Recent blog posts - Capstone Works Blog | Central Texas

Is It Time To Upgrade The Operating System On Your Office Devices?

Monday, February 11, 2019

Are you using Windows 7, older versions of Outlook for email, or Windows Server version 2011 and below? If so, it’s time beproactive to learn about Microsoft’s End of Life Support. You do not want to find yourself in need of tech support for an unsupported product. That’s why being prepared is critical. What products are nearing the end of their support life cycle and what can you do to help your business stay on top of these changes?

First, it is important to know when products are being phased out. Microsoft has specific product life cycles. According to their website, support for Windows 7 ends on January 14, 2020. That gives users less than one year to prepare. Windows 7 launched on October 22, 2009, at which time Microsoft committed to ten years of product support. As this time period expires, it is important to note that this lack of support can leave you vulnerable if you do not upgrade your Operating System. For example, those automatic updates that many users get in the habit of ignoring often include critical security patches that you will no longer receive. If you’re using Windows 7, it is time to upgrade.

Now that you are thinking about upgrading your Operating System, how do you get started? The process can certainly sound overwhelming. You may have questions or, alternatively, you may be unsure as to what questions you should be asking. It’s time to contact a trusted Managed Service Provider like Capstone Works to help you navigate this process.

What else do you need to know to keep your IT updated? Microsoft has been moving toward a subscription-based model, pushing clients and companies to move toward Office 365 subscriptions instead of the old model of buying a disc, loading Microsoft Office onto your device, and having a perpetual license for the product. Users who have a perpetual license, such as those on Office 2016, will need to upgrade by 2020 in order to use their product in conjunction with the suite of Office 365 products, like SharePoint and Exchange. These end dates are important to keep track of in order to keep all of your products working together. When you connect Office 365 products with “legacy” versions of Microsoft tools, you do not benefit from the full range of the current product capabilities and certain aspects may not work properly. Therefore, it is important to have a trusted Managed Service Provider on your side to help you keep everything working together, make timely upgrades, and keep track of product lifecycle end dates.

How else can Capstone Works help? We can guide you as you choose the right IT products and software solutions for your office. For example, we can go over the pros and cons of moving to Office 365 now, staying with a perpetual license model, or waiting until the End of Life deadline to make any changes. With all the other aspects of running a business taking up time, it can be a challenge for business decision-makers to navigate the many options available. We are here to take IT off your plate and help you ensure you are making the best, most informed decisions possible in a timely manner. With a partner like Capstone Works on your side, you will not be caught off guard when a product nears the end of its support life cycle, and you will be able to make proactive, informed business IT decisions.

Contact Capstone Works today and be prepared for any changes technology companies throw your way!

Preventing Data Breaches on Data Privacy Day

Cindy Adams

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Capstone Works Blog

b2ap3 medium network security The start of 2019 comes with promises of many new technologies that you, as a business decision-maker, can use to help grow your business. Though these new avenues can open many doors for your business, these advancements are also creating new vulnerabilities and avenues for hackers, thieves, and phishers to take advantage of. Luckily, Data Privacy Day is right around the corner.

The day is celebrated on the 28th of January each year and is intended to educate users on data privacy to promote a safer, more secure, and more private internet for citizens all over the world. It’s also a good day for people to review their social media privacy settings, update old passwords, and take a look at the state of your digital data security.

The purpose and goals of Data Privacy Day are of particular importance to businesses. Each year, millions of businesses face attacks to their security as a result of totally preventable vulnerabilities within their IT infrastructure. While not all attacks turn into breaches, that doesn’t mean they’re not cause for concern.

So, what can you do to protect yourself this Data Privacy Day? Depending on your business, a good place to start is to increase your password security. This can be done by requiring more complex passwords from your employees, requiring they change them up regularly, and by instating two-factor authentication, which provides additional security to confirm the person logging into your network is legitimate.

If you haven’t already, setting up firewalls and using encryption to secure your network is also a great idea to keep out hackers. Additionally, limiting privileges to certain parts of your network only to those for whom access is necessary. This limits the potential that certain information will fall into the wrong hands.

Finally, having back-ups, either of your entire environment, or simply of vital data, is one of the best ways to prevent attacks that corrupt, steal, or try to ransom your data.

Whatever your needs, Capstone Works takes the initiatives of Data Privacy Day to heart. We will work with you to craft a customized security plan that will prevent attacks from happening and keep your business’ data safe and secure.

