ZR Systems Blog

The average business has a lot of internal processes, and these processes are typically pretty concrete: to accomplish this task, follow steps A, B, and C, in that order. However, due to the sheer volume of processes like these, it helps to have these processes documented for the benefit of your future employees... and, if we’re being honest, your future self. For this week’s tip, we’ll go over the proper process for documenting a task.

You hear about encryption being used all the time, almost to the point of it being synonymous with security, but what does it really mean to have encryption on your business’ data and devices? We’ll walk you through how encryption can help you in your day-to-day struggle to secure the integrity of your organization’s communication and infrastructure.

The private cloud computing market is growing rapidly, and for good reason. Data security and privacy concerns have spurred many businesses to consider moving their data from public cloud offerings to private cloud platforms. One problem the average business would see with this trend is that putting together a comprehensive private cloud system has its own challenges, some of which we will confront today.

Technology can go a long way toward helping businesses be more productive with their time, but only if the solutions implemented are right and proper for your organization. We’ll discuss three services that you can provide for your business that can maximize productivity with technology solutions.

Bar none, cybersecurity has to be a major consideration for every business owner or manager in business today. The prevalence of people looking to rip your company off has never been higher; and that is the truth for nearly every company that uses the Internet for anything. Today, we take a look at some of the most serious cybersecurity threats that everyone should be cognizant of right now.

Communication is pivotal to the success of your business, but it’s hard when you have a telephone system that seems like it was built for an age long past. A modern telephone system that utilizes the cloud is the ideal way to approach collaboration in the workplace. You have some options for this, but the easiest to take advantage of is a cloud-hosted Voice over Internet Protocol solution.

Almost everyone has, at one time, worked with someone with whom their personality clashed, whether they did not get along or just didn’t work effectively together. While this is a perfectly natural phenomenon of both nature and nurturing, it is best to put personal differences aside when forming a professional relationship with a coworker.

Two-factor authentication, also known as 2FA, is a very beneficial addition to consider for your cybersecurity. However, a research study unearthed a few surprising takeaways that indicate that 2FA may not be adopted as much as one might expect it to be.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Does your business have a dedicated data backup and disaster recovery system? It’s one of the most critical parts of managing a business, yet some don’t have a plan in the event of the worst. If your organization were to suddenly lose a significant portion of its data, would it be able to continue functioning as needed? With a data backup and disaster recovery solution, you won’t be dealing in the realm of “what if,” and instead focus on “when” you experience a data loss incident.

2017 saw the rise of many great technology solutions for small business, including an explosion of popularity in business intelligence, artificial intelligence applications, and machine learning. Meanwhile, other established technologies have continued their domination of the industry. What can your organization look forward to seeing on the forefront of the small business technology race in 2018?

You don’t have time to worry about managing your email solution, but it’s still a vital aspect of your business’s operations. You never know when someone will fall for a spam message, and you certainly can’t look over the shoulders of each employee to make sure they don’t. What’s the busy business owner to do? How can you get quality email management without it eating up too much time and effort on your part?

RANSOMWARE - WannaCry

Additional References:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/12/nhs-hit-major-cyber-attack-hackers-demanding-ransom/

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/05/15/528451534/wannacry-ransomware-what-we-know-monday

It’s a well-known fact that nothing in this world lasts forever (other than Twinkies), and this pertains to your technology more than perhaps anything else. The same solutions that you’ve been working with for years will also need regular updates and improvements in order to stay relevant to your organization.

Thanks to one of Google’s researchers with the Zero Day Project, it has been discovered that LastPass has a major vulnerability as a result of a major architectural problem. This news comes on the heels of many other flaws the same researcher discovered within LastPass. However, based on what the researcher claims, these vulnerabilities were much less serious than his latest discovery.

Today’s headlines are peppered with stories of major companies and institutions falling victim to a cyberattack. As a business owner, what’s your response to these gut-wrenching stories? If you write them off as fear mongering and believe that these attacks can never happen to your SMB, well, you’re wrong. They can and it’s up to you to prevent such a disaster.