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Ferrum Technology Services Blog

Ferrum Technology Services has been serving the Elgin area since 2007, providing IT Support such as technical helpdesk support, computer support, and consulting to small and medium-sized businesses.

Good Communication Is a Key to Good Business

Good Communication Is a Key to Good Business

People are known to consider good communication as the foundation to forging and maintaining successful relationships. For businesses, this couldn’t be more true. Solid communications both in the operations of a business and with its customers can set it apart from other businesses that are trying to do the same things. This month, we thought we’d take a look at how small businesses can build a successful communications strategy that allows them to thrive in today’s competitive marketplace. 

Data Backup You Can Trust

Data Backup You Can Trust

Every business owner wants to protect their data. Even if they don’t pour money into doing so, they typically still understand the importance of it. That’s why three-out-of-every-four businesses perform a backup at least once per week. It’s still good to be reminded how to make sure your backup can work for you. Let’s go over a few basic considerations to make if you want a data backup that you can trust.

How To Keep Burnout From Impacting Your Productivity

How To Keep Burnout From Impacting Your Productivity

We’ve all had those days when motivation eludes us, and they can be extremely frustrating. Fortunately, there are ways that you can rejuvenate your drive in either your personal or professional life. Let’s go over some of these tactics to try and keep burnout at arm’s length.

Two Lessons Businesses Can Learn from the Spotify Data Discovery

Two Lessons Businesses Can Learn from the Spotify Data Discovery

Every so often, we come across a bit of news that helps to teach not one, but two cybersecurity best practices at the same time. With the recent news of a cache of hacked Spotify accounts, we find just such an opportunity. Let’s review the two lessons to be learned.

How to Ensure Your Remote Workforce Isn’t Making You Vulnerable

How to Ensure Your Remote Workforce Isn’t Making You Vulnerable

Considering the current popularity of remote operations, the security of your business’ resources should be one of your greatest concerns. While this process isn’t necessarily easy, it isn’t something you can afford to neglect. Let’s take a few moments and walk through some of the most critical considerations to your office and its data security.

You’ll Need to Do Better Than Just a Firewall

You’ll Need to Do Better Than Just a Firewall

When dealing with IT, there are often misconceptions as to what some parts of an IT infrastructure does. Firewalls are a prime example, as many believe that a firewall is the catch-all for all bad things coming in from outside the network. This month we will discuss why this isn’t the case, and tell you what you really need to secure your business.

The Four Corners Your Network Security Needs to Cover

The Four Corners Your Network Security Needs to Cover

Network security is paramount to a business’ success with the number of security incidents and data breaches that could potentially upend it. While this sounds like a task of marginally epic proportions, managing your security can be greatly simplified via a few basic activities. Let’s go over four such security-boosting actions that you should direct your attention to.

Keep Your Business Safe with These Best Practices

Keep Your Business Safe with These Best Practices

Security has to be a priority for your business. Oftentimes there is a disconnect between those aims and the practices used by businesses. This gap in vigilance can be just the place that hackers and other scammers look to as they attempt to steal what you have. This month, we thought it was important to provide you a few best practices to follow to keep your data and infrastructure safe. 

Improving Organizational Cybersecurity

Improving Organizational Cybersecurity

The nature of many of today’s businesses is building one product over and over and over. When you have that level of repetitiveness, it helps people find their niche, yes, but it can also result in the attention given to the task to suffer. While a disengaged employee is nothing new, they can cause some operational problems. By and large, a couple of staff hiccups won’t have a huge impact on your business, unless that lack of engagement impacts your cybersecurity. That’s because there are some threats out there that could absolutely cripple your business’ ability to sustain operations. Today, we’ll talk about how to get your staff to care about malware, hackers, and the like. 

Why You Should Encourage Breaks

Why You Should Encourage Breaks

In modern business culture, productivity reigns supreme. So much so, in fact, that the concept of a break is unofficially frowned upon and seen as an indicator of an unproductive employee. Breaks can actually benefit the productivity of your team. Let’s go over the perception of a break, and what the reality is.

Keeping Thorough Records Can Help Your Business

Keeping Thorough Records Can Help Your Business

If your business uses as much technology as the average business, you will need to ensure that it is properly documented. Today, we’ll go through what a managed service provider includes in their documentation practices.

Reopening Your Business Comes with Real Challenges

Reopening Your Business Comes with Real Challenges

Business reopening is proving to be relatively difficult as COVID-19 isn’t going away. To ensure the health of your staff, while still reopening your business to create revenue, you will need to carefully weigh all your operational decisions. Today, we have outlined some best practices in which to do so. 

Tip of the Week: Get Control Over All Your Notifications

Tip of the Week: Get Control Over All Your Notifications

For Android users, notifications are a big part of the user experience. Unfortunately, every single app you use creates them and they can be a major distraction. To help limit these notification-based distractions, you need to understand how to manage them. Today, we give you a few suggestions on how to keep your notifications from being a detriment to your productivity.

Taking Data Security Seriously

Taking Data Security Seriously

If you don’t think that your business is at risk of cyberattack from the Internet, you are running your business on borrowed time. If you want to avoid this scenario, you will have to be prepared to do what you can to keep it safe.  This entails following some strict rules and being smart about where and when to deploy security checkpoints. We looked at what an organization needs to do in order to keep the threats that are bandying about from having a marked effect on your business.

There’s a Right Way to Work Remotely, and a Not-So-Right Way

There’s a Right Way to Work Remotely, and a Not-So-Right Way

Under the current circumstances, remote work is being viewed as the safer option. This has led a lot of businesses to adopt these practices for the time being--you may have already done so. However, some employees have a better grasp of how to properly work from home than others. We’ve put together a few examples of how an employee may conduct themselves while working from home.

Coronavirus: A Threat to Your Staff, Cyberthreat to Your Operations

Coronavirus: A Threat to Your Staff, Cyberthreat to Your Operations

COVID-19, or coronavirus, has been a major global health concern over the past couple of months. At this point, it is clear that this disease could have serious impacts on the workplace. We wanted to provide a brief rundown of good workplace and network health practices, as well as a few pointers on how you can handle health-based employee absences.

Tip of the Week: Lock Your Network Down with These Tips

Tip of the Week: Lock Your Network Down with These Tips

There are a lot of security threats directed toward businesses today, with plenty of immoral opportunists seeking to profit at your expense. This makes it critical to secure your network and its data, which sounds like an expensive and time-consuming process. However, it doesn’t have to be, as we’ll show you by highlighting a few ways to protect your business and its assets.

Backups Leave Your Business Secure

Backups Leave Your Business Secure

In order to function properly, the modern business needs data. With the predictions of serious cyberattacks, like ransomware, that have been made for the coming year there is no business that can neglect its data protections. Here, we’ll discuss what these predictions are, and what you need to do to prepare.

How to Optimize Security, Regarding Your Servers

How to Optimize Security, Regarding Your Servers

Your business relies on its servers in order to function - which makes it incredibly important that these servers are sufficiently protected. There are a few practices that you can put into place that will help you to secure your server room. Let’s work our way from the inside out as we review them.

Add Cybersecurity Best Practices to Your Next Hire’s Training

Add Cybersecurity Best Practices to Your Next Hire’s Training

Growth can be very exciting for a business. It generally means that all the hard work that has gone into getting the business to that point has paid off. For some in your organization however, it can be a very stressful time. This is because once you commit to pay new employees, there’s some pressure to get them up to speed quickly. After all, what are you paying them for?

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