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Planning to Plan: IT Assessments

Summer is winding down, which means your planning and budgeting process for 2024 will kick off soon. When it comes to your information technology, knowing where you are today is just as important as knowing where you want to go tomorrow. That means you need an...

Making the Most of Transitions

Judging by the number of news articles generated over the past few months, you could be forgiven if you thought AI and ChatGPT were the only technologies that mattered for businesses in 2023. Compared to the enthusiasm and speculation around AI, cloud computing seems...

One Hat Too Many

As a business leader, you’ve built your success by wearing many hats: management, sales, human resources, etc. This do-it-all attitude is likely a key element of your success, especially in the early days when money was tight. As your business has grown, you’ve been...

Dangerous “trial balloons”

Back in February, it was hard to miss news stories about the mysterious balloon floating across North America. While the public still doesn’t have definitive answers, it did raise a lot of questions. Who launched it? For what purpose? Was it detected soon enough? Once...

7 Sound Reasons You Need Managed IT Services

As much as companies want to keep business processes in-house, if you want to reach the summit of your industry, you’re going to need some help. Think of your organization as a solo climber summiting Mount Everest. Are you really going it alone? The simple answer is...

Is Ransomware Becoming Uninsurable in 2023?

2022 was the year that changes in the cybersecurity insurance market started to pop up on business leaders’ radars. Unfortunately, it was usually in the form of a significant increase in the cost to renew a cybersecurity insurance policy or an increase in minimum...

Start 2023 Right!

Welcome to 2023! Whether it’s in our personal lives with New Year resolutions, or in our professional lives with new budgets and annual plans, January is a time of change. We may have been planning this change for several months, but the turning of the calendar flips...

Reflecting on 2022

With Thanksgiving behind us and New Years ahead of us, it is only natural to look back on the year. While our inner nerds could geek out for hours about the modern technologies introduced in 2022, there is one thing that Clare Computer Solutions is even more...

Planning for Success in 2023

November has arrived. For most people, this is marked by the air being a little crisper, the days a lot shorter, and pumpkin spice everywhere. For businesses, it also means planning and budgeting for the upcoming year. The strategic decisions made now will have a...

Don’t Click and Be Tricked

Do you remember the SolarWinds cyberattack back in March 2020? There was a lot going on in the world back then, so you’ll be forgiven if this one slipped under your radar. SolarWinds software is used by over 30,000 public and private organizations, including several...

Even Auditors Get Audited

Every month we write a new blog post that discusses the security threats your business faces and recommends the steps you can take to protect your business against these threats. In addition to these threats to data security and business continuity, we’ve also talked...

Why Wi-Fi 6E?

With all the other changes you’ve had to deal with over the past few years, you could be forgiven for not being aware of the changes happening with wireless networking. Most people don’t really think about their wireless network until it’s not working. If yours has...

Evolution of IT Services Management

If you’ve been reading our blog posts for a while, you’ll have noticed that we like to talk about concepts such as using IT to transform your business or evolving your business via new technology. Stagnation is not a good business strategy, and we’ve seen firsthand...

Do You Know Your Cybersecurity Framework?

Imagine you are going to build your dream house. You have an architect who will design the house to merge your wishes with building requirements. The general contractor will orchestrate and manage the various craftsmen that will implement the design and ensure...

Controlling Costs and Security Threats at the Same Time

Sadly, rising costs are a universal story in 2022. We see the signs of inflation everywhere. As a business, you must decide how much of the cost increases you absorb and how much you pass on to your customers. While many of the cost increases are unavoidable in this...

New Year, New Challenges

January is named for Janus, the ancient Roman god with one face looking backward and the other face looking forward. For the ancient Romans, Janus was linked with gates and doors. There were ceremonial doors dedicated to Janus that were opened when the army left to...

Preparing to Recover from Disaster 

Imagine this scenario: one holiday weekend you receive a phone call informing you that your office building is on fire. You arrive to see several fire trucks spraying water onto the roof of the building. Their quick action prevents the building from being completely...

