Ahhhh! A brand new year, full of promise, hope and a fresh start. If you’re like most people, you’re making the usual resolutions to exercise more, lose weight, pay off debt, etc., etc., etc. Essentially, it’s a time of year when we momentarily take stock in our lives and think about all the things we “should” be doing more of, but don’t. So while you’re in the goal-setting mode, we thought we would tack on 5 things that probably aren’t on your list, but should be. Especially since these all fall into the “important, but not urgent” category.

1. Offsite backups. Can we beat this horse to death anymore? I know MOST of the clients reading this newsletter are smart enough to have this already done, but many still don’t and are relying on undependable (and outdated, I might add) tape drives, Carbonite or other volatile backup solutions. If that’s you, don’t let this be another year where you gamble with everything you’ve worked so hard to achieve. Get a better backup!!!!
2. Write A Disaster Recovery Plan. Pop quiz: If you woke up tomorrow and discovered that you couldn’t access your office building due to a fire or flood, what would you do? Or what would happen if a key executive—one who holds the “keys” to critical processes or applications—fell sick or (God forbid) died? Or what would happen if a disgruntled employee or hacker gained access to your web server, line of business application or file server and deleted everything—particularly if the data was hosted on the 3rd party cloud provider’s web site? These are all very real scenarios, and without a plan in place, you could be facing serious downtime and financial losses.
3. Develop A Stronger Cyber Security System That Goes Beyond A Firewall And Anti-Virus. With more and more information about us being stored electronically, and with State and Federal laws becoming more strict, you MUST take cyber security seriously. Simply having a good firewall and anti-virus isn’t enough these days to keep the highly motivated and technically sophisticated criminals out of your network. The HUMAN element is the biggest threat—employees who accidentally click on links in e-mails or download files that introduce viruses to your network. Employees are also using social media sites more frequently, and they can intentionally or accidentally post something that could harm your company’s reputation or leak confidential information. Therefore, your security plan must also include employee training and policies so they know what is and isn’t acceptable when handling data and using company resources (Internet, computers, etc.).

If you don’t know where to start in creating any of the above, we’re here to help! Call us at (410) 884-0225 to discuss how we can do all of this for you and take the work and worry out of these New Year’s resolutions!