Covad-19 Pushes Businesses to Realize the Potential of Remote Staff

Network Advisor Q, like many MSP’s (Managed Service Providers) helped companies transition to a remote workforce.  Not because they wanted to, not because they finally gave in, but because they needed to to remain open.

Work environments that completely moved businesses to the “cloud “with Cloud computing and presence.  Smaller remote jumps, using private connections with remote software or 3rd party software to connect them to their desktop at work.  Either way, businesses are remote.

What does this massive work style change due for the future?  Will small businesses, and or large companies take advantage of their newfound expansion and freedom from “brick and mortar”.

Network Advisor Q has requests to deliver plans to reduce the physical on-site work force size for these companies.  They want to make a more flexible work environment; businesses are realizing that with the right staff and better incentives, productivity and satisfaction increases in staff.

An example is to reconfigure a client’s existing space to have half the staff present at a time.  They want to take 10 offices, and 6 cubicles away, reducing the size of their office space by half.

Estimated to happen within the next 6 months.  They have designed a plan to decrease the size of their office by half, and with minimal investment.  They will be leasing the other half of space to whomever wants it.  It will already include a conference room, a luncheonette, shared bathrooms and wired for internet, telecom, and video.

The savings will go to improve their current IT infrastructure, and allow a rotating 50/50 office staff.  You may ask 50/50 what , how..?  Well their plan is to allow staff to Telecommute every other week. In the current situation of all staff is remote. They have seen productivity increase, staff moral increase and over all satisfaction of staff increase with promising results.

Every other week staff will rotate from an onsite to a remote status.  Conferencing is still held like normal, but instead of everyone huddled in a conference room most will attend meetings remotely with video and or phone.  Projects are still discussed regularly, and updates are now provided real time via 3rd party apps such as slack or Microsoft teams.

Will it be the trend, will telecommuting finally take off and companies reap the benefits?  It is still soon to tell but if the world remains spinning, change is inevitable, and businesses will always want to reduce overhead.  We will see.

Until l then, Network Advisor Q is excited to be part of this business turning point and we hope in the future many more companies start to reduce their physical footprint, not only to reduce costs and overhead but to be more flexible and aware how technology is changing the way we do business.

 

We also wish everyone to stay safe and healthy during this pandemic.

MSP’s……Helpful or Dangerous

Are Managed Service Providers getting sloppy?   Are we more danger to our clients than helpful……. ?

Over the past few months you may have heard of Managed Service Providers (MSP), being targeted for Ransomware. Theses attacks use a MSP’s system to mass infect several of their clients, and in some cases all of the clients, they monitor and protect.

Network Advisor Q is sad to say this is very true and is an ongoing battle to protect ourselves and our clients we serve.   Because we will never say this cannot happen to us or our clients, Network Advisor Q is and has taken several precautions to prevent and prepare for such incidents.

Some prevention measures:

  • Start enabling 2 factor authentications where possible
  • Change up your passwords so no 2 sites use the same password
  • Lock out and remove any past employee access
  • Remove old software that is no longer used
  • Have a good firewall
  • Do not answer or even click links on suspicious emails
  • Check with your insurance company regarding “Cyber Security Coverage”
  • Backup, offsite and encrypted, if not already doing so. And spot test restoring data
  • Check with you provider to see if they are covered and what security procedures they have in place.
  • Create a plan for system outages and or data loss.
  • Find out how long it would take to get back up if data needed to be restored

These new ransomware deployments systematically attack.  Destroying backups, turning off alerting and disabling the Antivirus.  Then it encrypts your data for hostage.

Now not even saying you have a backup could be good enough.  MSP’s and clients need to test the protections we have in place.  Make sure we are getting good backups.  Make sure those are protected and can not be easily compromised.

All businesses need to take up measures to not only protect themselves against ransomware and attacks.  Prevent the fallout caused to your clients and their clients because you may have been targeted and your data has been compromised and you can no longer service your clients.

These attacks are not just a possible loss in data and money but are against the law and in such a manor, all attacks should be reported to the proper authorities for investigation.

