If your computer crashes or is taken over by a hacker, are you prepared to restore files, software, and settings? If not, it could result in weeks of hassle and lost work for your pool business.
Every single one of us must deal with this issue as we all use computers to manage our pool business, whether we want to or not. If you’re going to follow best practices for computer use, you must incorporate the tools to ensure your information and devices are ransomware protected. Most business owners do not protect their computers, and the consequences could be immense.
- What are the Biggest Mistakes we Make with our Computers?
- Not having virus protection scanning set up
- Not updating software and settings regularly
- Clicking on every pop-up or window that recommends a service
- Not doing image backups of system and data
- Not using good password creation and security
How to Prevent Viruses
Accessing unauthorized websites can expose your computer system to several cyber threats, including spyware, hackers, ransomware, etc. These threats can potentially risk your data and files. An antivirus software limits your web access to restrict your activities on unauthorized networks. Plus, it scans your computer regularly to determine any risks, and it informs you accordingly.
Having one trusted virus protection program installed and working to help prevent computer viruses is the highest priority for your computer.
Updates, Updates, Updates
Software updates offer plenty of benefits. These include repairing security holes that have been discovered and fixing or removing computer bugs. Updates can add new features to your device and remove outdated ones. Plus, it is a good idea to make sure your operating system runs efficiently on the latest version.
Regular updates every 4 weeks during off-hours are plenty as it will take time, and you will need to restart your computer. Having a trusted IT person allows them to set up updates that are 30 days behind so they can test updates to see what breaks and how to remediate them before it becomes a problem for you.
What is Ransomware?
With ransomware, hackers take over your system and encrypt your data. They lock you out of your system, and there is nothing you can do. You will hear about big corporations paying large sums of money because they were hacked and unprepared. Backing up your system and data is the way to avoid spending money on hackers. It is called data recovery. The backups are not stored locally, so the ransomware will not affect the backup data and recovery.
How to Prevent Ransomware
The problem with ransomware is that typically, it looks like something legitimate. Most of us are busy, and we get hundreds of emails we are trying to get through, so we let our guard down and click on things we should not. A window or pop-up will come up and say, “Hey, this is Microsoft. We notice that you have security updates pending. Please click here.” Since 90% of us use Microsoft operating systems, we think it is legitimate, and we click on it. If it is ransomware and you click on it, you have been ransomware attacked and your files are becoming encrypted.
The next thing you know, you try to open a document or something, and it is not working, or you get an error message that your files have been encrypted. At this point, it is too late! You should have an IT professional take the necessary precautions with your computers to make them ransomware protected.
Why are Image Backups Important?
Make sure you have regular backups in place for not only your data but your systems too. Having an IT professional monitor your system helps protect your system and your data. They can schedule regular image backups that run during off-hours, so it does not slow down your system when you are working.
If your hard drive dies or you have any catastrophic failure, that image is used to restore your settings, software, and data. It looks just like it did before, with all the settings you had set up.
Data Restoration
If your laptop crashes and you can take a couple of weeks off from doing business, and your data is not essential, do not worry about protection and backups. Most of us cannot do that, so we need backups to restore data as quickly as possible.
A trusted IT advisor will identify your line of business applications, how frequently you use them, how frequent the data changes, and then schedule backups based on that data. Their goal would be to minimize your downtime when something catastrophic happens.
Password Security is Important
Even though everyone knows that you should not put too much personal information on your computer, we cannot conduct business without some sort of proprietary information on our computers. How should we handle password setup and security?
First and foremost, do not put your passwords on a word document on your desktop. Use a secure app that hosts your passwords, preferably with fingerprint security, like LastPass.
As far as password setup, follow these rules:
- Do not use the same password for everything.
- Complexity is critical as you are trying to make it hard to figure out.
- Make it long, like 12-16 characters.
- Use a sentence and then substitute characters, numbers, and capital letters throughout.
Who Should you Trust with your computer?
Can a remote IT advisor just log into my computer any time they want and see our personal information or watch you? A trustworthy IT advisor will have contracts that state what they can and cannot do. Otherwise, they could be liable. For example, if they log into your computer without permission to do something that you did not approve. They should have to ask for permission to access your computer. If you have an IT issue or some general maintenance comes up based on monitoring the efficiency of your system on the backend, it will generate a ticket. They will reach out to you and schedule a time to remediate the issue.
If this process is not part of their service, beware and choose someone else.
Finding a Trusted IT Advisor
To learn more about my recommended IT ransomware protection service, email michelle@mkconsultingservices.com or schedule a quick call with me.
Every single one of us must deal with this issue as we all use computers to manage our pool business, whether we want to or not. If you’re going to follow best practices for computer use, you must incorporate the tools to ensure your information and devices are ransomware protected. Most business owners do not protect their computers, and the consequences could be immense.
For many of us, our whole lives are on our computers these days. If your information is just gone one day, are you prepared to handle it? Sure, you can pay for an expensive service to potentially get some data recovered, but if you have limited backups or nothing at all, there is not much they can do. It will be a better use of your dollars and your mental well-being to spend a little for a regular service now than to panic when something catastrophic happens.