Washington Works Blog

If you run a small business, you might consider yourself a small target of hacking attacks. It might make sense to think of it in this way, but this actually is not advisable to think of it in this way. According to a recent survey by CNBC and SurveyMonkey, only two percent of small businesses see cyber attacks as anything worth worrying about. This leads us to the next question… are you one of them?

Artificial intelligence is becoming more and more accessible to businesses of all sizes. In fact, it is swiftly becoming apparent that businesses that aren’t actively considering how to leverage AI in their processes are doing themselves a disservice.

The latest version of Android, Oreo (version 8.0), was released earlier this year. Has your phone received the update to it yet? Either way, you’ll want to know what features it has, including how it can help you get more done. Here are five of the many new additions offered by this update to Android Oreo operating system.

Data security, always an important topic, has been made even more urgent by the Equifax data breach and the fact that 143 million users had their personal information stolen after entrusting it (or not) to Equifax. You need to consider what would happen if your business were on the receiving end of a data breach, and prepare to handle this truly unpleasant circumstance.

Cybercrime is the fastest growing criminal activity in the world. From the largest enterprise to the individual, it can affect anyone, anywhere. To help ensure the cybersecurity of American citizens and their businesses, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other agencies work together every October to raise awareness about the threats people face online through a series of educational events and activities.

With all of the talk about the FCC and Net Neutrality in the recent news, a lot of computer users are concerned about the amount of privacy afforded them by their Internet service providers--and rightfully so. Regardless of whether the net neutrality ruling was justified (hint: it wasn’t), users are finding that they have to take their privacy into their own hands. The easiest way to do so is with a Virtual Private Network.

Dealing with disasters are a part of doing business. You know how difficult it is to recover from a devastating flood or storm. While businesses tend to suffer from these situations, countless individuals suffer every time a natural disaster hits. Just take a look at the United States in recent weeks. Even though you may want to donate to people suffering from hurricanes, there are illegitimate charities out there that want to make a quick buck off of your generosity.

About two and a half years ago, Lenovo was brought under fire for manufacturing products that had adware preinstalled on them. This malware, a variant called Superfish, was installed on up to 750,000 Lenovo devices, and the company--eager to put this incident behind them--still refuses to admit fault, despite paying reparations and other fees as a result. Superfish allowed access to sensitive information and a root certificate, which could be used to access encrypted data on the same network. All in all, it was a rather embarrassing and dangerous scenario for Lenovo, and it comes with its fair share of consequences.

When it comes to Internet threats, ransomware is the one that causes the most fear, especially for small and medium-sized businesses, as it should. According to the Cisco 2017 Annual Cybersecurity Report, ransomware is growing at a yearly rate of 350%. It’s time to make sure that you’re doing what you can to stop your business from becoming another ransomware statistic. Here’s five very good tips that will help you avoid becoming a victim of the next big ransomware attack!

Chances are, you’ve heard of phishing before--emails that promise some benefit or prize if you only click on the included link, that actually only results in trouble for you and your data. Unfortunately, as technology has embraced mobility, so have phishing attempts. This is why you must also be aware of SMiShing scams.

Network security is an important part of keeping both your business and your staff away from online threats, but it’s not enough to implement the best, most comprehensive solutions on the market. There are a surprising number of facets to network security, and in order to optimize protection against online threats, you’ll need to know all of them. Thankfully, you don’t have to do this alone.

Have you ever felt like talking to someone in the technology industry was like speaking with someone who spoke a different language? You’re not alone. It’s no secret that the IT industry loves their jargon - and has dozens of buzzwords at any given time. These are a few such words that have the industry buzzing right now!

Samsung fans are getting geared up for the release of their new smartphone, the Galaxy Note 8. Even though it might seem as though the technology world has moved on from the exploding Note 7, you can be sure that Samsung is still feeling the reverberations from last year’s debacle that resulted from the now-infamous exploding of their much-anticipated Galaxy Note 7.

In case you haven’t heard, the credit bureau, Equifax, has suffered a data breach that may have exposed the records of 143 million Americans.

By now, you’ve probably heard about the importance of business continuity and disaster recovery planning for small businesses. According to FEMA, more businesses have business continuity plans than ever before. With so many SMBs looking to secure their future, there are still a few aspects of business continuity planning that today’s business need to comprehend. After all, there is more to it than just data backup. Disaster recovery is something that needs to be planned, practiced and updated.

Microsoft Office has many capabilities that aren’t fully utilized by the majority of their users. Mail merges in Word used to be a time consuming, frustrating process. With each new edition of Word, Microsoft has refined the process to make it a lot more user-friendly. Take the following steps to create a professional looking envelope for your business that easily adds a list of contacts from a CSV file, Outlook, and more.

Does your business focus enough on security? One of the best solutions that you can consider is a virtual private network, or VPN. By implementing a VPN solution, you can improve the security and privacy on your devices even while out of the office on important business trips or at conferences. What can a VPN do for your business?

August saw yet another Patch Tuesday designed to resolve security issues in Microsoft products. Out of the 48 vulnerabilities resolved, 15 affected Windows, while 25 were rated as critical, 21 as important, and 27 that allowed for remote code execution. This might sound a little overwhelming, so we’ll try to simplify it a bit--a lot of flaws were fixed, and the majority of them can be considered dangerous for your organization.

Microsoft Outlook is one of the most popular email clients in the world, especially for small and medium businesses. The most recent version of Outlook has some cool features to make your life easier. Below are three Outlook life hacks to help you make the most of your tools.

Nobody ever wants to admit that their business has a problem with security. Unfortunately, as the one responsible for the future of your organization, you have to consider all possible outcomes of any potential data loss incident. Furthermore, many of these incidents are beyond your control. Thankfully, you can soothe the pain of a data loss disaster by thinking ahead and planning for the worst.