Gareth McKee and his Trusted Saskatoon IT team at Burnt Orange Solutions promise to have a one-hour response time for all your IT support needs. Honesty and respect are important to them. They pride themselves on ensuring their clients understand IT concerns by providing a straightforward and reliable solution with exceptional service. Burnt Orange Solutions are your Trusted Saskatoon IT Experts. In their latest Saskatoon IT expert tip, Gareth shares the purpose of a cybersecurity audit.
If you were hit by a cyber attack tomorrow, is your business ready? Ensuring the appropriate cybersecurity measures are in place is vital in protecting your business. A cybersecurity audit is a helpful tool in assessing the cyber security strength of your business and ensuring important information remains secure.
What Is A Cybersecurity Audit?
A cybersecurity audit is a comprehensive review of your business’s IT infrastructure. Cybersecurity audits are helpful as they detect vulnerabilities, recognize threats, and reveal high-risk practices in relation to IT security. Cybersecurity audits are all about data security and protecting information to ensure cybercriminals are unsuccessful in their hacking attempts.
What Does It Cover?
A cybersecurity audit involves a full audit of your business’s cybersecurity measures in order to assess risk, detect vulnerabilities, and recognize threats across all areas. These areas include but are not limited to:
- Data Security – Involves a review of network access control, encryption use, data security at rest, and transmissions.
- Network Security – Involves a review of network and security controls, antivirus, and security monitoring capabilities.
- System Security – Involves a review of hardening processes, patching processes, privileged account management, and role-based access.
- Physical Security – Involves a review of disk encryption, role-based access controls, biometric data, and multifactor authentication.
If it has been a while since you revisited your business’s cybersecurity measures, they are likely out of date and may no longer be effective. A cybersecurity audit will help ensure your business is prepared in the event of a cyber attack.
If you have any questions regarding cyber security and how we can help secure your data, contact the IT experts at
Burnt Orange IT Solutions. We can help your business mitigate risk, and be prepared for any IT-related emergency.
Burnt Orange IT Solutions Products & Services:
Gareth McKee and his Trusted Saskatoon IT team at Burnt Orange Solutions promise to have a one-hour response time for all your IT support needs. Honesty and respect are important to them. They pride themselves on ensuring their clients understand IT concerns by providing a straightforward and reliable solution with exceptional service. Burnt Orange Solutions are your Trusted Saskatoon IT Experts. In their latest Saskatoon IT expert tip, Gareth shares how to create secure passwords to protect yourself online.
Data breaches and identity theft are on the rise. Therefore, using strong passwords is necessary to protect your accounts against cyber attacks. Here are some tips to create secure passwords and help keep your accounts unbreakable.
To help keep your accounts unbreakable, follow these password guidelines:
- All passwords must be at least 16 characters or more. Longer passwords are more secure than shorter ones.
- All passwords must involve a combination of letters, numbers, and special characters.
- Different passwords must be used for each account.
- Passwords must never include personl information or any information that can be accessed through social media such as the names of children or pets.
- Passwords should never contain any consecutive letters or numbers.
Why Password Security Is Important
Without strong passwords, hackers are able to gain access to accounts and sensitive information. Hackers use personal information such as names, addresses, and bank account information to steal money or the identity of the user. Identity theft is extremely concerning. It results in financial loss and makes it difficult for the user to get a loan or a job.
Password security is also very important for businesses. Whenever hackers gain access to sensitive information, they consequently share the data with the business’ competitors or store it for ransom.
Other Ways To Protect Yourself Online
Besides utilizing strong passwords, there are other ways to protect yourself online including:
- Using a VPN – Internet Service Providers are able to track the online activity of users and can access private IP addresses. VPN stands for Virtual Private Network and is the alternative to connecting to a public Wi-Fi network. Using a VPN ensures web activity and IP addresses are not accessible to your internet provider.
Identity Theft Protection – Using identity theft protection software will help protect personal information from identity theft. Identity theft protection software will flag criminal behaviour to help protect personal information.