Hundreds of CA Companies Report Data Breaches in 2021

Current California law requires businesses that have experienced a data breach to notify any CA resident whose personal information may have been stolen. After experiencing a data breach, organizations must send a formal breach notice to affected parties. If more than...

Making Cybersecurity Less Spooky

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month. Now in its 18th year, it is a collaborative effort between government and industry to educate and encourage individuals and organizations on their role in protecting themselves against cyber threats. Reflecting the need for...

Building a Security Culture

Have you ever been in a manufacturing setting? In those settings, employees are surrounded by dangers: chemicals, machines, and loud noise are just a few. Governments have established safety laws to help protect employees, and companies are required to adopt those...

Those Who Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail

Most businesses know that success requires planning. Whether it’s a 5-year growth strategy or the next product launch, success isn’t random. Disaster, on the other hand, is often quite random. We’ve talked about security threats such as ransomware. The news reports...

Ransomware Has Gone Mainstream in 2021

What was once an arcane security threat that only IT professionals worried about is now a lead story in the news. With the recent attack on Colonial Pipeline, regular citizens are learning about the dangers of ransomware, and those living on the East Coast were...

Nobody Gets Fired For Investing in Security

In the early days of business computing, the industry catchphrase was “Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.” During a time of rapid innovation and before there were industry standards to ensure interoperability, even if IBM didn’t have the best technological...

Necessity is the Mother of Innovation

This phrase first appeared in English in the 1600s, and versions exist in French, Italian, German, and many other languages – so the concept is not new. In fact, the ancient Greeks had a similar saying. Innovation is part of human nature: when we see a problem, we...

Laboratory or Museum?

Laboratories are dynamic. New instruments are added regularly to enable new tests. Space is reconfigured to adapt to new ways of doing things. Once something is no longer useful, it is removed and replaced with something better. Museums are static. Their purpose is to...

How Could You Let This Happen?

Those are words we never want to hear, no matter what the situation. Something undesirable has happened, we were expected to have prevented it, but it happened. By the time the question is being asked, there isn't much to do except damage control. When it comes to...

Make vs. Buy

If you've taken a class or read a book on business strategy, you've likely come across the "outsourcing decision." In this decision, a business compares the costs and benefits of producing a part or service internally versus the costs and benefits of paying someone...

Halt 70% of Known Network Cyberattacks and Phishing Campaigns

As the shelter-in-place (SIP) rages on within California, the Bay Area and its workers are forced to continue working remotely. At times, it feels like our world has drastically changed. Despite how mixed up everything may seem, it appears to be business as usual for...

3 Major Reasons Your Business Should Move to Office 2019

Microsoft Office 2010 support is now reaching the final leg of its lifecycle. Extended support for Office 2010 will end on October 13th, 2020 and that means no more tech support, bug fixes, or security patches coming from Microsoft. Accompanying applications Microsoft...

Seamless Cybersecurity & Two Emerging Threats

For most businesses, the pandemic has been a rush of implementing new policies and procedures while, at the same time, trying to keep end-user Cybersecurity fortifications intact. Organizations that acted early following the shelter-in-place safety procedures are...

Four Risks to Consider with VPN Deployments

With the sudden and rushed deployment of Virtual Private Network (VPN) services to further support new remote workers, many companies are discovering firsthand the struggles of implementing a VPN into their network. Without the needed experience, the configuration can...

Can You Spot a Scam When You See One?

Can You Spot a Scam When You See One? - Learn How to Recognize Suspicious Texts and Emails! As we are all getting used to the new normal, people continuing to work from home or staff returning to work, there continues to be a lot of change and unrest. Users are...

6 Important OS Hardening Steps to Protect Your Data and End Users

Are your systems protected? Is your IT Team overwhelmed or is your current IT Partner leaving your business vulnerable? According to the Duo Trusted Access Report, only 53% of Mac OS users are running either the fully patched, latest version of OS X or the previous...

