualified MSP also has the most up-to-date training and ongoing education of everything involved in the technology sphere.
Reason #1: Less Expensive IT Costs
This is by far the most important reason in the minds of most companies, the bottom line. By not having your IT department in-house, you are going to be saving serious monetary resources. It’s just less expensive to outsource your IT costs with an MSP that works efficiently and allows you to pay only for the services your company needs from them.
by Felicien | Jul 26, 2019 | Education
How To Download Audio From Facebook Messenger
Facebook Messenger is one of the most popular chat and messaging services in the world. Increasingly, Facebook Messenger is increasingly being used to communicate using text, audio, and video.
However, a common question asked by users of Facebook Messenger is how audio files can be saved from within the messages app.
As it currently stands, the ability to save audio messages is not an integrated feature built into Facebook Messenger itself. Fortunately, there are a few reasonably easy ways to save audio messages to your desktop or laptop.
Method one: Open Web Inspector in your browser
The first method may seem a bit tricky, but it’s actually pretty easy once you get the hang of it.
First, find the audio message that you want to save within Messenger. Next, select “Develop” then “Show Web Inspector”. After that, you’ll want to select the “Network” tab and look for a file that starts with “audioclip-” followed by letters and numbers, and ending in “.aac”. Right-click or double-click on the file and it will download to your Download folder.
Once you’ve done that, the audio file will be saved to your computer, and can be shared or moved like any other file.
Method two: Mobile site hack
An alternate method involves using the mobile version of Facebook on your desktop computer. To do this, simply type “m.facebook.com” instead of facebook.com” as the URL. Once there, click on messages and find the audio file you want to save. Once you find it, click the down-facing arrow in next to the audio clip. As in Method one, you should see the file download to the Download folder on your desktop.
Hopefully, Facebook will eventually integrate the ability to save audio files in a streamlined and user-friendly way. For now, rest assured that the two methods described above will allow you to save audio files quickly and easily.
by Felicien | Jul 26, 2019 | Education
5 Incredible Benefits of Effective Managed IT Services
Managed IT services are one of the many ways an organization can choose to handle their IT needs. With managed IT services, a third-party handles the entirety of the tasks and responsibilities regarding managing IT and keeping the company running. The difference between this and many traditional third-party services is that it’s provided for a set cost. Instead of having access to an hourly consultant rate, you’ll be paying a flat rate monthly (or annually) in exchange for total coverage.
Every arrangement is slightly different and must be outlined very clearly in the Service Level Agreement (also known as the SLA). This document will arrange not only the cost structure, but also the exact services that are included in the partnership, and the metrics that are used to define success or failure.
There are many reasons that companies elect to go with managed IT services to handle their day-to-day needs. Here are five of the most compelling reasons:
1. Provides Total Alignment Between Both Parties
In a managed services agreement, both parties are aligned for maximum efficiency and performance. Since it’s not an hourly rate, the third-party is incentivized to handle your IT in an efficient and effective manner. Otherwise, they have to spend more time and manpower resolving your issues, which brings down their effective hourly rate.
Additionally, if they don’t live up to the metrics set forth by the SLA, they may be liable for penalties or even complete termination of the contract. In this way, it’s in both companies interest to do the very best job possible.
2. Focuses on Being Proactive versus Reactive
If you’re paying by the hour, the services you’ll receive are going to be reactive. When your company notices an issue, they’ll reach out to the third-party to help fix it. Managed services provide proactive support. Since they’re working for you no matter if there’s a problem or not, much of their time is spent preventing problems in the first place. This results in much smoother daily operations and the avoidance of problems that could potentially hurt your businesses but would be unavoidable with another type of arrangement.
3. Contains Simple Cost Structure
The simple cost structure of managed IT services will be much appreciated by your accounting department and whoever is setting the budget. Instead of seeing costs vary wildly by the amount of support required in a particular month, the amount will be a flat fee. You’ll also likely save a great deal of money versus hiring a fully functional team in-house since you won’t need to pay for things like recruiting, onboarding, benefits, and continued training.
4. Makes Projects Easier to Manage
When you need to roll out a brand-new technology or simply update an existing one, it can take a great deal of time and resources. This is especially true if the third-party isn’t used to the way your business operates each day and has to fit the entire roll out into a small window of time. If you have continuous support, however, it’s a much more manageable process. They can work on the project when they have a spare moment in the day. Since they’re fully integrated into your day-to-day processes, they’ll have a much better idea of how to implement a new system from end-to-end, including training and providing post-launch support.