Using Antivirus Software – Antivirus software helps protect users from viruses, ransomware, and other cyber threats. Antivirus software scans for known viruses and alerts the user that their computer or phone has been compromised.
Using a Password Manager – Password managers encrypt usernames and passwords and require biometrics to log in. Password managers keep passwords safe and secure.
These tips will help keep your accounts unbreakable, therefore protecting you and your business. If you have any questions regarding strong passwords to keep your accounts secure, contact the IT experts at
Burnt Orange IT Solutions. We can help your business mitigate risk, and be prepared for any IT-related emergency.
Gareth McKee and his Trusted Saskatoon IT team at Burnt Orange Solutions promise to have a one-hour response time for all your IT support needs. Honesty and respect are important to them. They pride themselves on ensuring their clients understand IT concerns by providing a straightforward and reliable solution with exceptional service.
Burnt Orange Solutions are your Trusted Saskatoon IT Experts and in their latest Saskatoon IT expert tip, Gareth shares 10 predictions for the future of IT Management.
10 PREDICTIONS FOR THE FUTURE OF IT MANAGEMENT
With today’s emerging digital business opportunities, IT management needs to be aligned with business strategy in order to be responsive and adaptable. In order to compete, businesses will need IT to provide strategic value to deliver innovative products and services.
Here are ten predictions for the future of IT management from Gareth, owner of Burnt Orange Solutions :
1. Businesses will be reliant on cloud technology to remain viable.
In the future, 98 percent of business data will be stored in the cloud rather than traditional company data centers.
2. Everything-as-a-Service dynamic will take over.
Everything-as-a-Service (XaaS) dynamic is superior because IT is managed as an ever-changing product that is highly conducive to innovation. Cloud computing models such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) models will become less popular.
3.Risk management, cybersecurity, and remote work will be prioritized for businesses.
As a result of these priorities, IT networks will need to be optimized for resilience in order to support businesses with regard to these priorities.
4. China will likely be in the process of building the first 6G networks.
Therefore, 5G wireless networks will have evolved to deliver high-bandwidth, low-latency connections to power advanced industrial internet of things (IoT).
5. Advanced edge computing will be prevalent.
This will provide real-time local data processing which will enhance IoT systems and reduce traffic in the cloud network. Machines will be communicating and making decisions without human intervention, and mechanisms will exist that will fix problems on their own.
6. Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) will be common.
VR and AR will exist in many business environments including warehouses, as well as in employee training programs of various types.
7. Sources for analytics will diversify.
Having diverse sources to obtain analytics data will improve machine learning algorithms and make for stronger predictions to form better decision making.
8. Roles such as data entry, customer service, and manufacturing will become obsolete.
Advances in AI, robotics, and automation, improve productivity and efficiency for businesses. Jobs that do not even exist yet will fill any voids.
9. Network visibility and cybersecurity will be exponentially improved.
All network endpoints will be monitored from a single interface through unified endpoint management platforms.
10. GDPR-inspired federal data privacy laws will be enacted.
These laws will exist in most industrialized nations, and compliance with these laws will make data security management a top priority for every business.
As services become increasingly automated, the primary role of IT will shift in order to support business strategies. IT’s focus will be to integrate business systems, accelerate product development, and ultimately improve customer experience for businesses. Employees will have the ability to implement their own technology solutions through low-and no-code development platforms, so IT will need to be consultants in supporting businesses navigating their own IT functions.
Gareth McKee and his Trusted Saskatoon IT team at Burnt Orange, promise to have a one-hour response time for all your IT support needs. Honesty and respect are important to them. They pride themselves on ensuring their clients understand IT concerns by providing a straightforward and reliable solution with exceptional service. Burnt Orange Solutions are your Trusted Saskatoon IT Experts and in their latest Saskatoon IT tip, Gareth provides 5 tips on how to safely secure data at your company.
