Author: Peter Graham

Phishing emails are continuing to become more convincing and sophisticated, with this, the latest iteration of a Spotify Scam

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What Are Online Scams? 

Online scams are typically highly sophisticated messages that use professional logos and messaging from businesses you know. A scam can be sent through emails, SMS, social media platforms, or even video calls. These scams are often referred to as social engineering scams, which refer to scams used by criminals to exploit someone’s trust to obtain confidential information or money. It is important to be vigilant and aware of common signs of scams to avoid accidentally giving out private information. 

Who Is Most At Risk? 

Although anyone can fall victim to online scams, small to medium-sized businesses are most at risk. Smaller companies will likely have less extensive security measures and cannot train staff on common signs to look out for. Deployus wants to help ensure your business is safe from scammers and cybercriminals. We are invested in ensuring that your systems, tools, and technology are built to deliver certainty and business success. If your business does not currently have security measures, consider investing in strategies to keep your data secure and employees safe. 

Common Scams In Australia Right Now 

Phishing Attacks

Phishing is the most common scam in Australia currently. It refers to emails, SMS, or phone calls that aim to trick people into giving out personal information such as their bank details or sign in credentials to online services such as Microsoft 365 and social media sites. These calls or messages seemingly come from legitimate companies you already know of and use. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to distinguish between fake and authentic messages from these businesses.

A current scam circulating is the Linkt Toll scam alert. People are getting sent text messages saying they have a toll to pay urgently and must click a link to complete the transaction. However, this link takes individuals to a scam website that uses their banking information maliciously.

Impersonation Scams 

This type of scam involves individuals receiving a message from a family member or friend claiming that they need financial assistance and need to be sent money quickly. These messages typically come from unknown numbers, with the text stating the person has lost their phone and has a new number. These scams are often coined as the ‘Hi Mum’ scams, and many have fallen victim to them. If you get a message from a family member, try contacting them on their last known number or on a trusted social media account to attempt to confirm if they sent a message or not. 

New employees are also at risk with malicious actors utilising social engineering as a means to acquire targets. A common scan involves emails impersonating a CEO or CFO of a company to contact a new employee to acquire them gift cards urgently and for them to make contact via WhatsApp, Telegram or SMS to continue a conversation for this urgent task.  Scammers may also impersonate recruiters and prompt you to fill out forms containing sensitive information that they can then use to steal your information or personal details for malicious purposes.

It is important to validate the emails and messages you receive from a new workplace. Also, make sure the email addresses are legitimate and the recruiter has a valid LinkedIn account with all their details up to date. 

Tech Support Scams 

Scammers can trick you into accepting unnecessary tech support to fix a problem with your device or software. These scammers claim to be from tech support companies and seek to gain remote access to your device to conduct maintenance. While they have access, they may ask you to log into specific accounts, such as your bank account, to steal your details and funds. 

For example, individuals are receiving scam calls and messages from Microsoft support asking them to provide personal information and access to their computers. Never provide remote access to your computer or device without ensuring it is legitimate and comes directly from a trusted provider. If you are unsure, you can always ask the individual contacting you to provide employee information so you can validate their identity.

Signs To Look Out For 

• Be cautious of emails that have typos, are incorrectly formatted, or come from individuals you do not know personally; they may be scams. 
• Never give your name, bank account details, birth certificates, or any other personal information or documents to anyone online or over the phone unless for legitimate purposes. 
• If someone contacts you for personal information, double-check that they are genuine before revealing anything. 
• Keep up to date with the scams currently circulating so you can identify them if you ever receive suspicious emails or messages.

Have Questions? 

It is essential to stay vigilant to online scams as they become more common and more disguised. Stay up to date on current scams and if you receive a suspicious email or text, conduct a quick search online to see if it may be a scam spreading around Australia. If you need cybersecurity advice and support, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team here at Deployus. We create IT solutions to protect your business and employees from scammers and cyber attacks. Contact us today to learn more! 

Software failures and extended downtime of work devices and systems are not ideal for any business. For this reason, investing in services that keep your equipment in top working condition to boost productivity and efficiency is essential. IT preventative maintenance should be implemented into your business plan to complete time-based or usage-based checkups to ensure your services keep running around the clock. 

