Communicating by email has become second nature for most of us. Only a decade or so ago, it was a strange and new activity that we viewed as a novelty. It is now an indispensable part of our personal and business lives. Unfortunately, as the use and acceptance of email has grown, so have the number of ways in which itcan be used for criminal or just plain evil, purposes. For this reason, we suggest looking into utilizing email security in the form of email encryption rom The Computer Company.

Corporations and governments are using encrypted email technology because of the sensitive nature of their communications. Typically, this type of security is very expensive and technologically advanced. Certainly, for the average personal user of email, it is not practical. More and more, we are seeing this type of email encryption being developed in simpler and much less expensive formats, targeted at the small business user. But is something like this appropriate for you? Let’s take a look at the risks of using unsecured email.

We all know and receive spam messages on a daily basis. For the most part, we employ spam filtering tools to block these messages and they work pretty well. We have become trained to see spam as potentially dangerous. It may simply be an annoying ad offering us designer watches for $15 or it may contain malware, viruses or worse, which is why we are happy that the spam blocker prevents it from entering our inbox at all.

Look at how your spam filter is configured. There usually is a setting to have it permanently remove spam messages as soon as they are identified. This is effective, but if a message from a safe sender gets identified as spam, it will be destroyed along with the junk. The trick is to label all safe senders as such and tell the spam filter that they are OK to receive emails from. However, without much sophistication, bad guys can intercept an email in transit, change the content and even the sender, and then let it continue its journey to your computer. In this case, the safe sender might actually be an email you don’t want to open, particularly if it contains an attachment. In this case, you can only hope that your anti-virus software is going to intercept any threats that might be contained within the innocent-looking email.

Remember that every email you send is like a postcard. If someone wants to read it, all they need to be able to do is access one of the mail servers that it will be routed through on its journey, and this is not as difficult as it sounds. Emails can travel around the globe even if the destination is across the street. It can be routed through servers in faraway countries where sniffers may be installed to detect and read the email. Police and security forces are constantly monitoring our email, searching for keywords that might alert them to the possibility of terrorist or criminal activity. Generally, the content of our emails is pretty benign and of little value to the bad guys, but occasionally, they hit the jackpot and intercept really valuable information in an email, like a password, account number, username or PIN (personal identification number). When you need to communicate such information to someone (which you should really never do anyways), use the telephone.

Email encryption software will actually re-write the content of your email in code, making it difficult for the email to be read by anyone other than the intended recipient. You may already be familiar with a common form of encryption used on web-based HTML pages. This is a secure socket layer (SSL) certificate, which is identified by the page address having the prefix https instead of the regular http. Never enter credit card or banking information or conduct any type of financial transaction on a site that doesn’t start with https! The SSL certificate is a form of encryption that the web site uses to scramble the information, protecting it from prying eyes.

Email encryption technology is even more sophisticated than SSL, but as we rely more and more on email and criminals become more ingenious and clever, it may be wise to look into the different options available. In the meantime, practice safe email usage, use common sense and avoid the headaches that many people have experienced by having their sensitive information compromised

For a free evaluation of your circumstances or a demonstration of our email encryption solution please contact us today.

The Computer Company

info@computercompany.net

800 418 2358

By Jack D Carmichael

Five Questions to Help Small Businesses Decide if they’re Ready to Take the Leap

You’ve heard about cloud computing, and may have wondered what is it exactly, and what it can mean for your business. The simple answer is that cloud computing is anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet. In fact, you may already perform some of your business functions in the cloud, including website hosting, email applications, Google Apps™, or even Salesforce.com®.

You may have seen references to categories of cloud-based computing such as Software as a Service (Saas) or Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). SaaS means that software you would normally install on your computer is instead delivered via the Internet. IaaS is where you rent space in a data center and use a provider’s servers instead of buying new hardware to run your business. With all the services available, there is an opportunity to move your entire business to the cloud. However, most small businesses are opting for a hybrid solution with some data or applications in the cloud and some remaining on company premises. Now that you know what cloud computing is and what it can do for small businesses, we have compiled five questions to help

You decide if the cloud is right for you:

1. Do you find it difficult to budget?  By turning to the cloud, small companies can achieve a significantly lower total cost of ownership for their IT resources. There is no need to purchase software licenses or expensive servers. Maintenance issues such as downed servers or outdated software, and the costs associated with them, become negligible since your cloud services provider is responsible for maintaining the hardware and software. Add in the cost of physical floor space to house multiple servers, plus the electricity required to run them, and cloud services begin to look rather attractive.