At NAQ. we have been getting targeted processes in place for such scenarios….

  • Notifications to clients
  • Updates regarding the situations
  • How ransomware infiltrated a system
  • How to re-mediate it properly

We not only have process in place, but data recovery and system repair companies, we now can work with to re-mediate and repair our clients if such a large-scale attach would happen.

NAQ has been implementing procedures and spot tests for our systems and our client’s systems.

 

Can you say your backup systems work properly?

 

Have you tested for an actual event?

 

 

The ability to keep you notified and informed of incidents that are happening are key to a smooth recovery from a disaster if ever hit.

 

Please feel free to ask and see what we can do for you to help you become better protected and covered with today’s technology.

 

Below an in-depth article regarding this new threat.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/techburger/article/Managed-service-providers-are-ransomware-hackers-14441149.php

What is spoofing…?

What is spoofing?

Just like real-world criminals and con artists, online thieves can use impersonation as a means to steal important information or get access to bank accounts. This practice is called spoofing — an umbrella term that includes IP address spoofing (sending messages to a computer using an IP address that makes it look as if the message is coming from a trusted source), email spoofing (forging an e-mail header to make it look like it came from somewhere or someone other than the actual source) and DNS spoofing (modifying the DNS server in order to reroute a specific domain name to a different IP address).

How does spoofing work?

Spoofing is a type of technological impersonation that seeks to fool either a network or a human into believing that the source of some information is trustworthy, when it’s anything but. Hackers, for example, might email spoof you by sending you emails disguised as coming from someone you trust as a way to get you to hand over sensitive data. Or, they might try IP spoofing and DNS spoofing to trick your network itself into leading you to fraudulent sites that will infect your computer.

How can you recognize spoofing?

Email spoofing is the easiest to recognize as it targets users directly. Any strange email that requests sensitive information could be a spoof, especially if it asks for usernames and passwords. Remember, legitimate sites will never ask for these. You can also check the email address to make sure it’s from a legitimate account. However, you may never know if you’re the victim of IP or DNS spoofing, although keeping keen eye out for small changes or unusual behavior could clue you in. When in doubt, it’s better to play it safe to keep from making any disastrous mistakes.

Can you remove spoofs?

Since spoofing is a type of impersonation, it’s not really something you can remove. Instead, you can protect yourself by using a little bit of common sense and discretion when browsing or answering emails, even if you think they’re trustworthy.

How to prevent spoofing
  • Don’t reply to any email asking for account details or login info
  • Double-check the sender address of any suspicious emails
  • Pay attention if any of your trusted websites look or start acting differently
Protect yourself against spoofing

Protection against spoofing can be as easy as staying on guard whenever you’re online. But there’s more you can do to stay safe. You can also make sure that you’re using a powerful antivirus, such as those offered by Network Advisor Q which will protect you from imposter sites as well as catch and destroy viruses that try to infiltrate your network.

Network Advisor Q – Give and Get Giveaway Launches

Its March Madness………………………..

Enter to win, one of 3  contestants, a free Amazon fire TV stick. Prize winners are announced March 31st at noon.  Just go to the below link to enter, remember share the page to complete the entry and Follow us on Facebook for more giveaway’s in the future.  Future prizes could include A new Dell Chromebook, an Echo Dot, gift cards and more.  Thanks for following our Posts and we appreciate your business.

 

 

 

(click on Present to enter)

 

 

Where does your Internal Network Stand…

Network Advisor, back from CES 2019 and what did we learn from all those new and trending ideas.  Besides TV’s become thinner, more resolution and fold-able, artificial intelligence is coming and no one wants to drive to work (self driving cars are here).  The 2019 Consumer Electronic Show again was just memorizing, we got to play with new tech, old tech renewed and future tech on the cutting edge of AI and self-awareness.  What does this all tell us, what do we tell our consumers, where do we want to go.

Network Advisor Q spoke with and had conferences regarding the infrastructure and backbone components of the world wide web (internet), and how companies need to maintain the internal networks to be compatible and fast to accommodate the newest of technologies.  Seeing that most providers are starting the 5g testing and mainstream adaptation, it will come down to business keeping up with the internal network to be able to transfer that speed and access to today’s technology.

