Month: December 2017

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Casserly Consulting Blog

11 Ways to Enhance Android Security

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It should come as no surprise that hackers are always trying to get ahead of security developers, just as it should be no surprise that these hackers often target the Android operating system. After all, the Android OS is used on mobile devices all over the world. If your business leverages these devices, there are quite a few security considerations you need to keep in mind.

Remember Security Basics
There are multiple ways to help your mobile security that take relatively little effort on your part. If you aren’t already in the habit, get used to locking your device whenever it isn’t in use. To unlock your device, you should require a PIN at the very least, and leverage biometric authentication whenever possible. This will help to keep your phone secured if it should be lost or stolen in public.

Use Google Play to Keep Your Devices Organized
Whenever you download an application from the Google Play Store, you are given the option to install the app on any device associated with your Google account. This list is also used to locate a misplaced device. You can help to make this easier by renaming your devices to differentiate between them more easily. Should you need to remove a device from your list, all you have to do is uncheck the box labelled Show in Menus.

Make Sure Your Trusted Devices are Updated
Every device you access your Google account with is automatically added to a list of trusted devices. You should make sure that this list only has devices on it that you know and trust. If there is a device that is unfamiliar on this list, you should remove it and change your password immediately. To check which devices have access to your Google account, visit https://myaccount.google.com/device-activity.

Finding a Lost Device
In the event that your device is misplaced, Google has a solution that you can leverage to find it more easily by taking a few proactive measures. First, open up your Android device’s Settings and find the Google option. From there, select Security and activate the Find My Device setting. While in settings, you should also confirm that your Location settings are activated so that Find My Device will work properly. You can even use the web version of Find My Device to make your lost device ring and help to find it.

Leverage Google’s Security Check
If you ever suspect that your Google account is vulnerable to access by unauthorized parties, the web giant provides a security checker that evaluates your preparations. This tool can be found here: https://myaccount.google.com/security-checkup.

Review the Passwords Saved to Smart Lock
One of Google’s features is a handy one, but could foreseeably create some difficulties in the future. Smart Lock will save the credentials you use to access different accounts with the device. However, you should periodically check and be sure that the passwords are properly updated to avoid issues when you try to access your saved accounts.

Connect with Caution
While it can be handy to connect an app to your Google account, this isn’t a permission you should grant willy-nilly. Some apps will only be needed once or twice, and others will become a tool you regularly use. If you no longer have use for an app, it is best that you remove it from your account. After all, the more connections your account has, the more vulnerable it is to attack. You can edit your account permissions by visiting https://myaccount.google.com/permissions.

Be Discerning When Downloading Apps
Even the Google Play Store can have a threatening application available, despite the best efforts to screen out such apps. As a result, you should be sure to only download applications from the Play Store, and even then, consider each app and its permissions before adding it to your device.

Leverage Android’s App-Scanning Capabilities
Android has a security scanning feature built in, eliminating the need to download a third-party app to accomplish the same thing. In Settings, access Security & Location. Under Google Play Protect, make sure that Scan device for security threats is selected. Your device will now periodically run automatic scans in the background for threats, only notifying you if an issue is discovered.

Reinforcing with Third-Party Apps
Despite the incorporation of Android’s security scanning capabilities, it may not hurt to add additional protections. A trusted IT provider will be able to recommend solutions that you can rely on to protect your devices.

Incorporating 2FA
2FA, or Two-Factor Authentication, is another excellent way to keep others from accessing your accounts. With a solution like Google Authenticator or many others, a single-use code will be generated that is a necessary credential along with your username and password. You’ll want to lean on your IT provider to ensure you have a trustworthy 2FA solution that meets a business’ needs.

If you want to learn more about mobile security, or any other IT topic, lean on the resources at COMPANYNAME. We’re available at PHONENUMBER.

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Casserly Consulting Blog

Tip of the Week: Is OneNote or Evernote Better for Your Needs?

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The ability to take notes is invaluable to business, but the ability to take cohesive, well-organized notes is essential. Therefore, it is important to utilize a solution that enables you to do so. For this week’s tip, we’ll compare and contrast two note-taking applications — Microsoft OneNote and Evernote — to evaluate which will better serve your needs.

