"Is computer maintenance worth it? Can’t you just run over to Costco or call Dell every couple of years and get the latest/greatest new computer with all the newest bells and whistles?" I get this question now and then when I meet new people and tell them what I do for a living.

So your business is running well, you like and trust your staff, they are getting their work done, and the computers and network are mostly running fine. Then you come across an article or talk to an IT expert who says you should start spying on your employees.

I’m a law abiding citizen, I pay my taxes and don’t rob banks. So why is the FBI trying to tell me what to do? Why do they care about me? Oddly enough, it turns out they do care about me...and you...when it comes to our home computer networks. Don’t worry, you didn’t do anything wrong.

This is a scary story about how one healthcare company didn’t avoid a data breach lawsuit that it could have entirely prevented. Last October, three former employees of Lincare, an in-home respiratory care provider, filed a lawsuit claiming that thousands of the company’s employees had been endangered by a data breach caused by inadequate data security policies and procedures.

Two kinds of “phishing” you may not know about make things worse for all of us: Vishing and Smishing. And unless you know what to look for, you just might get caught. Phishing is when hackers, viruses, and trojans send you emails that pretend to be your bank or other (usually financial) services company.

Cyber security companies continue to invest heavily in developing more effective cyber security tools. They are adding and perfecting Artificial Intelligence, Behavior Analysis, and Advanced threat protection, and more, all in an effort to protect your business from hackers and malware.

HIPAA has many regulations, and many of them are surprisingly simple and inexpensive to implement, such as Business Associate Agreements. All you need to do is have your contractors and service providers fill out a well-written, compliant BAA and the task is complete.

What makes I.T. different than other parts of your business is that if you do it wrong, your business can be destroyed. The problem is that I.T. seems like something that many people can do on their own. Whether you just bought a new PC, or bring your home laptop to the office, or let a new employee bring in their own PC, it’s usually pretty easy to add a computer to your WiFi and get to work.

Doctors have patients who never get a flu shot. They don’t think they’ll get sick because they say they’re careful. “Not Me!”, they say...and then they get sick. Parents tell their teenage children to not text while driving. But they often don’t listen, and tell their friends “Not Me!” insisting that they’ll be careful.

Our network monitoring system in our own office triggered an alarm one day when some traffic was targeted for Japan. Just like we do for our clients, we block traffic on our own network going to or from dangerous countries such as China, Russia, North Korea, Turkey and Ukraine.