What’s most important to us besides proactively monitoring and updating the pc, is making sure the network your on is running reliably at peak performance.  Network Advisor Q has partnered with companies such as Ubiquity, Cisco, Trend Net, Netgear, and Linksys to provide affordable cutting-edge internal networking equipment and monitoring to keep companies speed and data flowing within and outside their networks.

New structures in access points and mesh networks allow stronger faster Wi-Fi signals, new fiber connection between switches and gateway routers allow full speed utilization and optimizations, and monitoring the internal network for bottle necks, drops, hardware patches and speed allow more controllable less expensive network trouble-shooting and maintenance.  Performance, Control, and Reliability are the key to your internal network.

Network Advisor Q and our partners want to let you know that a good foundation (a good internal network layout) can not be compromised in order to give the expectations of great performance and smooth workflows between internal and cloud-based programs and data.  Informative and in real time NAQ can provide you with the data required to keep your internal network up to date and optimized for performance and reliability.

What does the future hold for us and our companies…?  The ability to be connected to each other through complex and simple network infrastructures that are optimized for performance and sustainability.

Make sure your network can take the next step,  Give us a call to see how we can help you.  At home or at work let us help keep you connected.

Network Advisor Q

Online Holiday Shopping Season is here- Basic steps to help keep you safe from scams.

Phishing, Scammers, and Trojan Keyloggers,- attacks are rising in frequency this Holiday season.

 

Network Advisor Q wants to remind everyone during this holiday season of shopping online and looking for gifts to be careful, cautious and alert.  Phishing emails to try to have you relinquish your password to email and other sites are becoming more and more frequent, fake alerts that your infected and need to call to get your computer fixed pop up from unprotected compromised sites and redirected fake sites are showing up more and more.

 

Network Advisor Q wants you to be safe this holiday shopping season.  There are enough complications in everyone’s life that we don’t need to add being hacked or identity theft to the pile.  Here are some steps to protect yourself.

Make sure your antivirus and firewall features are updated and running.

 

Make sure windows or your OS are fully updated and patched with the latest security updates and downloads.

 

Go to places you trust on the web, and if a email comes to you to verify some password or login, don’t use the embedded link in the email- open your browser and log directly into the site to see if its real.

 

Most web sites also have contact info for consumers, if you receive a suspicious email from a site call and confirm, a 30-minute phone call can save you hours, days, or years trying to get your identity back.

 

Take your time reading the email or pop up– check for grammar and spelling mistakes to the most common English words and sentence structure. Check the senders address  Outlook@jjjhk.au for example this did not come from Microsoft because the domain doesn’t even reference a Microsoft owned domain name (red lettering).

 

When in doubt call a professional, or more knowledgeable friend. Most companies such as mine will freely give you advice for a one- or two-minute conversation.  Network Advisor Q encourages calling or emailing us if you are questioning a suspicious email or site.

 

After a pop-up or site that looks fake is opened, do a quick scan for malware or viruses, close the current browser, even restart your pc and open a new browser window to

see if it has affected the settings. Example.. changing the default search engine from google to (webhelper) or it changed your home page to a different site.  If any of the above -call your professional to help revert and clean the infection of spyware or virus.

 

If it sounds to good to be true, it’s probably fake– We all get them, emails and sites that promise free items or amazon gift cards. DON’T,  the more lists and sites you register to, increases the ability for a phishing scam to infiltrate your pc and increases the amount of junk mail you receive.

 

Change up and regularly change your passwords to financial institutions and email sites. As much it is a pain to do these items, it does secure your privacy better, just because they know one password doesn’t mean they can get all passwords.

 

Finally, when available and if it doesn’t mess with functionality of any programs- enable 2 step authentications. This will prevent unauthorized access to your accounts, it will also notify and record logs of when the account was accessed and even from what ip address.  It will prevent and help in fighting the never-ending battle against people who want to do you harm.