Not only have we made it our mission to stay updated on all the latest possible threats to your industry, but we also work to educate our clients on these matters, and make sure they’re able to make informed decisions about how to protect their businesses.

After an audit of your current security infrastructure, we can determine where your vulnerabilities lie and prevent them from being used against you. Whether you need as simple a fix as a software patch, or a more substantial overhaul of your internal security procedures, like making sure users are forced to use secure passwords, servers run on secure protocols, etc., Capstone Works has you covered.

Start your New Year off right. Data Privacy Day is a great time to give your business’ security measures an update, so don’t pass by without a second thought. Contact Capstone Works today and rest assured that 2019 will be a great year for your business.

Does Your Workplace have a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Policy?

Cindy Adams

Tuesday, December 11, 2018

Capstone Works Blog

tablet We are in the business of making sure you are prepared for whatever today’s ever-changing technology environment will throw your way. One of the biggest current trends is Bring Your Own Device, or BYOD. BYOD is exactly what it sounds like — your employees using their own devices in the work-place. With the holidays coming up, and employees receiving new devices, much of your workforce will be equipped to handle a BYOD policy. As this practice becomes more common, it is time to craft an official policy to help protect your business from the risks.

A Bring Your Own Device Policy outlines the rules around employees using their own laptops, tablets, and smartphones for work, whether that means in-office work, or work from home. Today, much of the workforce accesses work files remotely on personal devices. If you do not yet have a BYOD poli-cy, it is time to build one.

Why do you need to set a policy?

There are particular risks and benefits that arise when employees use their own devices. To be sure you enjoy the benefits and decrease the risks, you need a policy that helps employees understand how best to utilize their personal devices in the workplace. You need a formalized document that sets rules and protections in place so that employees have the tools to use their own devices without put-ting your network at risk.

Given that human error is the biggest flaw that hackers exploit, developing a policy and educating your employees as to BYOD best practices is critical to the health of the modern business. But first, do you even want to permit this practice? When making this decision, it’s important to know the benefits you can expect.

What are the benefits of BYOD?

Employee morale
Team members get to work on the devices with which they are most confident and familiar. For example, instead of being a Mac user at home who has to adjust to a PC at the office, or vice versa. Em-power them to work when they feel most efficient and creative, rather than having to wait to get to their office desktop device. Additionally, they may enjoy access to business software in their down-time that they would not have bought themselves, like Adobe Creative Cloud, and come to view it as another perk of the job.

Newer technology
Your employees may opt to upgrade their devices more frequently than the company does.

Reduced costs
When your employees use their existing smartphone rather than a work-provided device, you can en-joy a cost-savings. Similarly, instead of buying a laptop when you onboard a new employee, you may only need to purchase supplemental software like Photoshop and antivirus solutions.

Convenience
Save your team the annoyance of switching between personal and work phones, or accidentally leaving an important document on their workplace desktop and being unable to retrieve it when they want to continue the project over the weekend.

While you can see there are many benefits of allowing your team to work on their own devices, there are many risks and complications that can arise if this practice is not implemented with a policy in place.

Your employees are not all going to be IT professionals, and that means that BYOD policies leave more room for user error and security risks than if every worker is using devices selected and maintained by your IT department. You will need to set specific security policies, and look at providing a secure net-work for your employees to access from home, rather than accessing unsecured WiFi networks. When you implement a BYOD policy, you necessarily give up a level of control; and when an employee leaves, that device goes with them. If you do not have a set policy, there is a risk they could be taking potentially sensitive information with them, like company passwords. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t implement BYOD at your company, only that you need IT experts in your corner to help you do it. That’s what Capstone Works is here for. Contact us with any of your BYOD questions and we can help you determine your next steps. We help you anticipate the pitfalls of empowering employees to bring their own devices into the workplace so that you can avoid them, and enjoy the benefits instead.

We have outlined some of the general productivity, cost and convenience considerations. We can also help you assess the costs and benefits of a BYOD policy for your unique business, and create a strategy for you. Ultimately, BYOD is becoming a more and more common business practice, but is it right for your company? We can answer that together. Contact Capstone Works today!

Celebrate National Cyber Security Awareness Month

Cindy Adams

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Capstone Works Blog

firewall Do you know every web application your employees are using? There is a high probability that your workforce is utilizing many devices and applications without explicit approval. Collectively, these programs and devices are called Shadow IT. Shadow IT is essentially any application employees download or IT service they sign up for without vetting by your IT provider. October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month, the perfect time to address the hidden risk of Shadow IT. If you aren’t dealing with your Shadow IT problem, your business is not as secure as you think it is!