2. Are you struggling to manage your individual computers and network infrastructure? It is not uncommon for a small business to berunning the email, website, file storage, backup, security management, finance, and accounting programs all on one server that is being managed by an overworked IT manager. Compare that situation to an application delivered securely over the Internet, hosted on a server farm with the latest equipment, and managed and maintained around the clock by IT experts. In this case, an unexpected boost in traffic to your website will not slow down your entire network as it might with server-based, on-premise applications. Your provider responds in the moment with potentially higher service levels and functional expertise.

3. Is it difficult for you to keep up with current trends such as mobility, or implement changes to your infrastructure? Because the bulk of hardware, software, security, and maintenance are managed by the cloud services vendor, a cloud-based infrastructure is flexible and responsive, allowing you to leverage new capabilities and implement changes quickly and easily. New software, security updates, or hardware appliances can all be provided to benefit users at a much faster rate than most in- house IT departments could hope to achieve. In the cloud, speedy deployment and swift adoption are the norm.

4. Do you wish you had more time to focus on your business? A cloud computing infrastructure frees your time, allowing you to focus on your core business. With fewer servers to manage and fewer client computers failing, you’ll have time to build competitive strategies that give your company the tools and processes it needs to grow. Many companies think a good IT department is one that’s fixing computers, securing networks, and ensuring the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone system is working. However, a great IT department is really one that helps its business strategically use technology to advance the overall company goals.

5. Do you need to protect your company’s digital assets? Cloud computing can provide inherent security to remote employees. In some cases, employees are only accessing data and applications through hosted servers, and no data is stored locally. However, most small businesses are deciding that a hybrid solution is best, where they utilize some data or applications in the cloud and leave some remaining on company premises. Viruses can still wreak havoc on your local computers, and malware and malicious scripts can destroy your network. With these threats in mind, ensure any local data is backed up to protect your infrastructure. Client computers, on-premise servers, overall network, local data, and applications must be secured, encrypted, and protected with complex passwords. Regardless of how mobile users work, in the cloud or on local computers, their devices need to be a part of a backup system so that any locally stored information is protected. Security software to protect against viruses, malware, and unauthorized access must be installed as well. Security is not just about protecting data. It is also about ensuring your own business continuity. Primary and secondary data centers and redundancy plans work to keep your information and applications available and secure.

Cloud computing could be a solution to your problems.

Article provided by Symantec a global leader in providing security, storage, and systems management solutions.

 Virtualization the First Step to Cloud Computing

Many small businesses have invested time and resources to secure and back up their servers, computers, data, and overall network infrastructure in the traditional client-server environment. Now, just when they thought you could relax and reap the benefits of these efforts, emerging new technologies such as cloud computing and virtualization have arrived on the scene, bringing both significant benefits and new challenges.  Cloud computing is essentially a shift to using relatively scalable and reliable, pay-per-use, third-party services over the Internet to do business, such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). Virtualization is the first step to cloud computing. By using software to divide one physical server into multiple isolated virtual environments, virtualization enables a more efficient utilization of existing computing resources. It is also a key stepping stone for cloud computing, as it makes physical and logical resources available through a virtual service layer across the enterprise.

Virtualization offers small businesses the exciting promise of significant time and money savings, increased productivity, and enhanced customer service. Current servers are better utilized, old machines can be retired, floor space is freed up, and—with the need to power and cool fewer systems—energy costs plummet The right solution can protect your data, reduce storage and management costs, and automate storage and management savings with efficient archiving, backup, and security.

There’s no doubt that virtualization offers dramatic benefits for small businesses, including efficiency, cost savings, and increased reliability and performance. But in order to take advantage of these benefits, companies must properly adapt their best practices, policies, tools, and procedures to the virtual environment. With a little caution, planning, and common sense, your virtualization implementation can allow you to do more with less and free up IT staff to focus on strategic projects that help your company grow. To be able to finally harness the full power of IT for a competitive advantage.

Need more information or a free analysis of your current situation attend one of our webinars or just contact the Computer Company at 800 418 2358

Virtualization is the First Step to Cloud Computing

Thu, May 30, 2013 2:00 PM EDT – 3:00 PM EDT

This webinar provides a basic understanding of server virtualization and how it can benefit your company. The webinar covers statistics, benefits, features and concepts of how VMWare solutions increase utilization of your IT infrastructure. We will also explore case studies of this technology and explain how virtualization saves companies money. We will also provide a demonstration of a live VCenter control panel. Register today!