Jeff Collins, Author at Best Managed Cloud, IT and Cyber-security in Florida

Staying Connected When Remote

The COVID-19 response has led to a widespread shift to remote work in the professional world. For some companies, it’s just an extension of an already accepted practice – after all, remote work is constantly growing in popularity. In the U.S. alone, 4.7 million people (or 3.4% of the population) work remotely on some level.…

4 Best Practices When Working From Home

It’s becoming an increasingly good idea to work from home these days, given the money and effort, you save in commuting or making employees commute, and given the fact that it protects you from threats like the coronavirus. Here’s some information about the best business practices in regard to working at home and making sure…

What Does End of Life Mean for Windows 7?

Time is up for Windows 7. Users have to move on, one way or another. As of January 14, 2020, Microsoft won’t offer any more support for the operating system. There will be no updates and no security patches. Continuing to use it on the Internet will be like walking through a malaria-infested swamp with…

Data Privacy in 2019, did we learn anything from Cambridge Analytica?

It seems so long ago. When Cambridge Analytica first entered the realm of public consciousness, last year, it was as a shady marketing company that may or may not helped to elect the next President of the United States through illegal means. At the time, it seemed like a breakthrough moment in data privacy. A…

Social Engineering, Whale Phishing, Spearphishing? Avoid Being a Victim

In 1992, Kevin Mitnick was the most wanted hacker in the United States. It didn’t stop him. He wanted to hack his phone so the cops couldn’t track it. This ended up with him going after the source code, which he obtained with just a few phone calls. So-called social engineering remains, nearly thirty years…

How to Address the Threats that BYOD Brings to Your Business

BYOD, short for bring your own device, is a rapidly expanding business trend. The industry is expected to triple in revenue within the next 5 years, as more than half the global workforce will be mobile during that same timeframe. It’s a natural development. We’re less bound by location in working for our employers, and…

Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity: Which is Right for You?

Business continuity and disaster recovery: you’ve probably heard of them before, but how much do you know about them? Though the two terms are often used interchangeably, they don’t mean the same thing at all. Effectively planning how to manage data in the event of downtime or disasters requires you to have a deep understanding…

Gaining Visibility into Shadow IT: The Case of NASA JPL

What comes to your mind when you hear the term ‘Shadow IT?’ For some people, they first think about Ra’s al Ghul’s League of Shadows –formerly referred to as League of Assassins- in the film Batman. This answer is not far from the truth because Shadow IT is an assassin targeting organizations with huge adverse…

3 Pillars of Email Authentication: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC

Since the advent of the internet, spam mail has been on the rise. 45% of emails sent are spam emails equating to about 14.5 billion spam emails daily. Many businesses and individuals fall victim to spam emails every day. Spam Email has adverse effects including increasing security breaches, decreasing productivity, and huge financial repercussions. The…

18 Steps to Improving BYOD Security

BYOD or Bring your own device policies are becoming more and more common, especially for contractors and people who work remotely. Many employees don’t want to have to carry two separate cell phones, do work in their own home on their own desktop, or have one laptop for both work and personal purposes. BYOD also…