Returning to the Office: A Checklist for Your Businesses

As many counties ease lockdown restrictions, businesses around the Bay Area will slowly begin to reopen their doors. As some look forward to getting back into the office, others will continue to feel wary. One thing is for certain: the workplace is going to look very...

Generating Your Security Mindset During These Times

Here we are months later, still dealing with the changes this pandemic has created. Most changes haven't been fun, but it's made for very interesting times. Many businesses are focused on figuring out how to maintain staff, motivate existing staff remotely, and keep...

Insider Threats, What’s the True Cost to Your Organization

Insider threats cost companies millions. According to the Ponemon Institute's recently released study 2020 Cost of Internal Threats, in the last two years, we have seen a 31% increase in threats emerging from inside an organization. Costs range from $756K to $871K per...

Average Ransomware Payment Rises Again

COVID-19 continues to create opportunities for the bad actors to wreak havoc. In this week's blog, we discuss the latest security concerns created by the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically around Ransomware. This quarter saw a 33% increase in ransom from Q1 2020, with an...

Practical Tips for Video Meetings

As coronavirus (COVID-19) forces more employees to work from home, businesses are adapting to a new remote-work business model as quickly and effectively as possible. Although technology has made this process easier, our professional identity is temporarily confined...

[EXPOSED:] Coronavirus Elicits Phishing Attacks

Growing interest in up-to-date news on the COVID-19 (Corona Virus) is making many vulnerable to online cyber-attacks. Hackers are exploiting the public's need to feel safe and in control through phishing attacks. Did you know Cybercriminals have ramped up phishing...

Adapting to a Remote Workforce

At Clare Computer Solutions, we are helping many firms change the way they work as a result of COVID-19, and we are here to support you. Building a remote workforce quickly and securely? We can help you. Turn in-person meetings and conferences into virtual events? We...

We Are Here, Open for Business and Ready to Support You

We at Clare Computer Solutions, first and foremost, hope that wherever you are that you are staying healthy and safe during this unprecedented and challenging time. These are difficult and admittedly uncertain times for all of us. Clare Computer Solutions continues to...

How to Protect Your Business From the Dark Web

With flu season wrapping up, and the coronavirus a real threat to many businesses here in the SF Bay Area, remote work could quickly become the norm. Regardless of policy, this opens many businesses up for credential stealing hackers to strike. With many workers out...

Reasons Why You Should Have Already Migrated to Office 365

Enterprise IT has remained much the same, although with incredible innovation and invention to improve on what has been made readily available to smaller organizations. Sadly, lots continue using outdated technology, underpinning the platforms and solutions that have...

Stop Dreading the Update: Windows 7 Extended Support Update Relief

On January 14th, 2020, Windows 7 will be reaching its end of supportable life. This means any business using Windows 7 on employee PCs or Windows Server 2008 will no longer receive the security and bug patching needed when computing in today's connected age. Rejoice...

A Look Back in Time: The Cloud in Review

For years you've heard how the cloud is coming to save you and how the landscape is demanding hybrid & private clouds more than ever. It's time we take another look at cloud computing for businesses, and where the landscape is in comparison to when I originally...

3 New Year’s Resolutions for Technology Minded Business

There is something special about flipping the calendar over to the peak of a new year. For many, this means New Year's resolutions. For businesses, it means a fresh opportunity, a chance to complete the things you missed last year. Like many, we've found businesses...

Lessons in Network Lock-down: Focusing on Business Backups First

When you're considering the prevention of modern attacks, it's become pretty obvious that all businesses need a strong lineup of cyber-defense tools, not just a bare-bones firewall and old-fashion anti-virus. You need to protect the business first, and to do this, you...

10 Scary Tech Support Lessons Sure to Spook This Year

We take pride in continuing to educate our clients on the trials and tribulations seen in business technology today. The following images aren't from our clients, but they are real-world examples of the tech support challenges many businesses face today, some...

Cybersecurity: 99% of Email Attacks Rely on Victims Clicking Links

While a tiny fraction of attacks relies on exploit kits and known software vulnerabilities to compromise systems, the vast majority of campaigns, 99%, require some level of human input to execute. These interactions can also enable macros so malicious code can be run....

