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Monthly Archives

September 2020

Sep 16
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Remote workforce necessities.

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Seven things to help ensure the health, safety and success of your mobile workforce.

 

Many companies are rotating and/or keeping their workforce at home to facilitate social-distancing and to keep their workforce healthy. However, it’s not as simple as leaving your employees at home, letting them fire up their personal laptops, and getting to work. Review the following seven things to help ensure the health, safety and success of your mobile workforce.

1. Secure Remote Access

Employees should not have open access to everything on their work systems from their personal computers. This keeps company data protected. In order to be productive through this pandemic, however, employers will need to provide a secure connection utilizing VPN or remote access software. These solutions will mirror the employee’s work desktop without housing all of the data on the individual’s personal system, allowing them to seamlessly continue work.

2. File Sharing Capabilities

While people will be working in isolation, they must still be able to collaborate. File sharing/group editing software will be critical to moving forward on creative or documentation projects through real-time editing, commenting, and versioning. Software like Dropbox for Business, Microsoft Teams/Sharepoint or Google Documents help fill this need.

3. Enterprise Level Antivirus

Basic home-level antivirus is not sufficient, particularly in secured industries. Extend your enterprise-level antivirus to home systems that will have access to your network in order to create an added layer of protection. You may also consider deploying firewalls on top of individual’s home networks to create the same secure connection employees experience in your office.

4. Video Conferencing

Meetings must go on while people work remotely; however, voice-only leaves much to be desired in terms of tone and context. We highly recommend putting in place video conferencing options. You can implement something as simple as Google Duo/FaceTime, or something more feature intensive, like Zoom or GoToMeeting.

5. Messaging Software

You can’t just spin your chair around to talk to your co-worker when working remote, yet it’s not efficient to always pick up the phone. We recommend implementing a messaging software like Microsoft Teams or Slack to open communication channels and allow employees to continue to interact quickly and accurately. Utilizing these tools, you can set up one-on-one conversations or set up channels to facilitate team communication.

6. Phone

A strong VoIP solution will allow employees to take their office phone numbers remotely on their cellphones without giving out their cellphone numbers. Office calls will transfer seamlessly to the employee’s cellphones, voice mails will be sent via email, and the employee can dial-out using a phone application to maintain office functionality.

7. Review your remote access policy.

Put in place a clear policy that acknowledges that your company monitors whatever they do while connected. Employees should be encouraged to act as if they are on site even while working remotely and reminded that punishments for doing something illegal/against company policy will apply.

Contact us today at (800) 710-4010 to speak to a member of our team about your business needs and see how ICS can help you keep your IT infrastructure safe.

Sep 08
0

Employee Passwords

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Solid password practices can protect your data from intruders.

Protecting your business data is essential to keeping your company in business. While your employees are your greatest asset, they can also be your greatest liability. This is especially the case when it comes to how employees are using passwords. Passwords are the keys that open doors to stored data. The more employees that have those keys, the more vulnerable that data becomes. It is vital that your employees are using strong passwords that they can remember.

There is power in numbers.

Passwords can be easily cracked by hackers, especially if you don’t use solid password-creation practices. The best passwords contain both uppercase and lowercase letters, as well as numbers and special characters. You should also avoid using easily guessed words or alphanumeric combinations, such as the names of significant others, children, pets, birth dates, addresses, and similar information that can be easily guessed by someone looking at your social media profiles or through a Google search. Rather than using a short password, it is recommended that end users create passphrases – or a short sentence containing an assortment of characters.

Keep your passwords somewhere safe.

The safest place to keep a password is in your head. Unfortunately, people cannot always remember them. It is not a good idea to keep passwords written down unless they are well hidden. End users should avoid keeping sticky notes or other memos containing passwords with computers. A good method of storage is to keep passwords stored either within a password manager or by keeping them on file with your organization’s IT department.

Keep your passwords updated.

It is a good practice to renew your passwords once or twice a year. Changing passwords too often may create more work for system administrators, since they are more likely to be forgotten or lost. You should also change your passwords any time that you feel as though your system has been compromised or is likely to be compromised.

Contact us today at (800) 710-4010 to speak to a member of our team about your business needs and how we can help you keep your data secure.