XFER Blog

The one thing about data backup is that it seems like it is pretty simple: You have data, you copy it and store it should something happen to your original. Sure, that’s the basic makeup of a data backup, but if you want a backup you can really rely on, you need it to be faultless. Enter Backup and Disaster Recovery. 

Ransomware is perhaps the nastiest threat you can encounter, and the unprepared business could potentially be crippled beyond repair if it suffers from an attack like this. We’re here to demystify the inner machinations of a ransomware attack so you know better how to respond to it.

We’ve all felt the momentary panic when we reach for our pocket to pull out our smartphone, only to realize that it’s not there. This panic is indicative of a deeper issue with how our society has become reliant on technology, so much so that we have miniature computers in our pockets at all times. Are you using your smartphone as a distraction tool or as a productivity tool? That’s what we’re trying to answer with today’s blog.

We focus a lot of time and effort on securing our clients with our cutting-edge tools and industry best practices. Our adversaries, the hackers, on the other hand, have come to understand that the way they will be successful is to get their contrived messages in front of the least knowledgeable people in your organization. Let’s take a look at how hackers choose their targets to get a better understanding of what their strategy is. 

As your business grows and shifts, managing your technology can become increasingly complicated. It can get to the point where properly taking care of your IT and supporting your users is a full time job. If you are just calling a computer person to come and fix problems when you bump into them, then you might have potential consequences to deal with later that could cost your organization a lot of time and money.

Cloud computing has become one of the most utilized technologies in business today, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. It makes it possible for nearly any business to acquire advanced technologies that they could not afford previously, and use them to level the playing field with larger, more capital-rich companies. This month we thought we’d talk a little bit about how moving to the cloud can benefit you and your business.

When you have a lot of tasks to get done, you might find yourself stressing out about the sequencing or ruminating on your circumstances. How did you let it get so bad? Why does this always happen to you? If this sounds like an everyday occurrence for your organization or your employees, we want to share three ways you can help to make things easier to manage, even when it feels like there is just too much to handle.

Printing is costly, and a lot of organizations have done their best to reduce their exposure to unnecessary costs. With nearly everyone having a computer on them all the time, it seems as though the costs of printing can be reduced entirely. Unfortunately, businesses don’t always see how digital resources can help you stabilize costs. This month, we thought we would go through how your organization can use those digital resources to significantly reduce printing costs. 

Many web browsers, like Google Chrome, have features that allow for convenient password-keeping, but at the cost of considerable cybersecurity risks. We recommend that all businesses utilize a password management tool, but preferably not one that is built into a web browser. Why? We’re glad you asked!

Opening a new location can be difficult. When is the right time to expand? If you think you’ve reached that point, you will need to ascertain how to use technology throughout multiple locations. In this month’s newsletter, we’ll discuss some of the considerations you have to make in order to get the technology that will help you move into your new location and sustain the demands that it will put on that technology.  

Last week, we aimed our laser focus on productivity and how it can be defined for your organization. Now, we would like to examine how you can measure productivity for your business. Let’s discuss how you can track your productivity.

Ransomware takes up a significant amount of our blog, and for good reason. It’s an incredibly scary threat to find yourself on the receiving end of, and modern businesses are, to be quite frank, often unprepared to handle it. We wanted to take today as an opportunity to discuss the negative effects you can expect from a ransomware attack—effects that will make you think twice about the current level of security on your infrastructure.

With margins getting thinner for everyone, a lot of businesses have begun to outsource their human resources initiatives or cut them entirely. Unfortunately, for the business that has to slash their HR budget, situations can arise where issues turn into problems and if there is no one actively doing the HR job.

Productivity will always be the primary goal for businesses, right alongside profits, although one thing does in fact lead to another in this case. To ensure your company runs efficiently, you need to understand just how productivity works and its relationship with what you put into your business. We’ll be using the next couple of weeks to take a closer look at the relationship between your business and its productivity.

First, let’s look at what productivity is, in its simplest and purest form.

Businesses tend to collect and capture consumer data in an effort to provide a better experience or find new customers. Many of these businesses will package this information together and sell it to marketing companies. Consumers often don’t know how to opt out of this kind of activity and, thus, wind up oversharing information. This week, we want to highlight these issues and address how you can keep your personal data from being collected without your consent.

Every organization that uses technology has policies and procedures that dictate the way that the people that work there have to deal with the technology that they give them. When you hire new employees, you need to be able to get them to understand that they have a significant role to play in the way that the business operates. Let’s go through some of the considerations you need to explain to your new employees so they can better understand how to interact with business technology. 

Ransomware is a serious issue for businesses. How serious?

Think “$265 billion in costs by 2031” serious. In light of this, every organization needs to do everything possible to avoid falling victim to ransomware. Let’s touch on a few practices that will help.

To meet compliance requirements for technology an organization will need to understand the regulations they operate under. New entrepreneurs may find it startling when they realize that they have a lot more people/organizations to answer to than they thought. This week, we aren’t going to go through individual regulations, but how IT generally fits into compliance and how not staying up to date can cost your business dearly.

Your Google Calendar can be a gateway to productivity when it’s set up appropriately, and one way you can do so is to implement additional calendars to help you manage your day-to-day obligations. Let’s go over why you might consider using multiple Google calendars and how you can set them all up.

HP has been taking steps to disable any ink cartridges that they didn’t produce from working in their printers, much to the disapproval of users everywhere. Let’s go over what this means, both in terms of the backlash as well as what it means for your business.