Small businesses are relying more and more on technology to communicate, particularly email. Email is also one of the most common ways hackers will try, and succeed, to infect the network of an SME. That’s one of many reasons that securing your business email is of paramount importance. It’s the very backbone of the way your business communicates and operates. Investing in securing your email pays dividends in terms of enhanced security. How is email vulnerable? A common way hackers like to gain access to business networks is through malware. One of the simplest and most efficient ways for them to distribute malware is via email – the malware generally is attached as a link or an attachment for download. Once clicked on, it’ll infect the machine in seconds, before infecting the entirety of the network. Hackers are becoming more sophisticated. Most people are savvy enough to spot an obvious hack-mail and will know to steer clear of it. As such, hackers are now using emails cleverly designed to look innocent. For example, they purport to be from an aggrieved customer or supplier, outlying a valid sounding complaint about payment. They provide an attachment they say is a scan of Read More

Keeping a regular data backup should be something all businesses do. This applies to all information: both regarding your business and that of your clients/employees and customers. Ensuring this information is as safe as possible is highly important for your brand image and customer loyalty. It’s impossible for a business to build its customer base and position in the marketplace if it has a reputation for poorly handling important data. Keeping sensitive data safe is also a legal requirement – regular backups aren’t negotiable as a practice. Data backup damage Not keeping your data properly backed up can have a variety of consequences. In the event of hardware/software malfunction, it becomes so much harder to keep your business operational if you’re forced to revert to using out of date information. Aside from this, if your backup data is kept on-site and you suffer a malware attack, it will scan your backups for valuable information. Many administrators, as difficult as it is to believe, use the recycle bin as a backup. So anyone browsing the local desktop either remotely or in person can have access to that information. Keep in mind how important data is to your business operation. Anything that Read More

Your small business is a target for cybercriminals. Just over two out of every five small businesses experience at least one attack every twelve months. The cost of this can be high; figures from the UK Government found the average cyber attack can cost a small business up to £115,000 to recover. Viruses are still one of the major threats to your small business, so you need a way to protect it. Here are some of tried and tested anti-virus protection tips. 1. Use cloud-based services Cloud-based antivirus and anti-spam services are essential for the protection of your IT infrastructure. On-site protection isn’t always the best option, because the most effective security needs regular updates and checks. Even with the best teams, updates can be disruptive to work as systems are taken down to run them. Cloud-based services, on the other hand, are maintained by IT security professionals who can run updates to the protection, to offer better defences against the latest threats and still maintain your access to IT systems. Therefore, cloud-based services are better placed to protect you from ever more sophisticated viruses, spam, phishing, ransomware and malware. 2. Incoming email protection It is estimated that one in Read More

Small and medium-sized businesses are making the switch to VoIP at an ever-increasing rate. A decade ago the discussion was around how to include an element of VoIP in your communications system but this is the digital age and technology is increasing in both effectiveness and efficiency. Are you getting the best out of your VoIP? Are there additional features that you can leverage to help improve both business functionality and your user experience? Here are some handy tips on how to make the most of your VoIP system. Turn on the Find Me/Follow me function If you’re constantly on the move then this is a must. Find me/Follow me creates a list of numbers you can be found before a call moves to voicemail. Your office phone might ring three times but then on the fourth your mobile phone rings, and on the sixth your home phone. Only when your list of numbers is exhausted does the caller get passed to voicemail. Voicemail to email transcribing Gone are the days of desperately scribbling down addresses and contact numbers. Simply have the technology transcribe voicemails and then send them to a preferred email account. Simple. Call screening This is often Read More