5. Offers Access to True Experts
Unless you’re a massive organization, it’s unlikely that you can afford to recruit, train, and maintain the very best in the IT field. With an agreement with a top-notch IT firm, you gain access to experience and perspectives that you would be unlikely to otherwise access. These talented professionals will be able to help you with all of your IT needs, from daily maintenance to improving upon your existing systems and processes.
Managed IT services are only one of the many ways that a company can choose to handle its IT needs. However, it offers many advantages over some of the other options, including handling IT in-house and going with an hourly consultant-based fee schedule. If you believe that your business could benefit from controlled costs, improved support, and access to an incredible variety of IT talent, managed IT services might be the best option for your business.
by Felicien | Jul 25, 2019 | Education
What You Need To Know About OAuth Phishing Attacks
Amnesty International has reported that OAuth Phishing attacks targeted dozens of Egyptian human rights defenders since the beginning of this year. They are warning that these human rights defenders should be vigilant and contact them if they receive any suspicious emails.
“Since January 2019 several human rights defenders and civil society organizations from Egypt started forwarding dozens of suspicious emails to Amnesty International. Through the course of our investigation, we discovered that these emails were attempts to access the email accounts of their targets through a particularly insidious form of phishing known as OAuth Phishing … We estimate the total number of targeted individuals to be in the order of several hundreds.” Amnesty International
What Is OAuth Phishing?
The Egyptian authorities are using a new spear-phishing technique called OAuth phishing. OAuth is an industry-standard protocol used for authorizations. All computer users should beware of OAuth Phishing.
OAuth Phishing is being used to abuse the legitimate authorization feature of online service providers that lets third-party applications gain access to an account. OAuth is the protocol used by many companies, including Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft. It’s used to manage access to user data across these and other platforms.
With access to a user’s email account OAuth can add events or flight times to their calendars. The OAuth Phishing hackers use malicious third-party applications to trick users into giving them access to their accounts.
OAuth Phishing targets OAuth tokens instead of passwords. When a user grants a third-party app the right to access their account, the application uses the OAuth token instead of a password. Egyptian authorities are gaining unauthorized access and use third-party apps to compromise users’ accounts.
How Does OAuth Phishing Work?
The hacker uses phishing emails with fake security warnings from Google to trick victims into clicking on a malicious link. The victim is instructed to click the “Update my security now” button. When they do, they’re sent to a third-party application called “Secure Mail.” This prompts the OAuth process.
But that’s not all. They are then asked to give the “Secure Mail” app access to their Gmail or other accounts. They’re told to click on the “Allow” button. When this happens, the hacker gains access to the victim’s account.
Now the attacker can use a malicious application to:
Download other messages, attachments and files.
Search for and read their messages.
Install filters and forwarding rules.
Inject macros into Word documents.
Access users’ contacts.
Get into OneDrive and search for downloaded files.
Extract emails by searching for keywords.
Setup malicious Outlook rules.
Amnesty International warns that these OAuth phishing attacks also target users’ Yahoo, Gmail, Outlook and Hotmail accounts.
How Can You Prevent Your Employees From Being Victimized By OAuth Phishing?
The best way is to be educated. Security Awareness Training is the go-to solution to keep employees informed about security threats and how to avoid them. But, because OAuth phishing can be difficult to detect and the victim authenticates through a legitimate site, people are still being tricked.
OAuth Phishing can be hard to identify. And, even with Security Awareness Training, people are being tricked. They’re trained to look for suspicious website URLs and to use Two-Factor Authentication. But these tactics don’t work to prevent OAuth phishing.
Phishing messages can convince users to click links that deliver malware or reveal their user credentials. Now with new tools, OAuth is being used for this. The account can be accessed until authorization is explicitly revoked. Not even password resets or using 2-factor authentication will work to stop it.
Train and test your users to:
Spot phishing messages and specifically OAuth phishing messages.
Know how to submit suspicious email messages if they find them.
Defend and respond to OAuth attacks.
Along with Security Awareness training, companies must ensure that their IT service companies have set up the technology, policies and remote monitoring and management to detect these OAuth attacks.
What Does OAuth Recommend?
You can visit this page for security guidance. They say that if a suspicious or malicious third-party application is found in the OAuth environment that all permissions should be revoked. Then review remote monitoring logs to learn what was compromised.
They also suggest that you:
Limit the number of third-party applications that can be accepted.
Disable any third-party applications that you don’t need.
Search and monitor all third-party applications that have been approved for use, and check for suspicious activity.
