Ferrum Technology Services Blog

In light of the recent successful touchdown of Mars Rover Perseverance, it reminded me of a really fun story I read about a technical issue that NASA had a few years ago, and how it’s an extremely powerful message for anyone who relies on technology for their business.

Everyone in a business has set responsibilities that they need to fulfill, one major one being proper security maintenance. A failure to uphold this responsibility could have serious consequences, including the very real potential of a security breach. 

For any business continuity strategy to be complete, a data backup strategy needs to be involved. This is often easier said than done: there are a lot of elements that need to be considered, and some data can go overlooked if the solution isn’t maintained. However, considering the likelihood of data loss without one, a data backup is an indispensable component to prioritize and evaluate over time.

While nobody wants their company to suffer a data breach, the nature of today’s workplace makes these occurrences harder and harder to avoid. In fact, chances are that you’ll eventually encounter one, which makes it important to prepare to deal with it when it comes about.

Here, we’ve outlined a few steps to help your business weather the storm:

The calendar is chock-full of novelty holidays, March specifically starting with things like World Compliment Day (you look great, by the way) and ending with the very scientific Bunsen Burner Day. However, while things like National Pears Helene Day—March 15—are fun, some of these days touch on more important topics.

Let’s go over some of the novelty days in March that can provide us with some IT best practices to keep in mind.

While last year saw a significant decrease in its number of data breaches, the number of records that were leaked doubled… and then some. Part of this can likely be attributed to a spike in the use of ransomware, indicating a resurgence in interest of the mean-spirited malware. This means that your business may very well see more ransomware infection attempts coming its way—the only question is, are your team members prepared for them?

Regardless of a business’ size, technology can help it to resolve most operational challenges it is contending with. For instance, global toy producer The Lego Group shared their own story about how improved IT solutions helped it to address some significant issues it had. Let’s go over what The Lego Group did, and then see how their process could translate to your 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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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. 

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.