4 Proactive Steps to Prepare Networks for Ultimate Agility

Growing in rapid popularity, networking professionals identified improving network agility as a top business goal for the year. Considered the future of networking and business computing, "Network Agility" itself has become a popular buzzword. With everyone talking...

The 12 Tricks to Succeeding in Managing Office 365

Although it's never recommended, some local businesses have taken their chances at managing and manipulating Office 365 configurations. With so much knowledge needed before making any moves, most of the time we only hear the horror stories from how things went from...

Back 2 Basics: Prevent Data Breaches with Stronger Authentication

Identity security is one of the most significant challenges that IT organizations face. An identity compromise can ruin an organization, and it is the number one attack vector for hackers. Your traditional, not-so-secure way to log in, consists of entering your...

4 Checkpoints to Make Your Disaster Recovery Plans Bulletproof

If you store larger volumes of files or customer data, your business is always at risk of a data breach or ransomware attack. If you can save your business from being encrypted, the second hurdle comes with meeting the compliance for your industry, as well as the...

Domain Name System: DNS Doesn’t Mean “Do Not Secure”

Recently, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security(DHS) and Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency(CISA) have begun the tracking of a Domain Name System (DNS) hijacking campaign. With using the following techniques, cybercriminals can redirect user traffic...

The Latest Spear Phishing Scams to Pass-Through Your Email Filter

Unfortunately, everything malicious isn't always caught by your email filtering or anti-virus. Because of the rise in email-born attacks over the last few months, we've begun debunking some of the most well-known spear phishing emails sent to local business owners....

Ready to Ditch the Protocol? Reasons to End Remote Desktop Protocol

Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) has been known to IT professionals for years, added into our arsenal since the original release with Windows NT 4.0. This provided the technical people the ability to treat any system or task as though it were local. Before we go further,...

Empowering Executives with Integrations for the Technology You Love

For many CIOs and COOs, the process of technology continues to be a top priority for many come 2019. As a major headache, businesses are increasing their cloud investments to move forward with digital transformation efforts were then faced with the massive undertaking...

Section 179 Makes Most of Our IT Products 100% Tax Deductible

Many of our clients rely on this tax incentive each year to provide them with the ability to purchase or update the technology that runs their business. Utilized by many for licensing, software packages, servers, routers, and switches, many of our clients have...

Applying Our Award-Winning MSP Process to Your Security Framework

Every week, I'm sure your inbox becomes bombarded by the daily news alerts regarding the dangers of hacking attacks, phishing attempts, and data breaches. The rapidly evolving landscape poses major challenges for companies today by establishing or updating their...

8 Must-Ask Questions for Your Next MSP

For most companies, their first experience with IT support and services comes from IT providers who lack the initial experience needed to innovate and optimize a company's technology environment. "Overnight MSPs" make countless promises surrounding service delivery,...

What are Managed IT Services?

Far too many times, companies call us after losing an IT staff member, frazzled and understaffed, with the demand for fire-fighting support becomes mission critical. This causes an imbalance in the technical team, as the work level has increased but the amount of help...

Why Choose Managed IT Services

Far too often, companies ask us to explain why they should choose to use a Managed Service Provider. Although this question is completely fair, we prefer to define the operational concept as delivering IT support and services to a wide variety of organizations, based...

Retention Best Practices: What to Do with All of That Data

Your data retention and customer information are the lifeblood of your business - there's no denying data's importance, especially in day-to-day operations. Today, organizations across all industries are tasked to protect this vital info, retain it, and provides...

3 Considerations When Planning Your Future Information Technology

I'm sure many of you have heard of the age-old adage: If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. No business owner should see this as a surprise. Yet, when we chat with new clients and their peers, it seems like they were winging information technology (IT) until now....

How to Devise a Budget that includes your Disaster Recovery Plans

Planning and disaster recovery, more importantly, budgeting, is one of those tasks few business continuity managers look forward to completing every year. After all, it can become a pretty involved and complicated process for anyone, often seen as sobering to tally up...

