The 2013 Trustwave Global Security Report revealed that among 450 data breach investigations conducted worldwide, 63% were attributed to a third-party component of the company IT department. In other words, bad IT outsourcing caused almost two thirds of data breaches. The report revealed that IT outsourcing practices have gradually developed security flaws that hackers find easy to exploit. Luckily, there are ways to protect sensitive data even when using remote access technology to support offshore devices.    

The current state

The report disclosed some of the burning security hotspots that companies face, when outsourcing shares of their IT departments. These findings are also the base for improvement.

• Risk of third parties - only about half of companies involved in the report conducted an inventory of all third parties that have access to employment or customer personal data. On the other hand, 47% admitted to running no risk assessment of third-party vendors.
• Personnel risks - a defeating portion of only 15% employees believe that their company is prepared for a security breach, while 42% feel that they lack skills and training to prevent the data breach.
• Vulnerable components – 80% of virtual private networks (VPNs) were targeted through their privileged accounts. At the same time, two thirds of networking managers revealed that their vendors have access to department-specific software. In addition, the companies involved in the report stated that they had over 1,000 POS malware infections, making desktop sharing another exploit that hackers use.  

Solutions

• In order to minimize your company’s remote risks, you need a remote control strategy. It will recognize the maintenance requests, analyze the remote support budget, and ensure that specific security regulations are met.
• Invest in an on-site solution that enables you more control over security. Access to the administration interface for on-site appliances should be made through an encrypted web connection, with options to restrict it to the local console port or a specific network segment. In this way, you can prevent hackers who have network access to the appliance from breaching into administration functions.  
• As you are trying to find the optimal remote access software, you also need to assess the third party validations. A number of providers offer software solutions that are certified by security-auditing organizations, with the results of the assessments usually available on the providers’ page.
• For total transparency, you need to make every detail of remote support sessions automatically noted and recorded for audit. A clear record of chat transcripts and file transfers increases the audit effectiveness dramatically. You need a hard measure of accountability for the events during each logged session, so you need a live record of system and IP data, that will show when was a specific device accessed.  
• Grade the access privileges, so that only the most qualified and trusted technicians can access the most sensitive data. Keeping the security under control and minimizing the exposure is critical when there is fairly high turnover rate of IT staff and increasing customer demand for extra security.  

Introducing secure remote support solutions is important, because it has become evident that companies are not prepared enough for the data security risks that go with outsourcing IT functions. The preventive measures include limiting the access privileges, using secure remote access protocols, and registering every remote support session.

Dan Radak is a web hosting security professional with ten years of experience. He is currently working with a number of companies in the field of online security, closely collaborating with a couple of e-commerce companies. He is also a coauthor on several technology websites and regular contributor to Technivorz.

We would love to hear your thoughts?

Fivenson Studios is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, our graphic design team specializes in logo and webpage design, as well as marketing campaigns for social and print media. From flyers and brochures to targeted landing pages, we aim to bring your company into the spotlight and reach a greater range of potential customers.

Let's Get Social | https://www.fivensonstudios.com | (734) 224-9696 | [email protected]

We would love to hear your thoughts?

Fivenson Studios is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, our graphic design team specializes in logo and webpage design, as well as marketing campaigns for social and print media. From flyers and brochures to targeted landing pages, we aim to bring your company into the spotlight and reach a greater range of potential customers.

Let's Get Social | https://www.fivensonstudios.com | (734) 224-9696 | [email protected]

We would love to hear your thoughts?

Fivenson Studios is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, our graphic design team specializes in logo and webpage design, as well as marketing campaigns for social and print media. From flyers and brochures to targeted landing pages, we aim to bring your company into the spotlight and reach a greater range of potential customers.

Let's Get Social | https://www.fivensonstudios.com | (734) 224-9696 | [email protected]

As a small business owner, it seems that the second you have just a little time for yourself, someone else pops up needing something. It also seems near impossible for you to separate yourself from the business and afford yourself a little down time.  Every small business owner has dealt with these issues at one point or another. They are simply part of the landscape when you run your own company. However, there are ways to reduce time-wasters and encourage not only better use of your time, but also a break for you regularly.

