Why is Internet Safety Important? Ways to Avoid Hackers, Identity Theft, and Viruses

why is internet safety important ways to avoid hackers identity theft and viruses

why is internet safety importantAsking why internet safety is important may sound obvious, even if the question isn’t taken seriously enough in the workplace.

With companies enacting Bring Your Own Device policies and getting far too lax on security measures, a simple question asking how safe your company’s use of the Internet is becomes extremely important.

But how do you go about addressing how safe your company really is? Do you even know how safe you are from hackers, identity theft, and viruses?

Dealing with Hackers and Identity Theft

The problem with hacking is that you can be hacked without even knowing it’s happening. It makes it a bigger problem because you may not even realize your private information is being compromised until you find out someone stole your identity months or years later. Private company information can also be compromised on your company computers when you don’t have proper protection. With trade secret theft being a major problem from international hackers, you don’t want a moneymaking secret getting into the hands of your competition or foreign thieves.

Your solution is a decent firewall or having IT support that monitors your system 24/7 to catch hackers in the act.

Viruses and Malware

It’s unfortunate that surfing the net is now a minefield of viruses and malware you can catch directly off a site deemed safe. Typical breaches can come through SQL injection attacks that end up routing malware from another site. These are routed by hackers who place SQL attacks into reputable websites. It wakes you up to the reality that nothing is really safe on the net. However, those who use Windows seem to be the most vulnerable. This isn’t to say Mac computers won’t start being vulnerable just as much.

Phishing Scams

Clicking on an unknown link in a company email is one of the biggest Internet safety threats today. Far too many employees get fooled by phishing links because some of them appear to be from real companies with reputable names. The truth is, you shouldn’t trust any link in an email until running it through a security software for scanning. When companies become victims of phishing scams, identity theft can occur, as well as sending personal information potentially compromising the security of your whole company.

All of the above are things we tackle every day here at AE Technology Group. However, with our IT support system and management, you don’t have to worry about any of them thanks to our 24/7 monitoring. We also have experience in the act of prevention so many of them can be avoided in the first place while utilizing the latest security technology.

Contact us so we can help you establish a better Internet safety campaign in your company. The same applies in the home when it’s so easy to tuck those issues away with the thought it won’t happen to you.

Cyber Safety Facts in Schools and the Work Place: The Similar Patterns of Kids and Adults

cyber safety facts in schools and the work place the similar patterns of kids and adults

Cyber safety facts for kids and adults aren’t necessarily all that far apart from one another when you consider adults do the same things kids do online.

They both go on social media, and sometimes talk with strangers they may not know in those same places.

They also deal with placing personal information online that could easily be compromised if not careful.

Just how much more similar are kids to adults in the cyber world and their vulnerability to cyber safety? Take a look at these facts and keep your own kids and company employees safe.

Posting Personal Information Online

Kids frequently go on social media and perhaps say or do things parents aren’t even aware they’re doing. It’s why parents should supervise their underage kids on social media to see what they’re saying to strangers. While you also want to respect some of their privacy when talking to friends, knowing what they’re saying publicly is imperative. You don’t want them giving out your personal address or giving your family’s last name to someone they don’t know.

The same goes in your company with your employees. As a supervisor, you should be aware of what your adult employees are doing on social media. Unfortunately, some people can act worse than kids when posting things anonymously online. This could include private information about your company you don’t want seen by the public. Evidence suggests we frequently give out far more private information online when we think we’re safe under an anonymous name.

Dealing with Predators in Chat Rooms

Chat rooms are still around, even if Twitter usually fills in under the same concept. Kids are also still targets from pedophiles who scan chat rooms and social media looking to communicate with them. You should always be aware of who they’re talking to while creating a careful balance of not intruding on conversations with their true friends. If you see evidence of a name they’re talking to that isn’t familiar, you should investigate who they are.

Your adult employees may be doing the same thing. In the world of trade secret theft, you also have people who fish for information through your employees. This could happen in a social media conversation where your employee may give away more information than they even realize. They should be cognizant to every word said online or risk giving away things potentially endangering your company.

Your employees can also be the targets of online predators, or perhaps do link-ups that become dangerous.

Avoid Clicking on Links from Strangers

The most common way to get a virus on your computer or for thieves to gain access to your personal info is through phishing links. On social media, kids are going to see hundreds of links from people that look legitimate. If you don’t recognize the name, your kids should be educated not to click any unknown links. With just one click, it could send personal info to a hacker who can hack your computer to steal identities.

Of course, shared phishing links can happen with people you know. It’s best to learn how to scan the link with a virus software to make sure it’s safe. Unfortunately, it’s a warning even adult employees in companies don’t heed. In that regard, you need to have a policy in place to make your employees aware of phishing links.

All told, more viruses and computer issues are created by being fooled by phishing scams in the workplace.

Here at AE Technology Group, we can help bring a strong level of cyber safety to your company. With our comprehensive IT services, we’ll use preventative measures to make sure these threats never happen to retain your peace of mind.

Contact us so we can tell you more about our IT services and provide security in a time when all of us are sitting ducks without the most thorough protection.