Educating Partners on Risk Management & Disaster Recovery

According to the data, there were a total of 3 natural disasters in the state of California in 2018, resulting in $180.8 billion in insured losses. That's up from the $23.8 billion last calculated in 2016. With a bad wildfire season just around the corner for the Bay...

8 Warning Signs You’re Using the Wrong IT Service Solution

Dreading your company's technology review because you can't show how your technology is performing? Have a provider suffering from a lack of ideas on how to truly accelerate technology? You're not alone - these are common symptoms for Bay Area businesses having...

8 Modern Essentials for Endpoint Security Solutions in 2018

Managed Service Providers have always strived to deliver the most stringent options in endpoint security to their clients, but a solution that just detects threats ISN'T enough in today's business ecosystem. To be truly effective, security platforms must also be...

10 Reasons Why SMBs Are Vulnerable to Security Attacks

They say recognizing a problem is the first step in solving it. But when it comes to cybersecurity, many SMBs don't believe they have a real problem on their hands. Many simply believe that hackers will focus their attention exclusively on large and well-heeled...

Your Advantages When Outsourcing IT Through an MSP

More security threats emerge every year, leaving many businesses to begin the search for outsourcing their IT tasks to a Managed Service Provider (MSP). An MSP allows businesses to focus on core objectives, instead of resolving IT issues. Without the necessary...

Three Most Common Network Security Failure Points for Businesses

Network security continues to be at the forefront of Bay Area businesses. The threats posed to an Information Technology (IT) network are well known. There's a new story daily of malware or hackers tampering with or destroying data. Most companies make an effort to...

Why YOU need a Strong Network Foundation to Support Emerging Tech

To take advantage of any opportunities in Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), you must invest in robust wireless networks and with fast connections to any cloud applications. If you were building a house, you wouldn't start with the windows. You...

How Simple IT Fixes, Could Save Your Business Millions

Opportunity makes the cybercriminal. Online travel giant Orbitz disclosed Monday, March 18th that hackers gained access to one of its "older platforms." Upon gaining access, the hackers now have such data as credit card numbers, street addresses, legal names, and...

The Benefits of Using Assessments like Azure HealthCheck

Assess physical and virtual infrastructure, provide in-depth reporting, make informed decisions on costs, and plan smooth cloud migrations. Expand your efficiency and effectiveness around the fastest-growing cloud platform, Microsoft Azure. It can be hard to know...

What Does a Messy Desk and IT Security Flaws Have in Common?

Many businesses today don't enforce digital, let alone, physical information security. As their Managed Service Provider (MSP), our job is to educate clients on the industry's best practices.It?s time to put your knowledge to the test, can you find the six security...

How Hybrid Cloud Computing Has Taken the Market by Storm

If you're still viewing the hybrid cloud as something outside of your IT strategy or adoption plan, it's time to change your thinking. In a recent study conducted by Cisco and several other partners, of the IT departments surveyed, 65% hope to prioritize the cloud as...

File Sharing: 4 Reasons You Don’t Use Consumer Grade

As the digital transformation begins to gain traction in the market for business technology, file sharing continues to lead many to a more efficient work path, starting with file sharing through iCloud and Google cloud, followed by the Dropbox adoption, and now into...

Use Managed Services to Expand IT Support for Your Company

If your business is doing well, then it's growing. Growth is desirable, but it presents some challenges that must be addressed for your company to fully realize the benefits of that growth. One challenge is increasing the IT support to serve the needs of an expanded...

Vulnerability Explained: How Do Hackers View Your Network?

The technology infrastructure used every day is a familiar part of your business. You know where your applications are, your data, and how to access the internet and send email through it. Your view of the network, then, is from the inside out. But how would a...

Hybrid Infrastructure Makes Cloud Migrations More Strategic

Cloud computing holds great promise for the future of information technology (IT). As the technology matures and the install base grows, more businesses are choosing to mix on-premise and cloud environments to create a "hybrid infrastructure." Demystifying Hybrid...

