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Tech Tips for Small Business Owners in 2022

January 4, 2022 by Paul Schwegler

A new year is a chance for a fresh beginning. To that end, try these tech tips for small business owners to kick 2022 off right.

First, launch a successful new year for your business by going mobile. Agility is one of the key differentiators of a small business. Be more flexible than larger competitors by taking full advantage of cloud computing. Use Microsoft 365 (MS365) as an all-in-one solution for communication, collaboration, and more. When you’re cloud-based, you and your employees can operate from any location with ease.

You’ll also want to focus on security. Don’t think that you’re safe because of your small size. Every business is a target. An automated bot isn’t going to differentiate between a company with six employees and those with 60 or 600. It is simply going to find that vulnerability and attack. Don’t risk losing time and money to a data breach or ransomware. Instead:

  • Secure your email.
  • Put a disaster recovery plan in place.
  • Backup data in more than one place.
  • Educate employees about the importance of unique passwords.
  • Prohibit third-party apps on work devices.
  • Set devices to notify remote workers when they may be connecting to unsafe networks.

Also, make sure you’re leaving room in the 2022 budget to invest in IT. This is one area where you don’t want to be cutting corners. Unreliable internet service could cause downtime that hurts productivity and loses you clients. Skimping on software or hardware upgrades could lead you vulnerable to safety issues.

New Year, New Your Business

Another smart move? Get a professional email address. Using you@gmail.com or you@yourISP.com doesn’t make a great professional first impression. Instead, have a you@yourbusinessname.com email address. We can set up reliable business-grade emails from MS365.

Do an information and communications technology audit as well. Take stock of your current technology and how it is performing. This check-up can help you identify opportunities to streamline processes. You might consider adding a customer relationship management tool. This will centralize your customer information and help you personalize pitches. An enterprise resource planning system could improve accounting, human resources, and operations workflows.

Now is also a good time to hire a managed service provider. Partnering with an IT professional helps you make good technology decisions. You may have a lot of people with opinions, but you want to get input from industry experts who understand technology, security, and optimizing IT resources.

Contact us today at (515)422-1995 to learn more about what we can do to help your business meet its goals in 2022 and beyond.

Filed Under: Business, Security, Tips Tagged With: business, professional, security, tips

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Why You Need Professional Virus Removal

September 29, 2020 by Paul Schwegler

“Your computer has a virus.” Such a dreaded five words! We don’t want to come down with a human virus; we’ll feel awful and miss work. But when a virus hits our computer, we could lose valuable information or be vulnerable to attack. Chicken soup won’t cut it.

Perhaps you have an antivirus product installed on your computer. This computer software is intended to prevent, detect, and remove viruses. Antivirus tools are designed to keep infections out. They can also delete any viruses that may already be on the computer when the software is installed.

The software provides protection by tracking malicious code and other computer threats via:

  • classifying the actions the file or code drives (as malicious or OK);
  • inspecting file signatures for matches to an existing signature in its virus dictionary;
  • scanning for rootkits that can change how your operating system functions.

However, antivirus software isn’t that good at cleaning up. When it detects a malicious file, it will delete it. But what if the virus spread before discovery? If the infection spreads before virus deletion, it can do all sorts of damage.

Think of it this way: you have a cyst on your knee. Doctors decide it is pre-cancerous and operate to remove the cyst before it spreads. But, that’s all they do. They have seen the cyst. They go for the cyst. However, they don’t notice the cancer that’s in your shin or femur, because they were only working on the cyst. The rest of your leg remains unhealthy, and you don’t even know it!

Getting a Second Opinion on Viruses

If the antivirus software is your primary physician, a computer professional is the specialist you go to for an expert second opinion. For one thing, antivirus products don’t always remove all the malicious files. Many viruses start as one thing but can mutate into several different strains. The antivirus software may not be programmed to identify all of the virus variants. A professional actively looks for undetected strains on your computer.

Viruses are always evolving. A recent strain of malware, SquirtDanger, let hackers take computer screenshots, capture passwords, download files, and empty out cryptocurrency wallets.

Some viruses can change the settings of your computer. For instance, a common virus changes your computer’s DNS, which is like a bit like the Yellow Pages for the internet. On a virus-free computer, when you type in “Google.com”, your browser goes to Google’s servers located at the IP address “216.58.203.100.” However, an infection can make Google.com on your computer go to a different address. Perhaps a server address cybercriminals use to capture your personal data. It still looks to you like Google, but it’s no longer safe. These settings can still remain after the infection is long gone.

Viruses can also leave behind browser toolbars, extensions, and other nasties designed to spy on your Web browsing habits. If you’re consistently redirected to unwanted sites, or seeing unwanted pop-up advertisements, it’s likely your computer’s infected with a browser hijacker.

Ultimately, if you detect a virus on your computer, check with a professional. Don’t trust that your antivirus software is going to do the same, thorough job an expert can offer. Sometimes your computer isn’t fully safe until the operating system is reinstalled, but you can’t know that until someone can go in and see what the virus did and what remnants are still there, lurking.

Cybercriminals are growing more sophisticated and better able to design viruses that disguise their tracks. Avoid being an unwitting victim. A computer security expert can diagnosis when your computer gets a virus, or determine if there are strains on your device you don’t know about. Let a security expert protect your computer from harm today! Call us at (515)422-1995.

Filed Under: Residential, Security, Tips, Uncategorized Tagged With: professional, residential, Virus

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