Author: ScottWilson

Credential Security 

Posted on by ScottWilson

Credential Security 

To help you strengthen your credential security, we encourage you to take the following precautions: 

  1. Review access to your technology tools. It is often an afterthought, but as users leave or changes take place in your organization, you may need to adjust permissions accordingly. It is best practice to grant access to tools that an individual currently needs access to. Any employees who have left, or no longer need that access, should not still have access. Diligently revoking unnecessary access helps mitigate the risk of attackers using these inactive accounts to enter your customers’ environments. 
  2. Enforce strong password policy. This goes beyond having strong passwords themselves. It also means instituting a frequent change policy and requiring different passwords for different customer sites. The password change policy needs to be enforced throughout your organization and for your entire portfolio of tools.  
  3. Two-factor Authentication. Two-factor Authentication in software has become a must-do in today’s cyberthreat landscape. If there is a two-factor authentication feature within software you use, ensure that both you and your users are taking advantage of it and do not have it turned off.  If the software you are using does not have two-factor authentication capabilities, you can consider leveraging single sign-on tools to strengthen your password security efforts. 
  4. Store passwords securely. Using complicated passwords has its disadvantages because they are hard to remember. Many users may start storing these passwords in commonly used applications that are unfortunately unsecure, such as Notes or Notepad. This makes the information easy for cybercriminals to steal. Employ the use of a password manager for your users to use to securely store their passwords. 
  5. Review user roles. Like the first best practice mentioned above, as your IT provider to work with you to review the roles assigned to employees at their businesses. Part of reviewing roles means looking at permissions associated with different roles. This should be done regularly by someone who understands both the business and the personnel, to ensure each user is not given more permissions than they need to do their job. 

Security is of utmost importance at every business, including here at HubWise Technology. We review our security settings diligently for all of our technologies to ensure we are complying with security best practices and don’t put our business or our partners’ businesses at risk. 

 

Email Security and the Dark Web

Posted on by ScottWilson

Email Security and the Dark Web

Ever wonder if your online accounts have been compromised? Do yourself a favor, and go run a scan of the dark web and enter your email address. There is a free service named Have I Been Pwned that aggregates data breaches and helps people understand if those breaches include any of their specific information. You can check it out at http://haveibeenpwned.com.

Pretty scary stuff! At a recent convention I attended with about a thousand attendees, they ran all results for the people in attendance, and more than 90% of the email addresses had compromises associated with them.

What can you do about it? The immediate answer is to change your password, but that is only good until the next breach. The longer term answer involves help from your IT partner to setup a layered security solution that includes, at a minimum:

  • Monitoring of the dark web and alerting for any compromised accounts or domains
  • Structured password management
  • 2-Factor Authentication
  • Ongoing user training

HubWise can help you protect your people, network infrastructure, and your data. Drop us a line and we can begin assessing how best to help you now.

Rocketbook Wave Review 

Posted on by ScottWilson

Rocketbook Wave Review 

The Rocketbook Wave notebook is an erasable notebook that can upload the contents of your pages to a number of online sources.  I have recently started using this as my primary note-taking device. 

I have always been an online notes taker.  After I got my first tablet computer, I finally found a way to really keep track of the notes I take by using online systems such as Evernote and Microsoft OneNote.  Prior to that, I’d take tons of notes in the good old docket gold lined notepads, and then never really refer back to them because it took so long to find what I was looking for, if the old notepads even existed anymore. 

Ever since my switch to digital note taking, I have retained the information and become more productive, but I missed 2 aspects of handwritten notes: 

  • The speed of getting up and going in a meeting.  When writing, I don’t have to boot up and navigate to the right application. 
  • The ability to diagram and sketch.   

This last one is HUGE.  I don’t know why it’s so different but drawing on a tablet and saving them with notes for some reason just doesn’t work for me.  So, this Rocketbook is a godsend. 

So, this device works pretty well.  It comes in two sizes, Standard and Executive.  Both come with a special erasable pen that is INCREDIBLY easy to miss in the package – it comes in its own separate sleeve alongside the main compartment of the pouch, but it’s in there.  You can purchase a number of different color and types of pens within the Frixion line, and all work as erasable pens in the notebook.  Here’s the cool part – you erase the thing by PUTTING IT IN THE MICROWAVE.  You put the book in your microwave with a coffee cup ¾ full of water and blast it for 45 seconds.  AND IT WORKS. 

There is some minor ghosting (after my first go around with full data wipe) that appears to happen where I applied more pressure to the pen strokes.  But hey, it still works pretty darn well and I am able to get more notes onto the same set of pages. 

It uploads more or less as you would expect.  There are icons at the bottom of the page that you can tick off and based on how you assign those icons in the app, the page images will upload to the assigned application, notebook, or email address.  The resolution is good, not great.  I wouldn’t try to capture a professional portrait and expect it to upload with the same resolution, but it works great for sketches and diagrams. 

I would (and have) recommended the device to friends, family, and customers.  It has helped improve my note taking capabilities in a big way. 

 

 

Cleaning Up Our Act

Posted on by ScottWilson

Cleaning Up Our Act

Doing the little things…

David and Stephen are a couple of HubWisers.  They descended upon one of our newer customer to cleanup the server closet from the previous provider.

What a huge difference!  Not only does it look better:

  • All production devices are now running through UPS
  • We documented which critical devices are connected to specific ports and switches

Therefore…

  • We prevent outages in the future
  • We dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes us to resolve any that do arise

Way to go, David and Stephen!  Check out the before, during, and after cleanup pictures below..

Before HubWise
After HubWise

I’m Scott, I want to help your business “Do Better”

Posted on by ScottWilson

I’m Scott, I want to help your business “Do Better”

When I was growing up, my dad owned and operated several small businesses, including an auto body shop on 84th and L.   I learned the value of hard work there, prepping and detailing cars, and  I also learned about running a small business.    My dad was an early adopter of technology and was using computers to run his business in the early 1980s.  He bought a PC from Michael Dell, personally, and he’d be happy to tell you the story.

I left for college and wound up living and working in New York City for 10 years.  During that time I worked in Information Technology for internet startups, medium sized-businesses, and a large media enterprise.  I also had an unpaid side job helping to keep my dad’s business running.

I moved home and worked in a large, corporate IT shop for several years and learned a lot about best practices.  Although it was a good experience, I never had the feeling that my work was helping to advance the business. And that’s really what it’s about, isn’t it?   So I went back into the world of small business, taking my enterprise expertise to find a way to do better for their technology support.  Kyle and I met and started working together a few years back.

Doing Better

Although we had success in our positions, we felt that we could do better and started HubWise Technology. We knew if we took the approach, values, and attitude that got us here, we could help other businesses “Do Better.”  HubWise is now a block away from my dad’s old body shop on L street, where I first learned about hard work and small business.  It’s an appropriate place for me to continue the hard work and do better for our business partners.

Looking forward to working with you.