Tech or Treat: How Tech Budgets Will Turn Your Business Around

It only takes one outage to showcase how vulnerable a company could be. Unfortunately for most businesses, this single incident can shake business owners to their core. In just a matter of moments, your business's reputation and public standing are called into...

October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month

The offices of The Department of Homeland Security released a statement designating October as National Cyber Security Awareness Month. Known to many in the IT industry, the National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM) partners engagement and education through...

When Is it Time to Call an IT Consultant

When is the right time to call an IT consultant? As information technology continues to change, the lines can be blurred as to when your business should bring in an IT Consultant. Any modern business with more than a handful of people has an IT infrastructure, and...

Hybrid Infrastructure Trends Towards “Everything-as-a-Service”

For years, Information Technology (IT) focused on physical platforms and the computers and software that ran on them. IT costs were capital expenditures that purchased these products initially, and as they reached the end of their lifespans, more capital expenditures...

Have You Completed These Malware Survival Tasks?

Ransomware shows no signs of slowing down. Attacks continue to grow, both in sheer numbers and in sophistication, as the IT world struggles to catch up. Despite the frightening statistics and scary stories, there are some things you can do to lessen the likelihood of...

A Cloud Based IT Infrastructure Must Be Managed

Cloud based computing carries a lot of promise for many Bay Area business owners.?However,?it?s still an IT infrastructure, and must be managed to deliver all the desired benefits to your business. Most businesses, so far, are?adopting a hybrid approach to the...

NetCentral Support Center: Much More Than a Helpdesk

For many network users, their primary interaction with IT support is through a user helpdesk. Whether it's in-house support staff or through a third-party provider, a support center is imperative to the relationship between client and support. NetCentral support...

Petya Ransomware: Everything You Need To Know

If you had any doubts about the threat of cybercrime... it appears another global ransomware attack has started. If your company does any international business, you could be next. Spread through email and infecting websites and social media (Twitter, LinkedIn,...

Should IT Support be Outsourced, on Staff, or Both?

Companies need their technology tools to perform their business operations every day. As a result, they have IT infrastructures that must have support. Users need help. Network devices must be managed, and everything has to work together. What's the best way to handle...

How Well Do You Know Your IT Infrastructure?

Businesses today rely on technological tools to operate. These tools handle sales processes, payroll, accounting, manufacturing, planning, communication, customer relations, and more. It's likely your company absolutely depends on its IT infrastructure to conduct...

Phishing Scams Continue Their Rapid Evolution From Bad to Worse

Social engineering is at the heart of two main cyber scams plaguing businesses and individuals alike. Many of these scams stem from Ransomware and phishing. Ransomware is malware that encrypts files and demands a ransom to provide a decryption key. Phishing is using...

Network Security Fundamentals for Any Business

The use of these network security fundamentals can be a launchpad for companies looking to beef up security due to the recent ransomware attacks. The term "Network Security" is very broad in the context of modern technologies. Networks can be hard-wired or wireless....

Can Your Business Afford Having Network Downtime?

There's an old adage: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. We know it's true, and yet many businesses don't apply this commonsense approach to their IT infrastructure. The most common reason is, the owners are too busy with the day-to-day running of the...

Time to Migrate: Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Has Retired

Did you know that Windows Server 2003 extended support ended on July 14, 2015? What does that mean for businesses like yours? SQL Server 2005 "extended support" has officially ended on April 12, 2017. Utilizing "out-of-support" versions of server software could lead...

IT Projects That Will Transform Business

With so many options to improve your IT infrastructure, do you know which may have the biggest impact on your business? Have you been putting off IT projects because they are too complex or you don't know where to begin? There are some projects that can have such a...

When Is The Right Time for Cloud Services?

Cloud computing has been around for several years, and the adoption of cloud services for business continues to ramp up. How will you know when it's time for your business to consider the cloud for your IT workloads? Here are some circumstances that might make you...

