NEWS FROM THE EDGE

Tech Tips and Advice from the Experts at Dynamic Edge

Perhaps a hundred years ago, you’d not expect running water or think electricity as a complete luxury. But nowadays could you imagine having to pump a well, then heating your bath water (probably no quick shower!) daily to get ready for work instead of having running water at the turn of a faucet? And could you live by candle light without lights, toasters, microwaves? Likely anyone reading this blog (on a computer or smart phone) couldn’t imagine life without either electricity or water.

My next question: could you choose between protecting your business, its data, staff and future? Could your business live without technology (and much needed support that comes with ever changing technology)?
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Check out Bruce Giving Expert Advice To Michigan CPAs. Bruce will be hashing through the security fundamentals that every business need to have in place to (1) avoid compliance risks and (2) protect sensitive data from hackers’ eyes.

Bruce’s talk entitled “HIPAA, Third-Party Vendor Management and Cybersecurity: Side Effects Include” is aimed at CPAs to ensure they know steps to take to protect their healthcare clients from being susceptible to undue risk.
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Pixar’s Toy Story 2 was deleted twice. Each instance, they had to rebuild the movie.

Two months and hundreds of man-hours of work vanished

It all innocently started with a fix to Woody’s hat. Woody needed a slight wardrobe upgrade—that’s all. Just a hat reposition. While one of the editors was tinkering in the file system, trying to install a new and improved Woody, something much unexpected happened.

THE folder containing the Toy Story 2 movie—that at one point had 40 files— suddenly had four then none. What Oren Jacob, former Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for Pixar recounted was an entire movie deleted off the company’s servers.
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Mail Cart CartoonStudies find employees waste over half of their work day on personal time.

Alarming findings from several recent studies on Cyberslacking show that your staff is likely using their work day to partake in personal activities. And even more shocking is that many of these activities could compromise your business.

The internet has definitely altered the way work is performed. We are much more connected to our clients and colleagues than ever before. But we’re also closer to criminals as well. Despite the positive impact the internet has had on communication, it comes with a cost. Wasted work days online are now not so uncommon. Games, videos, social media all contribute to over 35% in productivity of your workers (on average). Depending on how connected your staff is, those numbers could be as great as 70%!
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hire-the-best-it-support-staff

Several folks have asked me recently how we’re able to find good people to work at Dynamic Edge. How we can tell when someone is going to be a good fit. How we decide on who to hire, and who to pass up. I had described the outcome of our hiring process about a year ago, but thought it very fitting to revisit the topic of how to hire, specifically describing how we hire.

First, let’s recap the facts:

Dynamic Edge remains VERY selective when it comes to hiring high quality technicians. As we reported in 2015, we hire under 3% of applicants that apply to work at our company. To put this hiring rate in context, Deloitte (considered one of the toughest consulting firms to land a job) has a hiring rate of just over 3.5%— a number they consider being highly selective.

So, how do we find the best people to work at Dynamic Edge?
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phishing-attempts-trojan-horseRecent reports suggest Eastern Block European countries may start seeking Russia for security-related concerns. What these reports don’t underscore is that there may be implications for your business! I want to take a few moments to explain how Russian influence may increase your cyber security vulnerabilities.

What is all this about eastern block countries seeking Russian protection?

A recent Gallup poll of 4 NATO countries—specifically Bulgaria, Greece, Slovenia and Turkey—has suggested that popular sentiment is leaning TOWARDS Russian support and away from the US. People in those countries are feeling that Russian policies may be better in their self-interest than those of Americans.

Russian cyber security threats persist to riddle American businesses of all sizes A recent forensics report on ransomware identified that over 1.4 million businesses were hit by ransomware last year.  What’s startling is that over 75% of ransomware has been developed by Russian speaking cyber criminals.

What’s even more concerning is that Russia is ACTIVELY swaying eastern Europe.
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