How to Make a Laptop Faster: Adding What You Need While Removing What’s Unnecessary

It’s easy to get lazy when our laptops get slow, including taking time out to just cuss at our laptop’s slowness rather than do something about it. And many steps can take less than twenty minutes to help make your laptop run faster than it probably has in several years. Taking the time out of your schedule to do it now is important, because it could potentially get worse during a critical time when you’re using your laptop for business.

Eliminating What’s Unnecessary

Do you have a lot of programs on your desktop or internally that you don’t use much any more? Go in and remove those off your hard drive since they’re probably slowing your laptop down. You simply have to go into your device manager through Windows (or Mac) and choose to delete the programs you no longer use.

This also eliminates the icons off your desktop so reboot times can run faster.

Another thing to remove are programs that come with your laptop, some of which are far from being necessary. Windows gives you many of these you’ll probably never use. You should remove those, because they’re taking up more space on your hard drive than you think.

Did you also know that things like graphics and fonts from Windows can also slow down your laptop? Something as simple as graphics you see during the boot phase can slow down the whole booting process. By turning off Graphical User Interface during reboots, you can make things run faster. The same with all the fonts Windows provides.

You don’t have to delete them completely and just select “Hide” so they don’t all load.

Most of all, you should just delete your temporary Internet files with a general disk cleanup, plus a disk defragment. These are the most classic solutions to speed up a slow computer, and the time it takes will vary depending on how many Internet files your laptop has to delete. Generally, it’s no more than a few minutes. Disk cleanup and the disk defrag can take a little longer.

Also, scan your laptop for viruses since even the most innocuous malware on your computer can slow performance down to a crawl.

What to Add to Speed Things Up

Adding more memory is your most essential thing to speed up your laptop. A full hard drive is going to give a lot of frustrating lags when you want things to move fast. In a lot of cases, external memory is the way to go to ensure you’ll have plenty of space. On Macs, using Time Capsule to save everything is one of the best tools out there to keep a Macbook Pro running faster.

Here at AE Technology Group, we’re always working on private and business computers to get them running faster. Along with our comprehensive IT services, we can help keep the laptops in your business running fast all the time. This ensures your employees will have a fast laptop during the critical times when they’re on the go.

Contact us about our IT services and how we can keep all of your technology running smoother with IT support, cloud solutions, and disaster recovery.

My Computer Is Really Slow: 3 Things To Try Before Bringing In The Professionals

my computer is really slow 3 things to try before bringing in the professionals

My Computer is Really Slow If you find yourself complaining “my computer is really slow” to anyone who will listen, then it is time to try one of these 3 techniques to bring your PC back up to its optimum speed.

Reduce or Eliminate Programs That Boot at Start-up

Many programs will set themselves to start when your computer boots up if you don’t manually change their settings. Over time as many programs are installed on your computer, this can turn into a big problem.

By the time your computer finishes booting, you may have so many programs running that you are not even using that there is no memory left to handle anything else

Delete Unused Files

Having to much of your hard drive space filled can affect your computers performance. Go through your files and delete anything you are not using anymore. If you really must keep every file you have, then consider at least transferring some of them to an external hard drive or other external storage media.

Try An Alternative Antivirus Program

Even if you have an antivirus program on your computer, viruses and malware may still be the cause of your slow computer woes, especially if you are running a free program or you haven’t updated your software in ages. Try running a different antivirus program and see if it catches any bugs your current software has been missing.

If none of the above solutions has worked for you then it may be time to bust out the big guns and consult a professional. If you would like to have your computer running at optimum speed again, then contact us today.

Two Types of Laptop Hard Drives Explained

two types of laptop hard drives explained

HDD vs SSD

Among the factors you look at when buying a laptop are size and weight, battery life, power, speed, and storage capacity. You often have to trade off one feature for another. For example, a light model with a long battery life may not have the processing power and storage capacity of a heavier device. Whether a laptop has a mechanical or solid state drive (SSD) affects many of these options.

Mechanical

The mechanical drive is an older technology that relies on a magnetic head to read and write data as it travels over a rotating disk. A magnet can erase data from the disk. This type of drive is more common than an SSD. It is heavier and noisier and because it has moving parts, it can also break down more easily.

If a cost is a concern, then this is the drive to pick. It offers far more storage with 750GB being typical for many laptops. You want to choose this drive if you rely on stand-alone software and prefer to keep your data on a machine rather than on the cloud.

Solid-State

An SSD dispenses with platters, disks and moving parts by storing information on microchips. This makes them lighter and more physically durable. Dropping an SSD or holding in next to a magnet does not affect its data. It also stores and accesses information more quickly than a mechanical drive.

Among its disadvantages is cost. While their prices continue to go down, SSDs are usually seven or eight times more expensive than mechanical drives of equal capacity. It also offers less storage capacity with 185GB to 256GB being typical.

Choose an SSD if you prefer a lightweight model that is fast and reliable. Because you won’t have as much room for data on an SSD, your laptop must have reliable connections to the cloud for additional storage.

The right IT technology and services can make your business thrive. If you need help in making the best choices, please contact us. We want to be your managed service provider.