It services and technologies blog

Is your business utilizing Microsoft Office 365 to its fullest potential? While you may be dipping into the tried-and-true platform for emails and other standard functions, you may be overlooking security features essential to protecting your company’s and customers’ sensitive data. 

Below are 7 key features of Office 365 that your business should be utilizing. 

Bill Gates meets Arnold Schwarzenegger at a party and asks him if he’s upgraded to Windows 11. The Terminator responds: Ah, still love Vista, baby! 

While Windows 11 is Microsoft’s latest operating system — having been released in October 2021 — we want to begin by expressing that our team still loves Windows 10 (although we do hope you’ve terminated Vista). Here’s what you need to know about Windows 11 and how we can help you eventually make the switch. 

Are any elements in your business’s IT infrastructure due for an upgrade in the near future? Here’s the bad news: as 2022 approaches, there are several potential supply chain issues — some more predictable than others — that could prevent you from receiving your technology shipments in a timely manner.  

Frigid air. Blizzards. Sleet and ice.

It’s hard to predict the weather, so it’s important to prepare for the worst. Severe fall and winter storms can wreak havoc on your IT systems, causing damaged systems, lost data and other catastrophes.

The best way to deal with inclement weather? Mitigate risk ahead of time, so your business isn’t forced to spend precious resources restoring crucial information after the fact.

Your IT is the lifeblood of your business, and you don’t want to entrust it to just anyone. Your IT systems require regular checkups, maintenance, improvements, and a fast response to any issues that arise. In many ways supporting your IT systems is like taking care of your health. 

Most businesses rely on a relatively small IT team, or a lone “IT Guy” to keep their systems up and running. Typically, these employees know the ins and outs of every piece of the network and handle all your technology needs.  With IT being the lifeblood of your business as well as a role that takes specialized education and experience, it can be frightening to think about what would happen if you suddenly lost your IT guy.

As we see major companies falling to ransomware attacks, like the recent Colonial Pipeline attack that caused a gas shortage, cybercriminals are gaining confidence. Ransomware attacks are becoming the norm and you need to protect your business now.

As busy people, it can be hard to prioritize tasks that aren't immediate. Everyone has those things they have been meaning to do for months, but more emergent items keep taking precedence. All too often, we see that your IT strategic planning & maintenance is one of those items that live at the bottom of to‐ do lists.

Technology is at the foundation of the business world. Regardless of what your business does, you are leveraging technology to run it. Without the ability to translate your business’s needs into technology solutions, you will have a hard time obtaining success.

Whether you are a large established business or a bustling start-up, your technology is central to the success of your business. As technology becomes more advanced, we are becoming more reliant on it. Your investment in your IT directly correlates to your business' success. 

Deciding on a proactive approach to your business's IT should be a no-brainer. Your technology is one of your most powerful and relied upon tools- its maintenance shouldn't be an afterthought.

As business leaders, we constantly struggle with difficult decisions. When it comes to IT, the big question is whether you should invest time and money on improving systems before problems arise or rely on quick and expensive fixes when issues occur.  

In this episode of our IT budget breakdown, we are focusing in on how to budget for your IT support costs and how to avoid getting caught in an expensive game of ticket tennis. Having a help desk type service is great but relying on help desk support instead of doing preventative IT maintenance is like choosing to prioritize a fire department over forest management. You put yourself in a situation where you need all hands on deck and emergent action to find a solution, instead of taking steps to avoid the problem all together.

We are all ingraining ourselves into an Internet of Things (IoT) world that, for the most part, benefits everyone – improving efficiency and keeping us connected to the devices and people that are important to us.

With the advancement of technology, almost every aspect of our lives generates data and sends us information over the internet.

All businesses worry about data security, and those that must meet compliance requirements even more so. It can be overwhelming to read through the articles and ads, warning that a single data breach could both financially cripple your business and ruin your reputation. With a significant rise in the frequency and sophistication of cyberattacks, now is a better time than ever to get secure. 

As technology has advanced, the role IT can play in your business has significantly increased. Correctly utilizing technology solutions can enable you to rapidly grow your business. 

All effective organizations know that achieving a positive Return On Investment (ROI) is good for business, but what about Return On Technology (ROT)?

