Preferred Blog

Every week, we talk with business leaders who think their cybersecurity is covered until it’s not.

For many small and midsized businesses (SMBs), a cyber incident isn’t just an IT problem. It’s a business interruption, a compliance headache, and a reputational hit that can take months to recover from.

The truth is, most cyber risks are preventable. You don’t need a huge IT budget. You need awareness, good habits, and a plan.

At Preferred Communication Systems, we’ve spent more than two decades helping Chicagoland organizations protect their people, data, and reputations. We’ve seen what works and what doesn’t. Below are the 10 most common cybersecurity mistakes SMBs make, along with simple, actionable ways to avoid them.

Managed IT services can present a lot of benefits for small businesses. Since not many smaller businesses can afford to staff expert IT technicians, managed IT services are an attractive alternative that allows an organization to get the IT support and management they need to keep their business running efficiently. Today, we’ll go over all the benefits a managed service provider can present a small business,and just how a MSP delivers significant returns on your IT support investments.

Every organization has mission-critical systems that they rely on in order to function, and the IT technician is responsible for keeping them running. Modern technology and best practices have given rise to a new way of managing business technology, one that knocks the traditional break-fix IT out of the water.

Security is a hot-button issue for all types of businesses, but cyber security is such a complex subject that it’s difficult to jam-pack its many intricacies into one blog article. Sometimes understanding just a few ways to improve your business’s security practices can be a significant benefit for your organization.

Business owners who spend a lot of time on the road, like during a commute or on a business trip, understand how difficult it is to use smartphones while driving. Despite the fact that it’s illegal in many places, some people refuse to put down their phones and concentrate on the task at hand: driving. Doing so puts not only themselves, but everyone else on the road at risk of an accident, which can lead to expensive insurance payments and vehicle maintenance costs.

Ransomware is still on the rise, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation has labeled it as one of the biggest dangers to businesses of all kinds. Compared to other methods of spreading malware, ransomware has a unique return on investment that keeps hackers wanting more. One new variant of ransomware uses a phishing attack that’s tailored to your real-world address, which is exceptionally concerning for victims.

You don’t need us to tell you that Microsoft has an extensive library of software products aimed at all kinds of businesses. But, of course, nothing good can last forever, and old solutions eventually give way to more versatile or efficient versions. When this happens, Microsoft stops supporting older software in order to provide better features and experiences to users of more recent versions.

Years before Steve Jobs stood up on the stage in San Francisco and proclaimed Apple had brought you the future, the future he spoke of was already being developed, and in some cases utilized already by millions of people around the world. Cellular phone technology had been around for some time by 2007, but the iPhone, set in motion a mobile revolution.

Grammar is quite complex, and it can be a problem for some people who don’t write or compose documents on a daily basis. One way that you can correct your writing, as well as learn why your writing needs correction, is by using a free Google Chrome extension called Grammarly.

Even if artificial intelligence is still a long ways off, people always try to emulate it and push it toward greater heights. One of the best, most recent examples, is how an artificially intelligent program co-wrote a short novel (or novella) that almost won the Hoshi Shinichi Award. If it won the award, it would have been groundbreaking, but the fact that it came so close to doing so begs the question: how long will it be before computers can emulate human creativity?

Data storage is such an important part of today’s business environment, but when was the last time you took the time to consider technologies that came before? Technology that exists today couldn’t possibly have existed 50, or even 20 years ago. How have the leaps and bounds made in the tech industry affected the status of data storage, and what does this trend mean for small and medium-sized businesses?

One of the best ways businesses are providing employees with the means to be more productive with their workstations is by issuing them multiple displays. There are various advantages and disadvantages to using multiple displays that you should be aware of.

A network is arguably one of the most important assets that your business has. It keeps your team connected to crucial information and mission-critical applications. This is perhaps why it’s so irritating when your network acts up. You should be on the lookout for even the slightest problem with your network, as even a small change could be a sign of bad things yet to come.

When you call tech support, you’re probably going to get the same response every single time: “Have you tried turning it off and on again?” There’s a reason that this happens so often, and it’s because restarting your computer is a great, low-tech way to resolve some basic issues with your system. However, it’s still good to be cautious about more serious issues that a reboot won't fix. We’ll walk you through what a reboot does, and it can be effective at fixing minor issues with your PC.

By design, Microsoft’s operating systems aren’t built to last forever. Due to the fact that technology is always changing, new operating systems with better security and improved capabilities are routinely needed. Microsoft gets users to transition from an older OS to a newer one by ending support for the older one. This begs the question, how long until Microsoft pulls the plug on your OS?

Robotics are making leaps and bounds in all sorts of different industries. Robots aid doctors with surgery, work in manufacturing plants, and perform countless other functions. Now, we can add “pizza delivery” to this list, thanks to a somewhat bizarre and extremely welcome innovation by the Domino’s pizza chain.

Your business requires specific data to keep operations moving on a daily basis. However, for all of the data that you use, there’s information that you have stored away that never sees the light of day. This “dark data,” could be putting your business at risk, especially if auditing your current data storage usage isn’t a top priority. If you don’t keep track of your dark data, you could be facing much larger problems than unnecessary storage costs.

Any business that deals with online technology needs to be aware of the dangers that come with the territory. Hackers are more common nowadays than ever before, and organizations that don’t take a proactive approach to keeping threats out of their systems will have to suffer the consequences. Unfortunately, some organizations won’t be aware that they’ve been hacked until it’s far too late.

Every time that you purchase a new piece of business technology, you’re faced with a choice: go with a product that’s been around for awhile, and thus, is cheaper, or pay a little extra for the latest solution. We like to encourage business owners to go with the latest tech because it saves them money in the long run - an IT concept known as “future proofing.”

March 31st is World Backup Day, and it’s the perfect time to evaluate the redundancy and reliability of your data.