What OneNote Has To Offer
OneNote offers a fairly comprehensive suite of features to its user, offering a wider variety of tools than Evernote does. Depending on the platform you use, you can draw, record a quick audio or video clip, add images and spreadsheets, and share everything with other users — all in addition to the basic text-based note function.

The way it is set up, OneNote also enables the user to remain well-organized in a logical and sensible way, with the ability to create individual notebooks that are themselves able to be divided into sections and subsections, each divisible into pages. The many functions that OneNote allows are divided into a tabbed system similar to what can be found in the Office applications. This interface is most prominent in the Windows version, with similar (if less comprehensive) features in the Mac, iPad, iPhone, web, and Android versions.

OneNote’s major flaw lies in its web clipping function. When content is clipped from a webpage and added to OneNote, it is added as an image. As a result, links and videos and other similar content will not work, and you can’t copy and paste any content from the clipped webpage. It is also only available to users with a Microsoft account.

Finally, OneNote utilizes OneDrive to keep itself synced across all of your devices. Depending on what version of Office you use, your OneDrive storage space allotment will vary. There is also the option of purchasing additional storage space through various plans.

The Features of Evernote
Evernote offers the same basic functionality as OneNote, but there is still enough of a perceptible difference that the comparison between the two feels a little like comparing apples to oranges. While Evernote also allows the user to create notes and such from scratch, it has clear strengths in its capability to clip web content.

Rather than just taking a screenshot of the web page, Evernote provides a toolbar application that allows the user to capture content in a variety of different ways. A user can grab the article alone, without ads and extraneous content, or just the stripped-down text and graphics, sacrificing the original formatting. Evernote also accepts the full page, a working bookmark to that page, and yes, a screenshot of a particular page.

The clipper also allows you to add tags, as well as notes by adding text, highlighting what’s there, drawing on it or adding arrows, and more. Plus, the only element to a captured page that isn’t live and editable are things like videos. However, clicking on the video in Evernote will take you to the original page where it can be viewed.

Evernote shows some significant changes between its versions for Windows and Apple devices, making the Apple device versions a little trickier to navigate than the lists that the Windows version showcases. The web and mobile versions have a shortcuts feature that enables the user to save a quick link to a particular note in a special favorites menu.

Evernote comes in a limited, trimmed-down free version, as well as in various subscription models for differing price points and data caps.

Why Not Both?
Clearly, both OneNote and Evernote have their specific strengths, which translate into improved capabilities for certain tasks. As a result, it may best suit your needs to have a version of each, which is made easier if you only require the free version of one or the other. You may want to use Evernote to compile research for a given project, and OneNote to map out the project and take notes for reference.

One thing to keep in mind, although both systems are relatively secure, business owners will want to make sure employees aren’t storing sensitive company information on their own personal OneNote or Evernote accounts. Both services offer business/enterprise versions that let you manage and control your data.

Whichever approach you take, COMPANYNAME is here to help. Call us at PHONENUMBER for more information, and be sure to subscribe to this blog for more tips every week!

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Technology Has Influenced a Few Holiday Traditions

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Everyone has their own holiday traditions, and Christmastime is no exception. Some might stick to more traditional roots, while others focus on more contemporary trends to create a Christmas culture that changes with each passing year. Many of these newer traditions have been molded from modern technology solutions, so let’s celebrate both new and old holiday traditions by looking at how technology has changed them.

Holiday Cards
Today’s technology has largely replaced physical holiday cards sent over postal. Social media is one trend that makes it easier to stay connected than ever before, allowing you to keep friends and relatives up-to-date on the major happenings. The annual occurrence of a holiday card is less important due to this, and younger generations simply prefer to communicate online than physically or in-person, making snail mail a moot point.

Automation
The holidays are stressful. There’s no getting around that fact. You need to properly prepare for the celebrations, as well as organize any get togethers that your family hosts. Of course, real life doesn’t just disappear during the holidays, so you’re essentially trying to juggle additional responsibilities on top of others. Technology helps you automate tasks so that you can get more done during the workday. Some tasks, like grocery shopping and even paying bills, can be automated to an extent, allowing you to spend more time preparing for the holidays.