Benefits Of Preventative Maintenance

Improves Efficiency 

By participating in an IT preventative maintenance plan, your business can get back up and running quicker than the alternative of reactive maintenance when something goes wrong. Scheduling routine checkups on your firmware, system updates and data storage capacity is essential to ensure any issues are caught early to prevent a total shutdown in the future.

Reduced Risk Of Attacks

A preventative maintenance plan allows you to mitigate business risks by identifying any IT system deficiencies, reducing the risk of zero-day attacks and malware infections. Our expert Deployus team finds proactive resolutions to any IT issues before system interruptions halt your workday productivity. Regular network maintenance will help to reduce ongoing problems and increase your optimal performance over time. 

Asset Lifetime Increased 

Checking up on your essential systems is vital to ensure no damages or shutdowns occur. Utilising IT preventative maintenance reduces the risk of power outages from failed UPS devices or server crashes. Deployus offers regular monitoring of your business licensing, security and compliance of systems to improve system uptime, resulting in increased productivity. 

Reduced Costs 

Catching more minor issues within your software before they become more significant can save you time and money. For example, investing in low-cost, more regular software checkups will help prevent your business from paying for more extensive maintenance when failures or errors occur later.  

Are There Disadvantages To Preventative Maintenance? 

Like everything, there are also a few drawbacks. For example, preventative maintenance can seem more expensive as it requires more frequent payments for checkups. However, the list of benefits shows that waiting for something to go wrong only causes more damage, such as unproductive working conditions and expensive bills to pay. Overall, IT preventative maintenance is a long-term investment necessary to keep your software running successfully and reliably. 

How Can Deployus Help? 

At Deployus, we provide businesses with total system management and comprehensive IT preventative maintenance services to help you monitor software performance and troubleshoot network problems. Through our tailored combination of personal contact, remote management and maintenance services, incidents are quickly averted. Contact our friendly team today to get started, or head to our website to learn more!

Cloud computing is increasing in popularity as more businesses are discovering its potential. Streamlining business processes, enhancing security protocols, and boosting productivity are just some of the benefits of switching to cloud computing. Here are our top predictions for cloud computing trends in 2022 that your business should be aware of. 

What Is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is the use of off-site storage systems and processing power to help businesses store, manage, process, and communicate information. These systems are hosted on the cloud (the internet) instead of storing information on employees’ personal computers or local storage systems. Then, employees can access and manage any information stored on the cloud for their day-to-day work tasks. 

Types Of Cloud Computing

There are a few key types of cloud computing services businesses can implement including the following: 

• SaaS (software as a service): Enables employees to access a platform online to retrieve information from a particular server, for example, Google Drive or Slack. 
• IaaS (infrastructure as a service): Provides components such as servers, storage, networking, and security, for example, Dropbox or Microsoft Azure. 
• PaaS (platform as a service): Provides computing platforms like operating systems, programming language execution tools, databases, and web servers to businesses, such as Google App Engine or Heroku. 
• Serverless Computing: Uses a server on the cloud which offers easier maintenance and reduced costs. 

Top Cloud Computing Trends For 2022

Multi-Cloud and Hybrid Cloud 

Traditionally, businesses could pick between private or public servers. Public cloud offered accessible, pay-as-you-go services, and private cloud provided more security for data storage. However, hybrid cloud services now supply companies with the benefits of both. 

Services including Microsoft Azure enable users to keep some data on public servers while also giving you the option to store more sensitive data on more secure, private servers. With hybrid and multi-cloud services, businesses can tailor their technological environment to align with long-term goals and suit their specific needs. 

Artificial Intelligence

Businesses can immensely benefit from using the power of AI-driven cloud computing to make their processes more efficient, strategic, and insight-driven. AI can automate difficult or repetitive tasks without the need for human intervention. This boosts productivity and helps teams manage and monitor workflows more efficiently. The demand for AI in cloud technologies is increasing and will continue to grow to meet the demand. This means that 2022 will likely see a large increase in AI technology within the workplace. 