We all know that the right tools can make a big difference. They can increase our efficiency, help us collaborate, and organize everything that’s going on. With the help of these tools, we’re better able to do our jobs.

One of the tools that help businesses get things done better in a virtual environment is Microsoft 365. In fact, more than 84% of small to medium sized businesses have an active M365 subscription.

In this episode of our IT budget breakdown, we are focusing in on how and when you should budget for improvements to your IT infrastructure.

As a quick recap, in episode one, we discussed breaking your IT budget into four main categories: infrastructure, support, security, and strategy. You should be working to align your spending in each category with what is needed to achieve your business’ goals and keep your IT systems well maintained. You can read episode one here.

Technology simplifies our lives, and can have a profound impact on reducing workloads, simplifying tasks, and boosting productivity, and thus profitability. The tricky part is knowing what types of technology will work for your business, where to focus your budgeted spend, how to determine effectiveness, and how to keep it from becoming a liability. This knowledge is not easily obtained, and it isn't easy to know where to begin. We want to show you the starting point and equip you with the knowledge necessary to assemble a strategic IT plan and budget for 2021.

Values are the character of any individual or organization. They define what is important and how they will comport themselves in your relationship. Whether you are a customer, vendor, partner, or employee, your values act as a guiding force for the choices you make and what is prioritized within those choices.

As we begin to realize that our home office spaces might become more permanent and possibly shared with our children’s school space, we thought it would be helpful to pull together some tips for optimizing your home to be productive for both your work and your kid’s schooling.

Now that Summer 2020 has come and gone, we find ourselves still unsure of when or if we will return to offices or if our kids will return to school. With this significant change to how our day to day is conducted, there is no doubt that our well-being is questionable as we navigate new challenges every day. 

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With the sophistication of technology and the shift away from traditional office setups, industries that handle sensitive customer data need to be proactive in keeping that information secure. If your organization is already using Office 365, we want to share with you four security features you can utilize to secure both your company’s and your customer’s data. 

It's time to talk about the question that is on every business owner's mind- "What would it take to make my company fully remote?"

Though having a remote workforce isn't unheard of, it is becoming more popularized as many employers have been transitioning to this model due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this post, we want to tell you how you can cut ties with your physical office space by migrating your organization's data and files to the cloud. We will cover what the cloud is, and the five steps to ensure a seamless cloud migration.

Business owners are often overwhelmed by the vast amount of IT solutions and tools. Investing in upgrading your IT solutions and changing your systems is daunting, so many business owners stick with what they know and add in new components only when necessary. This reactionary mindset may be costing their company more in the long run.

Technology is complicated and expensive—and becomes more so with every passing year. That unfortunate reality can be intimidating to a lot of companies; they don’t fully utilize the tools at their disposal, or pay for redundant services, or are simply too hesitant to upgrade their existing solution. This costs them a lot of time, money, and peace of mind. We want to change that. Welcome to part three of Attentus’ ongoing cost reduction series, where we’re highlighting ways to save money on your IT solution. This time we’re going to be discussing virtualization: what it is, and how it can benefit you.

Over the past 20 years we’ve watched technology become more powerful and complex. As a result, we’ve seen companies take varying measures to manage their technology needs—and making expensive mistakes along the way. In an effort to stay safe, productive, and efficient, these companies are unintentionally hurting themselves.

As the IT space (and business in general) has modernized over the past 20 years, we’ve seen people make a variety of decisions that are understandable, but unnecessary and expensive. Nobody wants to be held responsible for having unsupported, non-redundant systems—so a lot of companies wind up with a pile of unnecessary tools, redundant services, and other avoidable expenses.

The Seattle times reports that Washington state has lost “Hundreds of Millions of dollars” to unemployment fraud amid the surge in claims due to coronavirus. Attentus alone has caught several claims processed for employees who are currently working full time and did not file anything themselves. This is identity theft, plain and simple, and you need to be aware of how malicious actors are using your information. Here are some simple ways to determine if you are a victim of this identity theft in Washington State.

We’ve spent a lot of time talking about the realities and dangers around phishing attacks and social engineering scams. By now you should know that these attacks are heinous attempts by criminals to trick you out of personal information,

When it comes to cybersecurity, employee training is a step that many employers neglect or undervalue. Too many companies think that installing a suite of antivirus and anti-malware software is enough to protect them from malicious attackers, but in the world of phishing scams and social engineering attacks that just isn’t enough. An untrained team of employees can be the largest security loophole in your business if you don’t keep them trained.