GARETH'S 5 TIPS TO SECURE DATA AT YOUR COMPANY
Secure Data with Gareth’s 5 Tips for Your Company
Owner of Burnt Orange IT Solutions, Gareth McKee, provides his top 5 tips on how to secure data safely and improve the security of your data at your company. Watch the video below or read on.
1. Secure Data with the Use of Strong Passwords
According to Forbes, in the last 6 months of 2019 over 4 billion records were exposed by data breaches. Included in these records were over 1 billion passwords retrieved.
The top 5 easiest passwords to hack are:
#1 – 12345
#2 – 123456
#3 – 123456789
#4 – Test1
#5 – Password
But they are not always the easy ones to crack by hackers, as shown here:
#21 – princess
#30 – monkey
#48 – chocolate
#97 – babygirl
So, what do we learn from this? There are ‘bots’ and phishing scams active every day on the internet, looking to gain access to your network, steal your data or encrypt it to extort money from you.
What Does a Strong Password Look Like?
Strong passwords need 2 things: length and complexity. Both are really easy to achieve with a little imagination. Let’s firstly achieve the length. Rather than think of a passWORD, think of passwords (plural) or a passPHRASE.
One solution is to think of 4 unrelated words such as:
#Potato plastiC either strong!
The above is 30 characters and notice I have added the # and ! to make it a little more complex.
Or, you can use a phrase such as:
!Theres a m00se 0n the 100se#
The above is 29 characters. Replacing letters with numbers can be a good way to achieve complexity (for example, changing O’s to zero’s).
The best solution is to use a password manager, which is a secure app that remembers all your complex and long passwords for you so all you have to remember is the 1 password to the manager.
2. Secure Data by Locking Your Computer
How easy would it be for someone to walk past an office, walk-in and steal data from an unlocked PC? This happens more often than you think, and whether it is a disgruntled employee or a stranger who has walked into your building, it is so easy to steal data in this way.
The solution is to have your PC lock itself after a certain amount of inactivity. This is easy to achieve, simply decide the length of inactivity before allowing your PC to lock. I recommend 5 minutes.
Looking after a network properly can be a difficult and time-consuming job so to make your life easy, engage with a local, professional IT Security company such as Burnt Orange IT Solutions. You will find that the money spent on network security is easily recovered by staff efficiencies.
3. Receive a Suspicious Email? Call the Sender Before You Click
Email spoofing costs businesses millions of dollars every year. I am sure you can remember Saskatoon City Council being duped in 2019 to the price of $1 million.
If even a known client emails you asking to transfer money, providing you with new banking details, large orders, or asking you to click anywhere, call the client to ensure the information has come from them directly. A quick phone call can save a lot of money, embarrassment, and is a way to secure data. This should be a standard practice in your office. If you don’t have an Acceptable Use Policy or User Best Practice Policy in your organization, contact your best local IT company. They can help you achieve the best practices in your business.
4. Take a Breath
We all have 10 hours of work to complete in an 8 hour day, but just by taking 1 second to look at an email can save a lot of heartache. Hovering over an email address or a web link can show you where it is actually directing the click. Just because the link reads www.rbc.com, this does not mean it will direct you there.
Also, hackers often send a link which looks real, but is slightly misspelt, for example:
https://www.saskatoononliinetrucks.com/saskatoon/cheapestdeals/buytoday
if you look closely there are two ‘i’s in online. In a busy day that may be easy to miss, you navigate to a website with a virus, allowing it to download, the virus waits a day and ultimately encrypts all the data on your server. Not a good day for you or your company.
The accepted solution here is to put DNS protection in place. This service scours the internet all day, looking for dangerous websites, whether they are legit or not, and if a dangerous website is found, the service will stop you from accessing the website. If you can’t access the website, you cannot download the virus. Simple as that! Professional IT companies offer this service for a fraction of the cost of the downtime experienced should a virus be download by accident. Contact your local IT company for help.