There was a time in business when any piece of software would go through a thorough vetting process. These days, times have changed. In today’s technology environment, employees are always looking for the next new app or platform to increase productivity. Employees are more tech savvy, and that makes it is less likely that every piece of IT in use has gone through a thorough vetting process or a risk assessment.

Shadow IT also includes personal devices. There is a growing tendency for team members to get work done at home using their own laptops, iPads, or desktop devices. Personal devices are notorious for lax cybersecurity practices. When employees sign onto the business network using their own devices, there is a major risk that they will bring a virus into that business network.

At this point, it is difficult to imagine an organization that is not implementing Shadow IT, whether deliberately or not. There are countless tools that employees and departments may start implementing innocently without thinking they need to involve your IT provider. Many managers and employees are now selecting their own IT services independently, without checking with an IT expert. From file sharing solutions like Dropbox, to free project management platforms, employees are constantly finding new ways to efficiently collaborate and share information from wherever they happen to be. They no longer need to be in the office to check on the status of a project, or access a sensitive document. Employees are looking for ways to hit and exceed their goals, and they are not necessarily thinking about cybersecurity or the risks they are taking.

As a decision-maker, you must always balance risk and reward. The cost of increased employee productivity may be security, and that may not be a cost you want to cover. They are likely to choose programs for ease of use and convenience, without noticing a lack of important security features like two-factor authorization or encryption. Shadow IT may also lead to mounting costs as different teams pay individually for software that would have a lower group or business rate.

What can you do to protect your business in this climate? You certainly don’t want to discourage employees from building better processes and working when they feel inspired. Yet there are many ways in which Shadow IT puts your business at risk and creates cost inefficiencies. Don’t feel overwhelmed. Contact Capstone Works today. We can work with you to assess Shadow IT usage, then build and implement a new Shadow IT strategy. If we find your team members using unsecured tools, our experts can recommend alternatives. Don’t wait to get started! We will bring your Shadow IT into the light.

Is It Time for a Network Assessment?

Cindy Adams

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Capstone Works Blog

When was the last time your business underwent a Network Assessment? As a business decision-maker, there are many moving parts to keep track of, and IT monitoring can easily fall through the cracks until something breaks. This approach can lead to unexpected expenses and business downtime. With a Network Assessment, you can anticipate and plan for potential IT snags, and resolve issues before they become major problems.

First, it is important to understand what a Network Assessment is and what it can mean for your business. This service assesses your IT infrastructure, including processes, security, and performance to identify problems and solutions. It is your first step toward improving IT efficiency and data security.

Now that you understand what a Network Assessment is and why it would benefit your company, it is time to find the right IT provider to manage the process. Partner with Capstone Works and get your Network Assessment scheduled. We’ll help you to:

• Understand network vulnerabilities
• Identify bandwidth bottlenecks
• Increase IT performance and efficiency
• Shore up your cybersecurity defenses

When do you want to have a Network Assessment performed? A Network Assessment is especially critical if you are planning any major IT roll-outs, like a transition to cloud storage solutions, changing to VoIP phones, or if any of your infrastructure is nearing end-of-support or end-of-life. This service can also help shed light on any ongoing issues you have been experiencing, like slow performance speeds.

In the event that issues are identified during the Network Assessment, it is time to determine which actions you should take with the data you have obtained. This is where many business owners and decision-makers may begin to feel overwhelmed. How do you make the best decisions without comprehensive IT expertise? Many small-to-medium sized companies have limited or even no IT staff, or team members who are spread too thin. That’s why Capstone Works is here for you as you navigate these concerns. You do not have to deal with these issues alone. We understand that discovering IT problems can feel overwhelming. At Capstone Works, we believe your IT should be an asset to your business, not a headache. Not only will we perform a full Network Assessment, but we will also work with you to build a plan of action that has you feeling confident. Even if it sounds overwhelming, being proactive can make a big difference, and identifying IT issues is actually the first step to creating an IT infrastructure that works better for your business.

Ready to learn more about our Network Assessment services? Contact Capstone Works today. With our trusted, vetted IT experts on your side, your Network Assessment will provide you with both an understanding of your current IT infrastructure issues and a solution-oriented approach to identifying your next steps.

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Capstone Works, Inc. Blog

Is It Time To Upgrade The Operating System On Your Office Devices?

Preventing Data Breaches on Data Privacy Day

Does Your Workplace have a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Policy?

Celebrate National Cyber Security Awareness Month

Is It Time for a Network Assessment?

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