Shopping
Nowadays, retail and commercialism are a part of the holiday season. Gift-giving is a deep-seated tradition that makes people feel good about themselves. With the advent of online shopping, shoppers are capable of finding gifts without going to the physical location of a retailer, allowing for less travel and fewer headaches, while overall, providing a larger variety of available goods and services.

Stores are even taking matters into their own hands, allowing for a better consumer experience as a whole. Online price tracking lets users find the best deals in any store, and smart shelves can be used to find out if an item is even available in the first place. Near-field communication, or NFC, can be used to help shoppers finish their transactions in the most convenient way possible.

Online shopping is flourishing, and the holiday season is when it’s most successful. There are even browser plugins that help shoppers locate the best deals around. Discount codes are used as an incentive to get online shoppers to double-down on their purchases, and retailers introduce countless other bargains and sales to make the holiday season “the most profitable time of the year.”

What are some of the other ways technology has affected the holiday season? Let us know in the comments. All of us at COMPANYNAME wish you a happy holiday season and a wonderful new year.

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Amazon Has Taken Over the Cloud

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Amazon Web Services, or AWS, has long been a provider of quality web-based applications and services for businesses of all shapes and sizes. Nowadays, AWS is providing more services than ever before for the business world with more offerings regarding video creation, augmented reality, and virtual reality. With these new cloud-based services, Amazon is hoping to take advantage of a new market for emerging technologies.

Amazon’s Elemental Media Services introduced five new solutions that allow users to implement workflows to produce high-quality video content. The idea is to give users of AWS the capability to build custom video infrastructures to deliver content to viewers. Users can even build out custom video applications that only use technology resources paid for. This comes at a time when it’s much more efficient and cost-effective to hire outward for managing and maintaining a video delivery system, which allows for more flexibility.

Until recently, companies were spending most of their time and resources ensuring that the infrastructure they build works in an efficient way. In other words, they were more focused on the operations aspect of managing an infrastructure rather than the quality of the content produced. Amazon Web Services users can now outsource the management and maintenance of their video content infrastructure so they can focus on creating content that outshines the competition.

Some of the notable features of AWS’s new service include:

  • AWS Elemental MediaConvert: Formatting and compressing videos for distribution to devices
  • AWS Elemental MediaLive: Encoding for live broadcasts on televisions or connected devices
  • AWS Elemental MediaStore: Delivery of video from high-quality storage
  • AWS Elemental MediaPackage: Prepare and protect live video streams
  • AWS Elemental MediaTailor: Insert targeted advertising into media without compromising on quality

All of the above services will be compatible with other Amazon Web Services applications, so it’s worth considering for the deployment of a video infrastructure, even for small businesses who are on a budget.

Other new services offered by Amazon Web Services include Sumerian, which is AWS’s augmented reality and virtual reality development platform. Users can build out environments using 3D applications for multiple platforms, including some of the most well-known VR and AR technologies like Oculus. You can also import assets to edit 3D scenes, as well as using your own created imports or the pre-installed library of objects.

How do you see these new Amazon Web Services changing the way that your business functions, if at all? Let us know in the comments, and be sure to subscribe to our blog.

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Tip of the Week: Sync Your Inboxes with IMAP

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How many emails do you send on a daily basis? You use it so frequently that you might not second-guess how it actually works. Depending on the way your business uses email, you might be able to optimize the way that it works for your mobile devices. There are two types of protocol that work to varying degrees for your email solution.

The first kind of email protocol is called POP, or Post Office Protocol. This can be seen in a similar way to snail mail. POP works by downloading messages to your device from the mail server through your email client. However, this keeps you from downloading the messages onto other devices. If you want to check your email on your smartphone, the same messages will not be accessible on your desktop–it’s just the way it works.