5 Tips for Better Time Management

1. Keep a Diary—This isn’t your 13 year old diary, but rather a way to keep track of your schedule, thoughts and ideas. Keep it by your side and make a point of writing in it every day. At the end of the week, review what you did. Notice where you are spending (or wasting) a lot of time. Also notice when you were the most productive and when you just needed a break. Use this information to plan your upcoming schedule.
2. Lists—Start your morning by planning your day. Take the first 30 minutes to write out everything you would like to accomplish and then order those tasks by most important to least important. You can also vary the tasks by level of difficulty. Let’s say you have a grueling finance issue to deal with and you also need to review some marketing materials. Focus first on the finance issue, take a break, and then do the easier task of reviewing the marketing materials.
3. Work a Little, Play a Little—Remember when you were doing homework as a kid and your mom said that you had to finish your math before you could take a break. The same rule applies here. Work hard on the task at hand for 20 minutes and then take a 5 minute water break. Get up, stretch your legs, use the bathroom and return to your work area for another 20.
4. New Technology—There are so many programs and apps available to help you with planning your day more efficiently. If you are someone that always has their phone or computer nearby, take advantage at some of the free programs that exist to make the most of your day.
5. Meetings—Ugh, the dreaded meeting. There is not a bigger time suck out there. It can be easy to get pulled into the idea that your company needs a meeting for everything. This isn’t true. Use a messaging system or Skype to talk with your staff or colleagues without having to pull everyone together for a meeting. This will earn you their undying gratitude.

As a business owner, we feel that we must do everything for our company or it won’t get done. This is a fallacy. Delegate responsibilities to your employees and follow up once completed. If they aren’t familiar with the task, train them and have them write up procedures during the training. This way they can train others to do the task as well.

What’s worked for you when it comes to time management? Talk to us in the comments.

Mickie Kennedy founded eReleases in 1998 and offers free PR whitepapers and ebooks to help your business grow.

We would love to hear your thoughts?

Fivenson Studios is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, our graphic design team specializes in logo and webpage design, as well as marketing campaigns for social and print media. From flyers and brochures to targeted landing pages, we aim to bring your company into the spotlight and reach a greater range of potential customers.

Let's Get Social | https://www.fivensonstudios.com | (734) 224-9696 | [email protected]

We would love to hear your thoughts?

Fivenson Studios is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, our graphic design team specializes in logo and webpage design, as well as marketing campaigns for social and print media. From flyers and brochures to targeted landing pages, we aim to bring your company into the spotlight and reach a greater range of potential customers.

Let's Get Social | https://www.fivensonstudios.com | (734) 224-9696 | [email protected]

With every page you "Like," every quiz you take, Facebook gathers more data on your persona that they then share with their partners--who pay dearly for that data. For digital marketers that kind of intelligence can be the difference between a campaign that falls flat and a viral sensation. In fact, this data collection is probably more pervasive than you realize, because it has consequences off-line, as well.

When you check out in a retail store, your purchases are logged by the merchant, and this data is correlated with your email address.

Relax--your personal data is safe, but this Big Data matrix means that there is an unprecedented amount of consumer data available to digital marketers. When this data is correlated with social media, it allows savvy marketers to capture sophisticated market research insights about you and other consumers.

Given any selection of people on Facebook, you can find out: Demographics, Gender & Age Predominance, Lifestyle (personas), Relationship Status, Education Level, Job Title, Page Likes & Categories, Location, Cities, Countries, Languages, Facebook activities, Device use, Household, Household Income, Home ownership, Household Size, Home Market, Value, Spending Methods, Retail pending, Online Purchases, Purchase Behavior, In Market For a Vehicle.

Until now, that kind of data research was limited to big companies. Now you can use the same methodology to find your sales prospects and identify their personas. This is data that some big companies have paid at least $10,000 to obtain, you can now do the same with Facebook ads for free.

We would love to hear your thoughts?

Fivenson Studios is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, our graphic design team specializes in logo and webpage design, as well as marketing campaigns for social and print media. From flyers and brochures to targeted landing pages, we aim to bring your company into the spotlight and reach a greater range of potential customers.

Let's Get Social | https://www.fivensonstudios.com | (734) 224-9696 | [email protected]

In 2014, the New York attorney general announced that almost 23 million private records of his fellow New Yorkers had been exposed in the previous eight years, due to numerous security breaches of personal data. Today every single business that works with people's personal data is in danger of being hacked and digitally robbed. As technology steps rapidly forward, hackers and online thieves keep pace, so business owners have to make all the necessary precautions to secure their clients' data.

