Managing business technology is no simple task, especially if your budget doesn’t isn't large enough for an internal IT department. You want professionals who know what they are doing to be the first ones handling your organization’s technology solutions, but sometimes this just isn’t possible. While the concept of outsourcing technology management and maintenance to a third party sounds odd at first, it is better just about any other alternative out there.
The Internet of Things (IoT) can be described simply as 'devices that have connectivity to the Internet, and thus to a computing network'. Most of the time these connected devices aren’t produced with security solutions onboard, so they can be fickle instruments when trying to onerously secure a network that includes numerous IoT devices. Listed below are some of the threats IoT devices pose to your network, and how to reliably secure it from these threats.
Organizations must protect themselves in our current climate littered with cyber threats. This fact can’t be negotiated, but many businesses have found themselves attempting to get by without protecting their assets or network infrastructure. Failing to implement security standards for your company could put its future on the line.
Email security has suffered recently because of the commoditization of basic email security services. If every spam solution is the same, then they can be changed out to just about any other solution out there, removing quality and replacing it with quantity. This trend has taken antivirus--the fact that free antivirus exists and many people prefer it over some paid solutions is a testament to this--but will spam protection move in the same direction?
It’s not unusual for an organization to sideline communications in favor of getting operations off the ground; the problem with that is communications are supposed to be used for augmenting operations. Thus, companies that don’t utilize a unified communications system are doing themselves a disservice in many ways.
For a technology that’s so commonplace, Wi-Fi rarely receives an update unless a catastrophic new threat becomes a major issue. Most recently, the KRACK vulnerability exposed serious shortcomings regarding WPA2 connections--a technology that has been in place since 2004. A new version of this technology called WPA3 has been introduced to combat the most recent threats and vulnerabilities, improving security considerably.
With the numerous threats out there that can harm your business, it’s more important than ever before to think about what your business is doing to protect its data; and, by extension, its future. Depending on the current data backup solution your business utilizes, it might be time to consider a change for the better.
The hunt for the best technology for your organization sometimes becomes problematic because you either don’t have the required capital or operational leeway to combine the latest and greatest solutions. For the business that needs an upgrade but isn't sure what the next move is, consulting with an IT professional like Macro Systems is a great option.
It’s common for people to try and predict what the future will look like, but too many times the reality of what is happening today isn’t taken into account. Imagining the workplace and workforce of the future requires we look at where we are today, the pace of change, and what changes are anticipated. It may not go the way you envision, but the more empirical data you utilize to model what the future looks like, the less disappointed you’ll be when your imaginary benchmarks aren’t met.
Starting a business is far from easy. It was probably a hassle just to get operations up and running at a basic level. While most businesses that provide a product likely had to focus on getting that product to market, technology has begun to help aid this endeavor significantly. Alas, it’s easy for your business to fall into the trap of using too much technology, so much that it affects your bottom line.