Benefits from Business Continuity Planning You Might Not Expect

It's hard to dispute the value of a good business continuity plan. Given the high rate of business failure after a major disaster and the reasonable cost for modern technologies, a good business continuity plan is something every company should consider. Having a...

Sorting Through Common Cloud Options: SaaS, IaaS or PaaS?

Have you ever asked yourself, 'What cloud option would be best for my business"? Cloud-based computing has become a large part of today's modern office. As a result, it looks like the adoption of cloud-based technologies will continue to grow. Yet, cloud services...

Be Proactive: Avoid Potential Network Failures

For small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs), a network failure could become devastating due to the loss of active resources. Preparation against such disasters is the only course of action to avoid failure or receive minimal damage. Companies must become proactive in...

Three Things Your Business Continuity Plan Needs

Very few business owners would dispute the wisdom behind having a business continuity plan. This doesn't stop many (if not most) businesses from having an outdated, ineffective, incomplete or untested plan. Similar to insurance, this provides the "peace of mind" in...

Tax Season Means Big-Game Phishing for Cybercriminals

With tax season upon us, cyber-criminals have begun focusing new tax-related scams towards employers and employees using social engineering techniques. Social engineering is at the heart of the two most common cyber-scams plaguing businesses and individuals today:...

How Managed Cloud Technology Adds Agility to Your Business

One of the more interesting promises of cloud technology is the agility added to business operations. In today's fast-paced world, a company that can make changes quickly, as needed, carries a competitive advantage. How does managed cloud technology enable that?...

What Can Businesses Do For Resiliency Against Cyber Threats in 2017

Looking at the cyber threat landscape for 2017, it doesn't appear businesses will receive any relief from hackers, malware, or ransomware anytime soon. In fact, all these threats continue to grow in sophistication. What can you do to help your business gain resilience...

Choosing a Managed Service Provider Whose Goals Match Your Own

Picking the right managed service provider (MSP) to manage your business technology can quickly become an overwhelming task for anybody. Rather than having repairs as needed, you're partnering with a company to assist you in assessing your current technology, building...

Harden Your Operating System To Prevent Cyber Attacks

Whenever cybercriminals look to compromise a device or network, by the time your employees realize it, it's far too late. Many small and medium-sized businesses aren't aware that operating system vulnerabilities provide easy access. 5 Operating System Hardening Tips...

3 Internal Threats to Your Network You Should Know About

The media always seems to have some reports of hackers gaining access to sensitive company data, and those threats are very real. The nature of our connected networks means attacks can come from anywhere in the world. Most prudent companies make a concerted effort to...

Web Content Management: Big Brother or Smart Business?

Web content management has become more important for business than ever before. There can be little doubt on the liberating effect on workers and businesses of widespread internet access. Having ready access (from a variety of devices) to a wealth of information and...

5 Tips for Safer Online Holiday Shopping

There's no doubt that online shopping is convenient. Shoppers have access to an incredible selection of products and can easily comparison shop for the best quality and lowest prices. The online shopping experience is here to stay. The consumers have spoken! With the...

Three IT Tips for a Successful Office Move

To move offices can be exciting a chance to settle into new quarters and really get organized. But there?s a lot of anxiety, too. You don't want to lose anything, and you certainly want to keep disruptions to the business to an absolute minimum. In the ideal moving...

The Ugly Truth About Cycling-Out Aging Technology

The rate of change in technology has always been rapid, but now changes come faster than ever.? This can pose some challenges for companies. Technology goes from being brand new to being outdated in the wink of an eye! Sometimes, it seems the ink has barely dried on...

Budget Tips to Prepare Your Business for Success in 2017

We all know the final two months of the year go by fast. Part of this is due to the hectic pace of modern business, especially when building a budget. But November and December, due to the holidays, have fewer actual work days than any other two-month span. So, early...

Ransomware Evolves Towards a Targeted Approach

Ransomware evolves, attacking continues to be on the rise, and companies are scrambling to add technical safeguards, policy-level protection and employee education to fight the threat. Like most cyber-threats, ransomware is evolving in sophistication, and one of the...

