BNMC Blog

The fifth generation of wireless communications—5G—has been hotly anticipated, already appearing in advertisements for cellular connectivity and set to expand the potential of automated processes. One particularly pertinent application is to the smart devices and services that make up the Internet of Things. Let’s consider where 5G currently stands, and how its capabilities could impact the IoT.

Today, every business needs a certain amount of technology. The more that people depend on the Internet to manage their affairs and procure goods and services, the more businesses will need to focus on getting the IT infrastructure in place to help them succeed. Over the past several years we have begun to see a lot of businesses dipping their toe into the cloud computing pool. Many started with cloud backup and moved to some type of hosted software platform like hosted email through Outlook or Gmail or cloud-based productivity suites offered by Google and Microsoft. Today’s business is moving past these platforms and actively hosting their computing infrastructure online. It was only a few short years ago that this strategy was looked upon as far too risky. Let’s take a brief look at hosted infrastructure and its benefits.

Wi-Fi is far and away one of the most utilized modern connection types, which also makes it one of the most effective ways for cybercriminals to steal data or introduce malware to a device if it is not carefully implemented. Let’s go over some factors you need to consider as you put it in place for your business’ purposes.

There are dozens of Internet browsers on the market. They are typically all free and when they come stock, are pretty much all the same. Most of the most popular ones come with an app store where users can download useful apps to make their experience better. Unfortunately, there are times that malicious code gets in there. Security firm Avast recently found 28 third-party extensions that are extraordinarily popular that had malicious code found in them.

It’s 2021! We made it! 

A lot of us look at a new year as an opportunity to greatly improve our lives. Maybe your resolution is to hit the gym regularly or commit to fewer processed foods—regardless, there are endeavours that take serious commitment, and others that take just a few minutes to accomplish. A really simple, really beneficial task you should add to your 2021 to-do list is to lock down some of your most important online accounts—and we’re going to walk you through it.

With 2020 in the rear-view mirror, there are many opportunities for your business to embrace technology in 2021 to your benefit. Let’s go over a few ways that you should make use of your IT moving forward.

When was the last time you intentionally and systematically changed your passwords?

It’s a good practice, even though it can be a huge pain. For many of us, Google is a huge central hub that is tied to a lot of our data. With all of the cybersecurity issues and data breaches, it’s just a good idea to keep your Google account in check.

2020 has brought us a lot of news that we’d rather not hear. Just days before the end of what may be regarded as one of the worst years on record, there is more. One of the largest hacks in the history of the Internet happened earlier this year and more is being learned about it each day. Today, we will tell you what we know, who it affected, and what your business needs to do to secure itself. 

For the small business, cutting costs or otherwise increasing the value that their technology can provide is an important consideration. To accomplish this, many businesses are now turning to AI-enhanced automation. Let’s see how they are doing so, and how it helps to make their operations more productive.

There are theoretically countless ways that artificial intelligence can have practical applications. One that you may not have initially considered: as a content filter for Internet comments. With trolling, spamming, and other misuse of these platforms getting far out of hand, let’s consider how some platforms are using AI to fight back.

Around this time each year, there’s a tradition of people telling stories that have been passed down for years. We wanted to participate this year, so we’ve decided to reimagine a true holiday classic: Die Hard.

Let’s consider how the action may have played out differently if the movie’s events were to take place today…

While historically, the idea of a 9-to-5 job in a company has been the established way to make a living, there is now a large section of the workforce who now generates income through shorter contracts—gigs. The stay-at-home orders passed in March and the millions suddenly seeking work during their displacement (and in many cases, unemployment) from the office space recently made it much harder for these gig workers to find such opportunities.

On December 10, 2020, the Joint Cybersecurity Advisory (coauthored by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC)) issued a major “Cybersecurity Advisory” to the K-12 community.  This advisory reports that cyber actors are targeting kindergarten through twelfth grade (K-12) educational institutions, leading to ransomware attacks, the theft of data, and the disruption of distance learning services. Cyber actors likely view schools as targets of opportunity, and these types of attacks are expected to continue through the 2020/2021 academic year.

These issues will be particularly challenging for K-12 schools that face resource limitations.  Educational leadership, information technology personnel, and security personnel will need to balance this risk when determining their cybersecurity investments.   As you review this Advisory, K-12 schools should be thinking about how they are protecting their students online and verifying they have the proper CyberSecurity controls in place.   It is not good enough to just have the basics of firewall protection, anti-virus and endpoint protection and anti-malware controls.  Now, we need to have Enterprise class Backup and Disaster Recovery solutions (to protect against RansomWare), Security Awareness trainging for all staff  and even students, proper use of Video Conference controls and security and how to best beat Social Engineering attempts.

The Advisory document lists a series of Best Practices at the end of the document.  For further information, contact your BNMC representative or reach out to us to discuss how to better protect your school or business.

I bet you can’t name the amount of network switches at your office. How many licenses of Office do you have? Do you know if your router warranty has lapsed?

In March, when the stay-at-home orders first came down, and businesses started asking their employees to work from home, it was obvious that many of them were not prepared for this contingency. As the pandemic has gone on, however, businesses have had to adapt. Today, we thought we would look at some of the solutions and strategies that are being used by businesses to secure their endpoints with most of their workforce out of the office. 

Amongst its many other time-saving simplification capabilities, Microsoft Word allows users to replicate text (including the formatting) across multiple documents. This capability also allows you to edit all copies of this text—wherever it appears—all at once. Let’s review the process.

Unfortunately, this season’s holiday is going to be much like the rest of 2020: risky. With many people taking the necessary precautions to not contract or spread the coronavirus, a lot of people are doing most of their shopping online. By distancing from others and using the Internet to do the lion’s share of your holiday shopping, you take on different risks. Let’s go through some of them today.

The Department of Homeland Security has issued an alert over several zero-day exploits found in the world’s most popular Internet browser, Google Chrome. Google has since patched this software and we would like to remind you that you need to do so on all of your devices that feature the Chrome browser. 

Nearly everyone uses Wi-Fi. Wireless gives people the increased flexibility to use their mobile devices in more places. If your business’ Wi-Fi isn’t set up properly, you’ll find that your coverage will be lacking. Today, we thought we’d give you a few tips on how to set up your Wi-Fi connection so that it works best for your business.

Cyberattacks continue to be a major problem as scammers send out billions of phishing messages a day. While it doesn’t really sound that nefarious it can be a major problem for a lot of people. One version of phishing, the absurdly labeled smishing, is gaining traction and presents another avenue of attack for hackers.