Why hacking small businesses?

Hackers whose hobby or job is stealing data on the Internet like attacking small businesses, because they think that way they will easily obtain social security numbers, credit card numbers and e-mail addresses. Why, you might ask? To sell them to whomever who might be interested in that kind of information.

Another feature that attracts hackers to small businesses is a widespread sloppiness in their approach to data security, often caused by their budget restrictions. The worst outcome of such a situation is that small businesses lose their clients' precious data and, consequently, their trust.

Increase password awareness

Have you every opened an email account, trying to sign in, to find out that a colleague of yours is already signed in? Employees sometimes forget to sign out, in the middle of office chaos. However, it can lead to serious personal and business data leak. It can be prevented through a string of briefings on email and password awareness. Posting notes on everybody's computer with a big "log out" title on them might also help in making people more aware of the danger behind such tiny mistakes.

Antivirus and antimalware coalition

A serious business owner will either form a special IT team to take care of the computers and software solutions for the business or outsource a professional company to do that. Servers and local personal computers cannot be left unprotected. It is like offering the data to hackers on a silver platter. Choose some of these protection solutions to ensure that everything that is downloaded or transferred to your computer is scanned with the most powerful antivirus tools.

Cloud storage and encryption

Some employers already keep all of their data online. Some of you might consider such a decision crazy, but they save a high amount of money by using affordable packages for online storage. Thanks to a wide range of cloud providers that have emerged over the last few years, businesspeople get attractive cloud offers. But before you decide to put your previous business data into a stranger's hand, check out their reviews and other people's experiences. If you want to get a backup support, encryption and a huge amount of online space, start using affordable and quality services offered by pCloud.

Check on third parties

Even if your own business IT systems are properly saturated with all the necessary security measures, it is still possible to become a victim of data theft, by hiring third parties. So, before you decide to hire another business for hardware or software maintenance of your business equipment, do a thorough inspection of their previous work. Only the most praised third parties should be gained access to your business premises and devices. Never fall for marketing tricks, but rely solely on facts. The guidelines issued by the Canadian government on outsourcing can be helpful for small businesses, as well.

Prevention is always less expensive than healing, especially in business terms, since in this field major flaws are usually untreatable. Failing to meet security standards would be like approving your own death penalty. In a nutshell – use our advice, search for additional tips and increase the online security of your business.

Dan Radak is a web hosting security professional with ten years of experience. He is currently working with a number of companies in the field of online security, closely collaborating with a couple of e-commerce companies. He is also a coauthor on several technology websites and regular contributor to Technivorz.

We would love to hear your thoughts?

Fivenson Studios is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, our graphic design team specializes in logo and webpage design, as well as marketing campaigns for social and print media. From flyers and brochures to targeted landing pages, we aim to bring your company into the spotlight and reach a greater range of potential customers.

Let's Get Social | https://www.fivensonstudios.com | (734) 224-9696 | [email protected]

We would love to hear your thoughts?

Fivenson Studios is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, our graphic design team specializes in logo and webpage design, as well as marketing campaigns for social and print media. From flyers and brochures to targeted landing pages, we aim to bring your company into the spotlight and reach a greater range of potential customers.

Let's Get Social | https://www.fivensonstudios.com | (734) 224-9696 | [email protected]

As a business owner, you make important choices daily, and also the buck stops with you. What if the decisions you are about to make isn't the right one? Should the cost be raised or lowered? Will the new promo message work? Should your website’s checkout page be redesigned? A great way to decide is A/B testing.

When doing A/B test you should take a portion of your customers and divide them into two groups the control and the test for a period of time. The group you are testing gets the new price the new message and anything else you want to test. The other group is your control group which doesn't see any change to it.

In order to have a successful  A/B test you should establish some sort benchmark to measure against. Your benchmark should include things like revenue, the open rate of your emails, and the amount of people that purchase something on your website. That way when you have completed your A/B testing you will have measurable results to compare it to. Once you see the results of your testing you can move forward with your plans to succeed.

We would love to hear your thoughts?

Fivenson Studios is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, our graphic design team specializes in logo and webpage design, as well as marketing campaigns for social and print media. From flyers and brochures to targeted landing pages, we aim to bring your company into the spotlight and reach a greater range of potential customers.