Cloud-Based Email vs. On-Premises Email

Cloud-based email is one of the fastest-growing segments of cloud computing, and it's easy to understand why. Email is such a ubiquitous part of modern communication (how long has it been since someone in business told you they don't have an email address?) that a new...

Don’t Think Disaster Recovery, Think Business Continuity

When we hear the word "disaster," we think of the events that make the news: floods, fires, hurricanes, earthquakes. But for a business, a disaster is anything that disrupts the ability to do business. The newsworthy disasters mentioned above qualify, but so do events...

Avoiding Scope Creep on IT Projects

Many businesses dread taking on an IT project because their experience with them in the past involved problems, delays, and cost overruns. The common culprit in failed projects is often referred to as scope creep when the original focus of the project is thrown off...

CCS Delivers Value Through Education as Well as Tech

The whole premise of managed services is to get ahead of problems to prevent them before they occur. This is accomplished with proper monitoring and management of IT assets, but since some problems are caused inadvertently by user actions, it's important to address...

Network Security Starts With Your Corporate Culture

With the explosive speed technology is changing, it can become tough to stay ahead of the latest cyber threats. There is a temptation to deal with cyber-threats as a one-off cure. Are hackers trying to get into your network? Buy a firewall. Are viruses causing...

Fast and Reliable Internet Access Vital for Cloud Services

Cloud Computing is increasing in adoption and has become a big part of the technology landscape. Not that it's a good fit for every company, or that it's delivered on all the anticipated benefits, but increasingly, the cloud is a viable solution for a variety of...

Don’t Ignore Your Desktops In Disaster Recovery Plan

Disasters come in all shapes and sizes. An event that renders your office unusable qualifies as a major disaster, and dealing with that should be a major focus of your disaster recovery (DR) plan. Having a server fail would have a widespread adverse effect on your...

Insist on Transparency From IT Service Providers

One of the things companies struggle with if they choose to outsource part or all of their IT service is the fear of losing control. Having a third party managing a company's IT should not mean relinquishing control of, or visibility into, the IT infrastructure,...

Cloud Computing Continues to Trend Upward

Cloud Computing is no longer the "next big thing" - it's here and it's going to stay. The futurists weren't right about everything, though. What we're seeing is an increase in cloud adoption. But rather than wholesale migrations, companies are choosing the aspects of...

Offices Without Walls – The Mobile Workplace Revolution

Advances in cloud and mobile computing technology have made it possible to have an office without walls, something that would not have seemed possible just a few years ago. Local Area Networks (LANs) revolutionized work within offices because they enabled everyone on...

4 Tips to Control IT Costs at Your Business

One of the keys to success for any business is to control costs. Technology can help reduce costs through added efficiency and agility, but sometimes companies find it a challenge to control the costs of their IT department itself. Here are some tips on controlling...

Ransomware: How to Reduce Risk and Protect Your Business

The malware is known as " Ransomware " has many variants which utilize an array of methods to find a series of entry points (usually an attachment to an email) to infect and encrypt a company's servers and data. Once the virus finds an entry point, it will begin to...

Server Virtualization: Doing More With Less

Sooner or later, your old reliable server will no longer do its job, and it will be time to replace it. If you have several servers, this technology refresh cycle may be the right time to consider consolidating several servers into one, using server virtualization....

IT Support: Managed Services Suite of Services

As an IT support method for business, managed services is the best choice for most companies searching for IT Support. But managed services is a general term, and it's important to understand the spectrum of services that could (and should) be available under that...

Managed Services Can Help With Compliance

There are a number of industries that require businesses to have certifications or proof of compliance to operate within the industry. They vary from industry to industry, and some certifications are harder to achieve than others. Healthcare firms are subject to the...

Strategic IT Planning Allows Patching & Updates

A network consisting of components purchased over the course of several years? With strategic IT planning, your company is able to maximize the value it gets from its technology. Strategic IT Planning The downside of the speed at which technology changes is how...