NetWorthy Systems Blog

Still haven't found all the right gifts for this holiday season? You are on your own there - but we CAN help ensure a safe online shopping experience. Internet shopping has become widely popular over the years, and this year retailers have seen a big increase in mobile transactions as well. Consumers can skip the lines and the crowds and save a lot of cash in the process. Online shopping is generally safe, although there are a few tips you'll want to be aware of before going virtual shopping this holiday season.

Email is (and has been) a prime method of communication for businesses of all sizes. With email comes a whole slew of issues that are essentially synonymous with the technology; spam, information overload, phishing, and information privacy. Even Golden Triangle small businesses that only do business locally are at risk of these issues. Personal email accounts are equally at risk. Employing proper precautions and practices whenever communicating via email is very important to prevent the risk of security compromises, monetary loss, and even legality issues.

If you take a laptop out into the world, you've probably seen the notification saying "Wireless Network Detected." Free hotspots are not uncommon in coffee shops, hotels, airports, and other public locations,  There are some things to know before you simply hop on an unfamiliar wireless network.

Security is an important aspect to a company's continuity, and while portions of business security involve things like anti-virus and firewalls, other aspects of security can't be handled by a piece of equipment. In these cases, your organization needs to create security policies, and keep them up to date as the company grows and changes. There are many policies and sub policies that are necessary for any organization that, if non-existent, can cause chaos down the road.

Sometimes studies like these are laughable, but nevertheless, worth discussing.  Norton's latest Cybercrime report suggests that people who fall victim to malware are statistically more likely to be mugged in real life.  If someone is careless when it comes to online security, could that really reflect how susceptible they are in everyday life?

If you have ever been the victim of a computer virus or cyber attack you know how bad it can hurt. You know the pain of having your data compromised or even your business operation completely shut down. You feel violated, and to add insult to injury, you have no idea who did this dirty deed.

Prominent companies falling victim to hacker has become all too common in the news. Some of the larger breaches in security involve the compromise of thousands of customers' information. Definitely not the kind of press you want, not to mention the irreparable damage to your business. This can be a little scary for a small business owner, especially if you consider that these large companies have the best cyber security money can buy.

Having strong passwords for your online accounts is very important, but sometimes you may want a little more protection in the event your password gets stolen or someone forces their way through it. If you use Google's Gmail service, you can set up your account, then you will need two forms of authentication to get into your email.

Global Payments, a credit card processing firm, announced that as many as 1.5 million credit card numbers were stolen due to a security breach last month. Issues like this seem more and more common place in the news and it is important to know what to do if you suspect that your credit card has been hacked.

Losing your smartphone can be a blood-chilling experience. The rush of worry, followed by the frantic dash around the last couple of places you've been searching high and low for your phone when you thought you put it in your pocket. The slow, creeping fear that your phone has been stolen before you could return to the place you left it. Well, for Android OS users, they now have a backup plan.

Do you have confidence in your company backup solution? If your servers went down now, would you be able to rely on the data you have backed up? No matter how advanced or in-depth your backup system is, you won't know if it works unless you test it. If you don't test your backup system, how can you have confidence in it?

Sometimes studies like these are laughable, but nevertheless, worth discussing.  Norton's latest Cybercrime report suggests that people who fall victim to malware are statistically more likely to be mugged in real life.  If someone is careless when it comes to online security, could that really reflect how susceptible they are in everyday life?

For some small businesses around Golden Triangle, administrative IT tasks and computer support are done the old fashioned way; either over the phone or on-premise. These traditional methods are a major waste of time and money, and can lead to plenty of unproductive behavior very quickly.  Today we're going to examine how remote technical support can benefit businesses.

Ever since the mid-1990s employees have been taking advantage of personal gadgets to help them get work done faster. Remember the PDAs and Palm Pilots from a decade and a half ago? Even though many companies weren't quick to establish policies to protect corporate data, tech savvy users were able to sync contacts, schedules, email, and company files to their mobile device. These days, mobile devices are in the hands of many more users, but there are ways to provide security without sacrificing your employees rights to their personal device.

2011 has been a busy year for security experts worldwide. Major corporations have been reporting harmful attacks by hackers. So far, technology news site CNET has reported over 80 known major hacks since March that have been publicized. The publication of these hacks is inevitable, especially when user-data, contact information, and credit card information is at risk, and that publication can easily cause a PR disaster which can take loads of time and money to rectify (and in some cases, just can't be rectified). The big questions are who is at risk, are Golden Triangle small businesses at risk, and what kinds of IT solutions need to be deployed to prevent data-theft and other intrusions.

If you use email, you've probably seen spam. If you think we're talking about a canned meat product, and are wondering how it relates to email, then we envy you. For everyone else, saying your inbox probably has a little spam is a dramatic understatement.

Spam comes in several different flavors; ranging to inappropriate solicitations to unwanted gibberish to carefully coordinated scams. We're going to go over one of these tricky spoofs that is known to fool users.

We've been talking a bit about the benefits of going mobile, especially for business owners who want to get more done. One of the best benefits of a laptop computer is portability, which leads into its greatest weakness; it's easy to steal.

According to the FBI, over 1 million laptops are stolen each year. If you are using your laptop for business, you'll want to take action ahead of time and employ some protective countermeasures to keep your business safe. We'll even go over some ways you can recover your stolen laptop.