On the other hand, you have the preferred method of handling multi-device email: IMAP, or Internet Message Access Protocol. IMAP stores the messages live on an email server rather than downloading them directly to the devices. This means that the messages remain on the email server and are accessed by a mail client on any device you use. Any actions performed on the messages are done so through the mail server. This is the best way to use email if you’re hoping to keep your messages in sync across your devices.

Modern email systems generally allow for IMAP, including Google’s Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, and Mozilla’s Thunderbird. Some, like Apple’s iCloud, even default to it. Depending on your business’ needs, you’ll want to implement a communications solution that allows your team to access email on a multitude of devices–that’s where we come in.

If your business is unfamiliar with mobile devices, COMPANYNAME can work with your organization to ensure that your mobile device policy matches up properly with your email client. You want to ensure that any devices accessing company information are secured from end to end. Furthermore, these devices need access to information unimpeded so that productivity can commence. We can work with your organization to make this happen.

To learn more about email, mobile devices, and business technology for a modern workforce, reach out to COMPANYNAME at PHONENUMBER.

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Does Credit Card Theft Mean Identity Theft?

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Almost anyone would consider having their credit card stolen a major problem, but while it may technically constitute identity theft, identity theft itself can be any number of things. Today, we go over the difference between credit card theft and identity theft and what you can do to keep your staff, clients, and vendors safe.

Defining the Crimes
The first thing you have to know is that credit card theft and identity theft are not mutually exclusive, but while credit card theft is identity theft, identity theft obviously isn’t credit card theft. Credit card theft is when someone has stolen your credit card information and is able to use that information to purchase goods, services, or dispense money.

Identity theft, however is a blanket term that covers these three situations:

Fraud or misuse of an existing account — With 16.4 million of 2014’s 17.6 million victims being targeted by this variety of identity theft, this is easily the most prevalent form of identity theft. This is defined by situation where a party gains access to an account without the account holder’s authorization and uses its credentials to benefit them in some way.

Fraud or misuse of a new account — Opening a new account in another party’s name. This type of fraud can happen all over, and can range anywhere from opening a consumer benefits account, to opening a line of credit or a checking account, to buying property. This type of fraud was reported about 1.1 million times in 2014.

Fraud or misuse of personal information — All other uses of stolen personal information added up to a relatively paltry 713,000 reported cases. This is mainly when someone uses your identity to gain a benefit they couldn’t have otherwise. You see this used mostly to find employment, rent property, see a doctor, or lie to the authorities.

Protecting Yourself
As a business owner, you are responsible for the data people have entrusted with your. By knowing what to do to protect your own data, you’ll know how to approach securing the clients, employees, and vendors personal data you hold on file. Make sure to have a strong firewall on your network to keep unwanted intruders out, and antivirus and spam blocking solutions to eliminate threats when they do get past your defenses. Also, consider learning today’s best practices to ensure you are always in the right position to keep your identity secure. Here is a resource from the University of Pittsburgh to help you.

For more information about identity theft and network security, visit our blog regularly.

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VoIP Delivers Benefits That a Traditional Phone System Can’t

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Communication is a critical part of your business’ operations, but how can you ensure that you’re not holding your business back by failing to consider modern solutions to age-old problems? While your telephone system likely gets the job done, you shouldn’t let complacency keep you from striving for improvement. For telephony solutions, you can consider leaving behind your service provider and investing in a digital solution called Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP.

Traditional telephone solutions rely on telephone lines being installed throughout your office. If you are privy to the finer details of this particular process, you know that it can take quite a while to fine-tune your infrastructure to best suit your organization’s needs. Depending on the number of users, each handset needs to be hooked up to your organization’s phone infrastructure. This makes adding new users quite a pain, as you may need to move your office around in order to accommodate such growth. Furthermore, you may find that you don’t use all of the services provided by your telephone service provider. Many providers bundle together services, like television or Internet, without giving users the option to section off exactly what type of service they want. This means that you’re ultimately paying for services that you don’t want or need, which is a considerable waste of resources on your part.

Thankfully, VoIP improves the communications conversation. VoIP allows your organization to take advantage of more flexible telephony solutions by using your Internet connection to transmit and receive calls. It works in much the same way as your traditional phone solution, but with less reliance on your physical infrastructure itself. While you can acquire physical handsets for your employees’ desks, the main draw of VoIP comes from the fact that you can use the application in any way you see fit, whether it’s on your smartphone or your desktop.