                                                                    “If you can’t hire a team internally, you should outsource one.”

Today we are living during an unprecedented time. Our world has become a place where people cannot congregate towards any common goal. People are getting too sick to work and are being forced into quarantine if they, or someone they have been in contact with, are or have been sick with Covid-19.

Social engineering is a term that’s become more well-used in recent years, and its one everyone with a computer should be familiar with as remote work becomes the norm.

At the time of this writing, the coronavirus outbreak has struck fear into the hearts of people worldwide. People are scared to go into crowded public places, or go outside at all—this obviously has had a disastrous impact on business of all kinds.

Anyone can be a victim of phishing—from you at your personal computer, to the largest corporations and organizations in the world. Knowing that 90% of successful hacks or data breaches are due to phishing scams proves that they can reach any user, regardless of their position in their company or their expertise in their field.

We’ve all heard talk of phishing scams and social engineering attacks—devious new ways for hackers to get access to our personal information. But what are they exactly? What is a phishing scam?

We’ve all heard the term before, “phishing”, and most of us know that it generally means some kind of online scam. But how many of us know what a phishing scam actually entails? 

 As an organization or company, you likely outsource your IT security to a group or team of professionals that help you plan out and manage your IT needs. This can be everything from disaster recovery to malware and hacking prevention. When you outsource security, you’re hiring somebody to coach you through the policies you need to put in place and the technology you need to implement for those policies.

      You may have heard the buzz about Windows 7 reaching its End of Life date, and the risks associated with the continued use of an obsolete operating system (OS). Essentially, if you or your business is relying on an OS that has reached its End of Life (EoL) date, then you are relying on software that is no longer receiving support. No more security updates or exploit patches are released for that software. That means that every new exploit or hack found for that OS is a permanent risk to you and your business. Not exactly something we want to deal with, right?

If you think large companies and government organizations are too secure for cybersecurity attacks or that your small business is safe, think again.

Although uncommon, there have been some recent malware attacks that successfully infiltrated the systems of high-profile organizations.

Keep reading to learn more about these and to understand what this means for your business.

Did you know that cyber-crime cost businesses over $3 trillion in 2016? This may seem like a huge sum, however, the bad news is that experts expect this to double to $6 trillion in the next three years.

If you are a small-to-medium-size business you may be wondering what you can do to defend yourself and your business against such threats.

The good news is that there are experts here to help. Check out our list of 5 basic security improvements that all companies should make. 

The Server Message Block, or SMB, has been the cornerstone of workplace operations for years now. With radical shifts in technology and the way we do business, things are going through changes and fast.

The SMB needs of today need to incorporate this technology. But throwing in new technology without a plan for connection and security is suicide. 

Understanding what pieces need protection, which ones need focus, and how to tie it all together will be what makes or breaks a company. 

Microsoft has announced that January 14^th, 2020, is the official End of Life date for Windows 7. On that day, the company will stop supporting Windows 7 on laptops and desktops, and will no longer patch it with security updates.

If you are among the 400 million users still using Windows 7, this news should concern you. The technology will continue to function after the expiration date, but using it will put you at great risk for cybercrime if you continue to use expired Microsoft products.

IT professionals have been talking about the importance of upgrading to Windows 10 to avoid this malicious activity, but that can be a confusing process.

Technology is inescapable. It’s integrated throughout every facet of our life. From how we work and live our lives, technology will grow for as long as humans continue to advance in their capabilities.

But for many small businesses just starting up, IT operations are probably low on the list of priorities.

As a small business, you might have outsourced IT support. Maybe hired a small IT company, or even a single “IT Guy” to manage your security and maintain your networks - but didn’t worry about investing in an end-to-end cybersecurity solution as much as finding the perfect office space - or the right employees.

Did you know that 60% of small businesses have had to deal with a ransomware attack, in which entire networks are encrypted and these businesses are having to pay big money to try and get their data back.

Massive amounts of money are being spent on cybercrime activity like ransomware attacks every year.

The thing is, it's relatively easy to protect your business from a Ransomware attack with the right plan in place - but it’s important that small businesses don't think that they're too small to be a victim.