5. Back Up Your Data
Even in a small office where there is no ‘real’ server, it is always a good idea to treat one of the PCs as a file server. Have all the data held there, back up that PC, and only that PC. This makes the backup and recovery activity simple and easy. Impose a rule that all data must be held on that PC. Configure each PC to share to that PC. Complete this task and you have just saved yourself days of non-productivity in a recovery situation.
The best backup solutions today backup to the cloud. They will:
Encrypt your data before it leaves your PC,
Be password protected,
Be automated,
and YOU will test it, at least once per month to ensure the data can be recovered.
A backup that does not work when you need it is as much use as a chocolate fireguard. Test it before you need it. As with all the problems discussed, your local professional IT security firm can help you with all these tasks, and for much less than you think.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to Burnt Orange IT Solutions.
We hope this article gave you some insight. If you want to ensure your business’s IT security, contact the Trusted Saskatoon IT professionals at Burnt Orange Solutions and we can take IT worries off your plate.
Burnt Orange IT Solutions Products & Services:
Managed Networks
Backup and Recovery
Data and Network Security
Hosted Services
Telephone Systems
Secure WiFi Networks
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Honesty and respect are important factors in daily communication at Burnt Orange. Gareth and the team at Burnt Orange Solutions are YOUR Saskatoon IT stress solution. Burnt Orange Solutions are your Trusted Saskatoon IT Experts. In their latest Saskatoon IT Tip, they share top tips to ensure IT security at your Saskatoon business!
Keeping passwords, financial, and other personal information safe and protected from intruders, scammers and stalkers have long been a priority of businesses. Besides, it’s increasingly critical for consumers and individuals to heed data protection advice and use good practices to keep personal information safe from harm. Gareth McKee- Owner Burnt Orange Solutions
1. Backup your data.
One of the most basic, yet often overlooked, data protection tips for individuals is backing up your data. Basically, this creates a duplicate copy of your data so that if a device is lost, stolen, or compromised, you don’t also lose your important information. This is vital for businesses, no matter how small or large. As the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and insurance company Nationwide pointed out.
“According to Nationwide, 68% of small businesses don’t have a disaster recovery plan. The problem with this is the longer it takes you to restore your data, the more money you’ll lose. Gartner found that this downtime can cost companies as much as $300,000 an hour.”
2. Malware
Malware is a serious issue. Anti-malware protection is essential for laying a foundation of security for your devices. Malware is short for malicious software, and it’s software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer without your consent. Things that fall into this category sound scary – they include viruses, worms, trojan horses, spyware, scareware and more. Malware can attack you via websites and emails, or hidden in downloadable files, photos, videos, The best way to avoid getting infected is to purchase and run a good anti-virus protection program, then do periodic scans for spyware. Also, be very vigilant when it comes to clickable links in emails or on websites you are unfamiliar with.
WARNING: 350,000 malware versions are identified every day. A new malware programme is released every seven seconds. Malware activity has increased by 61% over the last year. The cost of malware attacks is going up too, with companies and people losing around 11% more money in 2018 than in the previous year. Scammers are sneaky: sometimes malware is cleverly disguised as an email from a friend or client. Unfortunately, even the most cautious will likely pick up an infection at some point. Gareth McKee
3. Keep Up To Date
Operating system and software updates are a gigantic pain for users, but they’re a necessary evil! These updates contain critical security fixes and improvements twill protect you and your devices from newly discovered threats and glitches. Failing to install these updates means you are at risk. Operating systems and software updates may not be updated frequently or on a regular schedule so we suggest setting your systems to update automatically if possible.
4. Secure Your Wireless Network.
A valuable IT tip for both small business owners and individuals, it’s always recommended to secure your wireless network with a password. This prevents unauthorized individuals within proximity to hijack your wireless network. Even if they’re merely attempting to get free Wi-Fi access, you don’t want to inadvertently share private information with other people who are using your network without permission. In addition, be sure to turn your computer off when you are finished using it. Leaving your computer connected to the Internet when it’s not in use gives scammers 24/7 access to install malware and commit cybercrimes. To be safe, turn off your computer when it’s not in use.