Imagine being able to take your workplace phone number on the go so that you won’t miss a thing; or being able to dodge extra costs for long-distance calls. Imagine ditching the expensive services that you’re forced to pay for, like cable television, when all you use is your Internet and phone. By implementing VoIP, you’re eliminating unnecessary expenses that would otherwise place restrictions on your ability to effectively communicate and afford the comprehensive solution your business inevitably needs. With COMPANYNAMEs VoIP solution it’s easy to add user accounts, and since you’re using your Internet connection instead of telephone wires, you’re saving quite a lot of money that could be better utilized if spent elsewhere.

Of course, you still have to be wary of your bandwidth, as you’ll be putting additional strain on your business’ Internet connection in order to use VoIP, but this is only a minor hurdle that a managed IT provider like COMPANYNAME can help you work through. To learn more about VoIP, call us today at PHONENUMBER.

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Tip of the Week: Would Remote Workers Benefit Your Business?

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If you allow your workforce to work remotely, your business can flourish under the right conditions. You still need to think about the risks associated with it, though. If you’re not careful about your remote work strategy, it could blow up in your face. Here are some of the ways you can minimize the risk of remote workers.

The Benefits of Remote Work
Have you ever stopped to consider that a lot of your budget is spent paying for rent and other utilities, like heat, power, and air conditioning? These are some of the major costs associated with operations. You need to pay for these services in order to actually make a profit for your organization. However, if you downsize your office space and eliminate unnecessary expenses, you can take advantage of new opportunities. You also provide your employees with more flexibility so that they can work how they want. Thanks to this flexibility, you can provide your workers with benefits that they may not be able to find elsewhere. That’s not even mentioning that you can hire anyone from anywhere, eliminating geographical barriers for good for any new hires.

A good example to consider is how a remote working plan could help parents with young children. They need to work, but it’s also important for them to spend time with their new family. A flexible schedule is the ideal way for a parent to keep their work schedule while taking care of their kids, allowing them to be there when it’s needed. The freedom and flexibility associated with remote working can help you retain employees, as it costs more to hire new employees than keep current ones.

The Downsides
The freedom and flexibility that comes from remote working can also be a major issue. What if the worker decides to just throw away the workday on chores or television instead of doing their work? These types of distractions don’t exist in the office environment, but they might prove to be too irresistible to the remote worker. Plus, remote employees have been known to suffer from reduced communication and interaction skills with their coworkers, which can limit productivity and morale.

Correcting the Downsides
To keep remote workers from holding your business back, you should focus on hiring only remote workers that have strong communication skills and use them to foster a sense of connection during the on-the-job training stage. You should periodically check in with your remote workers to ensure that they are working properly and to remind them that they are an important part of your workplace. Make sure that they feel valued and develop camaraderie. However, there is a fine line that you don’t want to cross here, as a misstep could lead to micromanagement.

Having the technology to ensure your workers can collaborate is a crucial step toward making sure your business is ready for this development. Technology can reduce the gap between your in-house and remote workers to create a great workplace for your entire staff. To learn more about remote workers and managing them effectively, reach out to COMPANYNAME at PHONENUMBER.

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Which Approach Puts Your IT in a Better Position?

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Technology management is one of the major issues that challenge small businesses. Do you know the various strengths and weaknesses of having an in-house IT department versus an outsourced IT provider? As a managed service provider ourselves, we’re in a unique position to help your business make an educated decision about the future of its IT management.

In-House IT Management
If your business is fortunate enough to have its own in-house IT department, you know what it to get the right people for the job you need to painstakingly assess all applicants. Since, your business’s in-house team will always be at your disposal, your technicians have to be chosen with the applicable know-how to mitigate the technology troubles your organization will most frequently come across.

On the other hand, small and medium-sized businesses are known to have some troubles, even when working with an in-house IT department. Training new team members can be tricky, time consuming, and expensive, especially if your business has complex technologies that need to have dedicated management. Once these technicians are trained to cover the bases your business technology demands, they will only get more expensive; so seeing a substantial return your investment may not be possible.

