The rule “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is common for many business owners. It can serve to protect your business against unnecessary costs and unneeded downtime. While protecting your business against many types of danger, it poses a large threat when it comes to your IT security.
Watching a business grow is very satisfying and rewarding. Whether opening a new office or employing a new person; it’s a positive step in the right direction. Upward growth often requires new office technology and IT changes to bring the new staff fully online. Continue reading
Across the world, the new year is a time for celebration, a time to reflect and a time we typically resolve to make the most of coming 12 months. We do this by leaving last year’s problems precisely where they belong – in the past year.
Many manage to adopt this approach in their personal lives, but it pays enormous dividends to apply it to our businesses too.
Cleaning up open issues from previous years gives you and your team free reign to make the next year a record-breaking success with nothing to hold you back. Intermittent IT problems, network slowdowns, printing issues, and unavailable resources can all be left in the past.
The start of a new year is a great time to evaluate your IT systems and here are five great resolutions for your business to make. Continue reading
Depending on what business you are in the start of a new year may be flat out dealing with customers or it may be an excellent time to take stock and evaluate what your business needs to go forward. Continue reading
Up to 500 million travellers details may be compromised as hotel chain Marriott International have announced a security breach within their guest database. Researchers alerted the firm to a vulnerability that has granted hackers access to the hotel chain’s database systems since 2014. Continue reading
IT support services can be one of the largest and most unpredictable expenses within a modern business. Unexpected failures, mandatory upgrades and sudden staff changes can happen quickly and the costs can soon add up.
These factors are a part of the IT world and make IT departments costly, hard to manage, and difficult to budget for.
Switching your business to a proactive IT support provider (or managed service provider – MSP) can lower costs and reduce unpredictable expenses. Making the switch can cut down management overheads and reduce budgets to a fixed monthly cost. Here are some tips on how this can be done:
In todays world technology allows us to accomplish more tasks faster than ever before. Paperless documents, remote collaboration and video conferencing have all lowered the costs and increased the speed of everyday business at an extraordinary rate.
As with most things, the benefits of modern IT does come at a cost. Consistent maintenance has become critical to almost every business. The IT department is now as important to the functioning of a firm as sales, marketing, or management. The advantages that come with modern technology more than outweigh the drawbacks – it is up to the business owner to balance both. In today’s highly competitive business environment the latest tips, tricks, and tools are essential to keeping ahead of the competition.
What is a virus and is it the same as malware?
Malware describes software designed to act maliciously on a computer. The name ‘malware’ is a shorthand for ‘malicious software’ and describes exactly what it is. A computer virus is a single type of malware that can cause harm to your PC, but it is only one of many. Other types of malware are listed below.
Short for advertising-supported software, adware is a type of malware that delivers adverts to your computer. These advertisements often pop-up and are intrusive, irritating and designed to trick you into clicking something you don’t want. A common example of malware is pop-up ads that appear on many websites and mobile applications.
Adware often comes bundled with “free” versions of software that uses these intrusive advertising to make money. Commonly it is installed without the user’s knowledge and are purposely made to be difficult to remove.
Spyware is designed to spy on the user’s activity without their consent or knowledge. Spyware is often installed in the background, collects keyboard input and can harvest data from the computer, monitor web activity and more.
Spyware typically requires installation to the computer. This is commonly done by tricking users into installing the spyware themselves instead of a software application that they thought they were getting. Victims of spyware are often be completely unaware of its presence until the stolen data is used elsewhere (ie in a fraudulent bank transactions or stolen online accounts).
A computer virus is a form of malware that is installed inadvertently, causing damage to the computer and / or user. A typical virus may install a keylogger to capture passwords, logins and bank information from the keyboard or it might steal or delete data, interrupt programs or cause the computer to crash.
Modern virus programs commonly use your computers processing power and internet bandwidth to perform illegal tasks remotely for hackers. The first sign of this can be when the computer sounds like it is doing a lot of work when no programs are running. A computer virus is often spread through installing unknown software or downloading attachments that contain more than they seem.
Ransomware is a very malicious variety of malware that prevents the user from accessing their own files and data until a ransom is paid. Files within the system are often encrypted with a password that won’t be revealed to the user until they receive money usually in the form of bitcoin.
Instead of accessing the computer as normal, the user is presented with a screen which details the contact and payment information required to access their data again.
Ransomware is typically downloaded through malicious file attachments, email or through a vulnerability in the computer system.
Another type of malware is the computer worm. Worms spread across computer networks by exploiting vulnerabilities within the operating system. Often these programs harm their host networks by consuming large amounts of network bandwidth, overloading computers and using up all the available resources.
While similar to a virus a worm is able to both copies of itself and spread independently. A virus must rely on human activity to run a program or open a malicious attachment while worms can simply spread over the network without human intervention.
If you would like to make your business secure from malware, give us a call at 08 8326 4364 or via email on support@dpcomputing.com.au.
Being engaged in business used to mean staying wired in at the office eight to twelve hours a day. In today’s world this is completely untrue as often the most efficient workplace is one that is spread far and wide and always on the go.
With todays technology you can free yourself from your desk with just a laptop computer and 4G modem (or just tether it to your mobile phone). This freedom to work out of the office is a huge advantage to modern businesses.
The Right Tools for the Job
The most important parts of working out of the office is to ensure you don’t lose touch with your team. Maintaining total collaboration between team members can be tricky but their are tools to help you to stay on top of your team communication.
One such tool is Microsoft Office 365, this provides the traditional tools (Word, Excel, Outlook, OneNote etc) and also adds remote team collaboration and a cloud based file server. Files can be saved into the cloud, worked on and accessed anywhere. At one time, remote working meant taking a copy of a file somewhere else to work. Changes to the original weren’t reflected in the remote copy and at least one version was destined to be lost forever.
Software packages such as OneDrive and SharePoint allow the entire team to work on a single centralised file saved to the cloud. Whether you are in the office, on a beach, plane, or train; the file is the same version for everyone.
Collaborative Working
The key to remote working is the ability to collaborate in the cloud with everyone at once. Modern software such as Office 365 allows all team members to be working on a single document at the same time.
Whether the project calls for spreadsheets, documents or a presentation; everyone can work together without missing a beat.
Even when you’re not working out of the office or busy on the road, collaborative software can help to power your team working in the office too.
Admin Done Remotely
Modern software has impacted the way in which we do our finances and simplify your bookkeeping.
Today, cloud computing has opened up ways to speed up business in ways we couldn’t have imagined. Cloud-based accounting packages such as Xero, MYOB or Quickbooks allow for your accounts to be done in the cloud.
Make your Finances Work for You
Maintaining your finances is as simple as logging into a single portal. This tool allows you to take both your admin and your work out of the office and keep it on the go.
By the time your accounts are due, your accountant simply has to log in remotely and pick up where you left off. By the time taxes are due the work is done and you can get on with other important things in your business.
Getting work done out of the office and on the go is a huge boost to productivity. Modern technology and software enables you to keep up to speed, continue collaborating and even stay on top of your accounts from anywhere in the world.
Give us a call today on 08 8326 4364 or support@dpcomputing.com.au to talk about how we can help you move to the cloud.