If you use Microsoft Office 365, be sure to monitor your application permissions in the Cloud App Security.
The Bottom Line
All of your employees should be educated about the dangers of OAuth and other phishing attacks. They should always use best practices and only access applications that they trust.
Also, make sure that you and your IT provider periodically review the list of applications that you use. Revoke access to all applications that you no longer need.
by Felicien | Jul 25, 2019 | Education
Create Your Own Fonts In Windows 10
You may have been using Windows 10 for some time now, but it’s likely that you haven’t mastered all of its features just yet.
Did you know that you can create your own fonts?
In the Windows store, you can get the “Make Your Own Font” app, a great way to add a personal touch to anything you may need to write. For example, you could even send an email in your own handwriting!
All you need to do is fill out the alphabet letter by letter (lower and upper case) as well as numbers and symbols. Then you name it, save it, and upload it via Control Panel > Fonts.
The next time you’re drafting something and find that Times New Roman is too formal, you’ll be able to switch to your personalized font instead.
Let us know what you think about this Windows 10 tech tip. Just reply to this email. Over the next few weeks, we’ll have more Windows 10 tips for you.
by Felicien | Jul 25, 2019 | Education
The top concern for CEOs today isn’t competitors or a recession — it’s cybersecurity. See why this is becoming the biggest challenge for an organization’s top executive.
Why Today’s CEOs are Worried About Cybersecurity
A business’s top executive has plenty on their minds: the potential of a major recession, competitors nipping at their heels and a shortage of talent. However, none of these hot topics are the top concern for US CEOs in 2019 — that banner falls to cybersecurity. When there are so many other issues facing organizations, why is cybersecurity the highest business concern for CEOs? Perhaps part of the issue is the continual cycle of mainstream media coverage of the massive breaches such as Equifax in 2017 that affected millions of individuals and can cost billions of dollars to resolve. It could also be the high-profile challenges that Facebook, Yahoo, Under Armour and Marriott have been facing over the past few years. A recent poll of over 1,400 CEOs and senior executives by The Conference Boardpoints to some of the reasons cybersecurity is a top strategic consideration for CEOs in 2019.
CEOs Struggling to Find the Right Cybersecurity Leaders
One of the key threats facing today’s CEOs is the ability to adequately resource their cybersecurity teams. This relatively new need is one that is causing a significant shortage in the hiring market, with organizations wrestling with budget requirements for an increasingly-expensive skill set. Unfortunately, the dearth of talent is not just at the executive leadership level, it is also causing IT departments around the country and the world to flounder as they attempt to staff up to meet the growing needs of cybersecurity as well as data compliance requirements. These individuals will be in high demand for the foreseeable future as gaining knowledge about cybersecurity requires time and investment in education. Savvy CEOs and other technology leaders have been growing these skills internally for the last several years, but having a split focus between cybersecurity requirements and their “day job” can quickly cause individuals to fall behind in the ever-changing security landscape.
Keeping Cybersecurity Initiatives in the Limelight
It’s relatively easy for CEOs to keep shorter-term strategies top-of-mind for their executive teams, but there are no quick solutions to enhancing your organization’s cybersecurity. This requires a long-term, focused effort — and resisting the siren songs of short-term gains to ensure that your strategic focus on IT security stays in place. Changes in the economy or in the competitive marketplace may tease CEOs to redirect some of the funds or teams to other parts of the organization, but it’s crucial that top executives stay in tune with the benefits that cybersecurity provides to the organization. In many cases, the changes that need to be made to make your organization more secure will also have payoffs in the efficiency of your operations, too.
Marketplace Perception of a Data Breach
The extremely negative perception and sheer quantity of negative publicity that can come with a data breach are reason enough for CEOs to be overly concerned about the cybersecurity within their organization. It doesn’t take long for smaller, leaner competitors to enter many marketplaces, and these organizations can receive positive publicity if larger organizations are caught up in a breach situation. How the business handles their communication around a massive breach, ransomware or other cybersecurity incidents can be as damaging as the incident itself if the CEO isn’t careful. These situations require a great deal of proactive communication and notification to customers along with the major effort required to evaluate the incident and begin remediation. Without a comprehensive incident response plan in place, the situation becomes that much more difficult for leaders throughout the organization.
Creating a proactive field for cybersecurity does start at the top, which makes it encouraging that CEOs are considering cybersecurity their very top initiative for 2019. As long as this focus on IT security and the value for the business continues strong over the next few years, businesses should be able to prepare adequately to weather this type of storm.