Managed/Outsourced IT
Outsourced IT provides one of the most sought after assets for a business: predictable technology costs. When you hire a managed service provider, your business will always be using maintained and monitored technology, where issues are solved remotely for a flat monthly fee. An MSP generally stays updated on the latest findings and technologies in the industry, making them more well-rounded technicians than those that are simply concerned with the workings of your business’ current technology. It’s actually much more affordable as well, as you’re only adding one payment to your budget compared to the multiple salaries that would be assaulting payroll for an internal IT department.

The only issue that you’ll encounter with a managed service provider is letting go of the reigns a bit and trusting someone else with control over your business’s IT. Therefore, trust is something that is absolutely crucial if you choose to outsource your IT management.

COMPANYNAME wants your business to benefit from outsourced IT solutions. To find out what we can do for you, reach out to us at PHONENUMBER.

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5 Security Analogies to Help You Better Understand Hacking

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How often do you read a blog article about network security only to be blown away by all of the overly complicated and confusing jargon of the industry? We know that it’s not necessarily your specialty, but it’s still important that you understand how network security works for your organization. While the complicated details should be left to IT professionals, we can help you better understand the general idea of security by comparing it to a locked door.

Brute Force Attacks
Let’s say that a robber wants to break into your home. He will try to go through a door, but he might not have the keys required to get in. In this case, he will have to use everything at his disposal to get in. He might try to kick the door down or smash a window. In other words, he’s getting into your house by brute force.

Brute force in computing can consist of a hacker trying to use as many passwords as possible in a short period of time to get in. There are programs that can randomly generate countless passwords in seconds, making this method of attack quite devastating when it’s effective.

Social Engineering
Let’s say that you have a new neighbor on your street. They ask you over for dinner and you get to know them. You feel like you are getting along with them quite well–well enough to trust them to water your plants while you’re out of the state on vacation for a few weeks. You give them a key, but when you come home, all of the plants are dead and you’re missing some furniture or technology. Yup, they’ve robbed you–you’re sure of it.

Social engineering takes a calculated approach to hacking and data theft. Hackers will make personalized attempts to steal your passwords and information by taking on the identity of someone you think you can trust with this information, like an “old friend” or “your elderly grandmother.”

Security Exploits
Robbers may try to find weak points in your front door. Maybe the door doesn’t quite lock all the way due to a defect in the manufacturing process. In this case, the robber may research what the weak points of the door are so that they can know the best and most efficient way of getting past your defenses.

Security exploits are weaknesses in software on your computer that allow hackers to sneak into your system and get into all sorts of trouble. These can range from weaknesses in the way that sensitive information is handled, to particular lines of code that create problems for your organization. Ultimately, it only takes a single crack in your defenses–a security exploit–to allow a hacker into your infrastructure.

Trojan Horse
Someone might knock on your door and tell you that something within your household is in need of repair. Maybe they know that you have a leaky faucet that needs to be addressed, or they know that you have some concerns about your furnace. They are then invited into your home and go about their business. You may then notice that you’re missing important items afterward, hinting that the off-the-street good Samaritan was, in reality, a scammer.

Trojans work like this in many ways. Just like the Greek horse of old, a Trojan sneaks onto your system and plants a backdoor, allowing for secret re-entry at a later date. Often times, a Trojan will use a larger data breach to mask its presence, and then continue to steal information in small doses as time goes on.

Two-Factor Authentication
Two locks are better than one in most circumstances. For example, you can have one lock on the doorknob and another on the deadbolt, which keeps the door fastened in place even if the door is forced open near the doorknob. Basically, having two types of locks makes it twice as hard to get to anything of value.

Two-factor authentication can be used to provide this secondary credential to your digital assets, including online accounts or network logins. A secondary code can be sent to an email address or mobile device, which allows your employees to access important information only when both of these are present.

Does your organization need help with network security? COMPANYNAME can help. To learn more, reach out to us at PHONENUMBER.