Data Net Blog

“Nice guys finish last.” It’s not a new idea—in fact, it’s paraphrased from a quote teasing the 1946 New York Giants for their last-place finish in their league. In business, it’s become a cliche all its own…but does the cliche actually have anything supporting it?

As it turns out, it doesn’t.

You will agree that having passwords to access your IT devices, networks and data is the first step to securing your business data. However, having passwords is not enough. The passwords have to be strong and difficult to detect or hack into. A lot of ‘smart’ devices today such as phones, tablets, and laptops come with facial recognition and fingerprint sensors that can be used in lieu of passwords. But what happens when you don’t have biometric security measures? You need to ensure that your passwords are strong and also maintain good password hygiene.

The modern company has either completely digitized their business or has at least thought about it. This complete sea change has created a lot of beneficial situations for these organizations, but one element that often gets overlooked is the process of document digitization. In today’s blog we thought we’d go through the document digitization process and why it is so potentially beneficial for businesses. 

The COVID pandemic forced businesses all over the world to adopt remote work practices, whether they were ready for them or not, and it wound up establishing full-fledged remote and hybrid positions which may never have existed otherwise. However, with these new developments come new threats, and you need to be ready to handle them as they crop up.

If the lock to your home’s main door breaks, do you fix it or just let it be? My guess is, you would get a locksmith to fix it for you at the earliest. And, what do you do if you lose the key? Use the spare key, if you have one, to get into your home, right? The situation is kind of similar when it comes to security patches and updates for your software programs. Credible software manufacturers make sure the software programs they develop offer an acceptable level of data security. However, no software is perfect, and knowing this well, cybercriminals constantly work to find vulnerabilities in popular software programs that they can exploit to gain access to your data. Security patches and software updates work to prevent this by fixing or patching the vulnerabilities.

Last week, we wrote about how patience plays a big role in people’s ability to be productive and efficient. This week we want to explore a few ways to help the people in your organization to become more patient. We all know people in our lives that seem like they could definitely take a chill pill. If that is you, using these four suggestions can help you be more patient in situations that demand it. 

We all know that basic hygiene is a must to lead a healthy life. Did you know that the same rule applies to IT as well? There’s something known as cyber hygiene that plays a key role in keeping your business healthy from the IT perspective. So, how do you ensure your business doesn’t fail when it comes to cyber hygiene? Here are a few tips.

Unfortunately, the number of cyberattacks is consistently growing and many of those attacks target business end users. This means that any account that requires a password for access could conceivably be compromised should attackers gain access to its credentials. At Data Net, we promote the use of multi-factor authentication (also known as two-factor authentication or 2FA) to mitigate some of the risk inherent with the use of password-based accounts in business. 

Entrepreneurship is extremely frightening to a lot of people, and that’s probably why a lot of people make the choice to work for others. If you think about it, a lot can go wrong; a lot more than can go right. Today, we thought we’d highlight how business owners are able to get through all of the problems to forge ahead and create successful companies.

In our blog, we talk about security and data breaches all the time. We tell you how you can take efforts to avoid them and how to prepare your organization for the inevitability of being exposed to them. With all that security talk, we should briefly describe the difference between a security breach and a data breach, because they are two different things that get lumped together quite a bit.

One of the popular internet scams that has been doing the rounds since 2017 is the one about “Free Internet”. This scam seems to resurface and somehow manages to claim quite a few unsuspecting victims. Here’s how they catch you.

People can be very productive. They can also be pretty terrible at being productive. The staff that can find consistency in their productivity typically results in a pretty successful business. Obviously, people have all types of suggestions on how to improve staff productivity, individual productivity, and a lot of it is just hitting on the same stuff. There is one variable, however, that is found in a lot of productive people: Patience. 

Who doesn’t like online shopping? Online shopping has opened up a whole new world to us. Get whatever you want, whenever you want, without wandering from store to store. It doesn’t matter if it is too hot to venture outside or if there’s a blizzard out there, you do your shopping from the comfort of your couch and the stuff at your doorstep. You get great deals, some are better than in-store specials. But, did you know cybercriminals love the concept of online shopping as much as you do. Cybercriminals are exploiting the growing popularity of online shopping to cheat unsuspecting buyers through techniques such as phishing, malware injection, etc. Here are a few tips that may work to keep you safe from being a target of cybercriminals as you shop online.

Back in December of 2021, an API vulnerability impacting Twitter was disclosed. Just a few months later, in July, data from more than 5.4 million users—obtained through this vulnerability—was put up for sale, and more recently, another hacker shared the data online. Let’s take the opportunity to examine the concept of an API attack, and what can and should be done to stop them.

Cloud-hosted computing has been around for quite some time, but it has never been as accessible as it is today.  It is now a commonly used resource for almost any type of business. In fact, the growth of cloud-based computing suggests that we are staring at a cloud-hosted future. Today, we wanted to discuss the cloud and how it has become the go-to solution for growing businesses. 

In one of the most common poisoning attacks, the attacker poisons the DNS Cache with the aim of leading visitors to a fake website. In a DNS cache poisoning case, the attacker gains control of the DNS server and then manipulates cache data such that anyone typing the URL of the actual website is redirected to the fake one. This could be a phishing site where the attacker would have carefully laid out a trap to capture the unsuspecting victim’s personal data or secure information. For example, the visitor thinks they are logging into their bank’s website online, but are actually on the attacker’s phishing site, where they enter the login credentials.

In the right hands, Microsoft Excel can be an incredibly potent data management tool. Unfortunately, scrolling down will leave your headers out of sight unless you take steps to freeze them in place. Let’s discuss how you can do this and be more productive with this tool.

Data poisoning by way of logic corruption, data manipulation and data injection happen when the attacker finds a way to access your data set. The kind of poison attack varies depending on the level of access the attacker is able to achieve Here’s what you can do to ensure such access is prevented.

Wasting money is a major problem regardless of the kind of business you run. Technology can do a lot to stretch your dollars, but it can also be the cause of waste. This week, we thought we’d identify three ways that your business could be wasting significant money on your IT. 

Technology has been a critical element to building a business since, well, there’s been business…and 2023 won’t be any different. With operational problems urging businesses to seek out the technology to resolve them, continued adoption of technology is imminent. Let’s consider three ways that technology should be used in the coming months.