Network Advisor Q want you and your family to have a safe and Happy Holiday this year.  Remember to be safe and vigilant on the web, rely on your professionals, and remember to try to Shop Local.  We have included some phishing emails and pop up images throughout the article for reference.  We are here for you if you may have any questions.

 

 

 

Tech repair and service company with heart

“Working for and with the true American dream”

One of my company’s goals and resolutions is to work with residential, Home-based, Small Business and Non-Profits.  That is what drove myself, with the support of my friends and family, to finally step out from behind the curtain of other tech companies and launch a new standard of tech service provider.  A tech company that can take pride in its grass roots, and not just recycle facts and statistics of what’s already being done and being mass marketed as “tech standard”.  I want to make a difference in our client’s happiness and success.

 

“Breaking the Standard”

Small isn’t bad, slow isn’t the enemy, and like democracy- you will always have a choice.  Time and time again working for other tech companies, I have seen the indifference, price gouging, and bias applied to businesses that do not meet the cookie-cutter requirements of not doing things the way the standard tech companies want.  Buy this router, we only support this vendor or product, backup here so we get a piece of the return, or you can’t be supported on our cheaper plans because your equipment doesn’t meet our standards and support levels.  Eventually any support given to anyone who doesn’t fall into the standard norm is overcharged, not satisfactory, or just radically overpriced.

Not any more, Network Advisor Q is here to support the needs of residential, Home-based, Small Business, and Non- Profits.  I created a company where my clients, my vendors, and my team of technicians are all partners in the same goal.  We all want to grow and succeed, provide for our families and employees, and be happy and as stress free as can be.

 

“Enjoying the Work”

Network Advisor Q as a company over the last year has applied our non-standard business model and found that it is very sustainable to be affordable and provide great customer experiences and satisfaction with the services we provide.  Being a single project, a monthly service, a one-time on-site repair, or even just a consultation.  The level of service and performance of the client has always been at the highest level.  We enjoy our work; my team enjoys working with our clients and our clients enjoy working with us.  Network Advisor Q is a partner in the success of our client’s business, and in turn, we grow as they grow.

 

“Lowering the Cost – what’s the payoff”

Network Advisor Q keeps a low overhead and employs a simple method into reducing the cost for our clients.  We provide our clients with what they can afford, we manage products and sell services that are built for the size of their company and not for what they could be in a year or two.

Network Advisor Q offers repairs and fixes, that remediate the issue completely or its free.  We don’t attack issues just as they arise but offer advice, products and services that are pro- active and help eliminate problems that could arise.  We look at the bigger picture and get a full understanding of what a client wants to do before implementing a plan.  The team works with the clients and offers fixes around the schedules of the person or persons having the trouble.  We talk to our clients and listen to what they say and make advisement on it.

What is the pay off?

For our clients, they don’t call for reoccurring issues, the don’t email us for broken hardware, we see it first and call them.  Our clients aren’t calling or emailing every day for small annoyances and issues that are easily avoidable, including email connection problems. They do not loose time during work hours.

For Network Advisor Q, we can manage and handle more clients with less staff reducing the overhead. Providing the ability to reduce the cost for labor for our clients but still providing great customer service and care.

 

“Why is this good”

With it being harder and harder in today’s business world to open, run, and maintain a business the last thing any owner needs is a large overhead cost for technology and the services that come with it.  Network Advisor Q strives to make each client experience with I.T. simple, pleasant, and low cost.  Our clients then can concentrate on the business of what needs to be done and not why it can’t be done.  Providing this frees them to grow and succeed.  This makes Network Advisor Q succeed.

I will be first to admit it, I will never become a millionaire, nor will I ever be known other than “the computer guy” in some cases.  At Network Advisor Q, we know in are hearts we are helping keep an American dream alive for someone.  Providing our clients affordable rates, and great customer service is what we enjoy.

 

Keep the dream alive – Shop local, Shop USA.

 

Thank you to all of those that support us in our endeavors and thank you to all our local clients and friends.

Sincerely,

“The Support Team @ Network Advisor Q”