Let's Get Social | https://www.fivensonstudios.com | (734) 224-9696 | [email protected]

Why Should I Get a Parallax Site & What Are The Benefits?

Webmasters who has viewed a parallax website always ask the same question what’s the point? 99% of the time someone who views a parallax website is blow away. The one problem that webmasters face is whether it’s worth it to change the whole layout of their website.

Then again, this is a decent question. All things considered, back when flash was the standard on sites, guests were compelled to stay there and watch these inconvenient and pointless introductions.  We soon understood that people didn't want to waste their time on pointless animations so the minimalist transformation began.

Does the parallax site fall into the same classification as flash did? Is it going to slow down your site? The answer is no, on the grounds that the impact uses perfect and lightweight code to guarantee that your pages load rapidly, yet despite everything you get a fun approach to pull in guests.

Connect with Your Visitors and Convince Them to Buy or Learn More

A parallax impact serves as to some degree a landing page for your content. Since a large portion of these topics give parallax boxes that cover the entire screen, individuals don't comprehend what's in store from your site until they scroll and reveal it underneath the parallax page.

You'll additionally find that parallax sites provide call to action buttons and overlaying content modules for writing call to action and convince individuals to tap on the buttons. These call to actions can lead to anyplace on your site for example your landing page blog or special offers you may have going on. The thought is to convey consideration regarding your most valuable deals and utilize the parallax impact to motivate individuals to stop and pay attention.

There's Something Hypnotic about It

Each time I see a parallax site I stop and look at it for a few moments, to perceive how it meets expectations and how the organization incorporated it with their content. I'm not certain why, but rather the parallax impact knows how to make individuals pay attention.

Other than stopping individuals to see more, it includes that additional intelligent measurement that makes individuals grin. I like to compare the parallax impact with that of Google's homepage. You'll discover liveliness, diversions, and a wide range of fun changes of the Google landing page. Despite the change, it generally makes you stop and interact with it.

This is the same way a parallax site lives up to expectations, since users are for the most part in a rush to move rapidly while on the web, however then out of the blue, something cool gets their attention. Regardless of the possibility that it just makes them stop for a brief moment, this can be the difference between a sale and no sale.

Great for Presenting Products

At the point when the client looks down, the parallax impact works like an amplifying glass, filtering the foundation and showcasing the subtle elements of the thing. This is an eminent chance to show your items. Case in point, you could place something like a dress out of sight, permitting individuals to look all over the dress to highlight the best components.

Bringing Customers on a Journey

Numerous organizations utilize the parallax impact like this, and it looks wonderful when actualized appropriately. The thought is to consider every one of the components or advantages your organization gives and to carry your clients on an excursion with those advantages.

Since a parallax site is split up into modules as users look down the page, you can highlight an alternate item or service. As the parallax impact moves down the page it uncovers another item for your user to look at. Also, they can tap on call to action to see more about the things.

Parallax Is A Great Storytelling Tool for Creative Businesses

This ties into taking your users on a voyage, yet that excursion doesn't need to include services. The best piece of parallax is that you can get very creative and attempt to bring your users through time, or unite with their feelings.

Parallax Works Nicely for Displaying Company History

An organization history is a course of events perspective of how your business came to be. A couple plugins exist for this, yet why not get a subject that backings staggering presentations made only for this? Essentially, you would begin the story with how your business started, then as clients looked down, the parallax impact would disclose the next years, conveying them up to the present.

Parallax Guides Line of Site

In case you're hoping to send individuals through a sales channel, parallax is your best friend. The developments and unmistakable components draw your users in. You shouldn't have any issue enhancing your business with a parallax design.

It Turns Your Website into Something Worthwhile and Fun

Clearly you need your site to look charming, so why not flavor it up with one of the most effortless ways? Like I said before, a parallax site is very lightweight, and it brings out enthusiasm for your users.

We would love to hear your thoughts?

Fivenson Studios is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, our graphic design team specializes in logo and webpage design, as well as marketing campaigns for social and print media. From flyers and brochures to targeted landing pages, we aim to bring your company into the spotlight and reach a greater range of potential customers.

Let's Get Social | https://www.fivensonstudios.com | (734) 224-9696 | [email protected]