Serverless Cloud 

Using a serverless cloud helps streamline workload for IT managers as it automates tedious tasks and helps maintain your server’s infrastructure for you. Businesses are implementing these services rapidly, and this increase will likely continue throughout 2022. Serverless cloud computing allows developers to build and run services while a cloud provider runs their applications, databases, and storage systems for them. This type of cloud computing helps cut costs and enables companies to scale ridiculously fast. 

Cloud Computing Security 

While cloud computing is an excellent addition to any business, you must also implement data security to prevent breaches or attacks on your databases. IT managers should look into potential weaknesses in your systems, develop monitoring procedures, and act on insights efficiently. 

Sustainability Initiatives

Movements towards more sustainable practices in all aspects of life are becoming increasingly more common, including in the workplace and technology. In 2022, it is likely that more businesses, including cloud companies, will commit to using renewable energy in their operations. Cloud computing can be more sustainable than local computing as it can reduce energy consumption and waste. 

Enhance Your Cloud Servers With Deployus

Cloud computing is in for an exciting year with many companies making the switch. IT professionals will have boundless opportunities to enhance and streamline their processes, ensuring the best results. Deployus is here to help inform you of the latest trends and industry updates. If you want to know more about cloud IT services and how you can get started, contact our expert team today! 

With shifts towards work-from-home business models, cybersecurity should be front of mind for all business owners. When employees access company data from multiple networks, this provides an opportunity for scammers and hackers to view private information about your company. Creating an effective cybersecurity policy is vital to keep your data and employees safe while working from home. 

Tips For Employees Working From Home

Set Up A Virtual Private Network (VPN) 

A VPN securely connects your personal network to your workplace. Using one is important when sending sensitive data and private documents. When documents are sent through unguarded connections, someone can intercept and gain access to your data. 

VPNs help get your personal computer onto the company server to ensure you work from home with a safe and secure connection. This way you can send private documents to other employees without worrying about potential scammers viewing or stealing your information. 

Cybersecurity for Storing Data

Microsoft 365 Applications such as Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, and SharePoint allow businesses to tag documents to restrict access to individuals outside the workplace or Microsoft 365. These connections will be flagged and reported to ensure you know who is trying to gain access, who has received your data and manage these connections securely. 

Work Device Access

Working from home can be difficult without access to a personal device used solely for work tasks. If you share a home computer with others in your household, establish boundaries to ensure they are not accessing your private documents. 

Others using the computer could also accidentally download viruses that may impact the security of your work files. Some mechanisms can control what happens when someone tries to open a document on someone else’s computer and restricts access, further improving security. When possible, use a separate device for all business work to avoid the risks of sharing a computer with non-employees to prevent data loss.  

Stay Vigilant Against Email Scams  

Phishing or scam emails are the most common types of data breaches hackers use to access business data, bank accounts, or personal information. Especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, email scams have become more frequent with emails impersonating the government attempting to get people to click on links for more information regarding vaccinations or restriction updates. 

To keep yourself safe, common email scams have a few red flags to look out for. For example, email scams often have bad grammar or typos, suspicious links, mismatched email addresses, and requests for private information like card details or passwords.    

Use A Password Manager 

Using the same password across multiple websites can be tempting when you run out of ideas for passwords. Therefore, it is important to utilise a password manager to generate new secure passwords and store them safely. 

Password managers help keep passwords secure and enhance productivity and save employees lots of time. By having autofill features, you don’t need to spend precious time throughout the day looking for which password you need for every website or program you need to keep working. Most password managers can be added as an extension to your web browser for easy access to all the logins you could need.    

Zero Trust Model for Cybersecurity

The future of cybersecurity is rapidly moving towards a zero-trust model. A zero trust model helps organisations secure their data by eliminating trust and validating every stage of interaction online. It is important your business does not assume trust by allowing insecure connections to access company servers from work-from-home devices. Having different stages of security for each employee attempting to access company data is essential to keep your private information safe.

Best Cybersecurity Practices For Businesses 

To keep your staff and business safe, it is essential to train employees to spot the signs of phishing and other scams to avoid security breaches. Training users on how to use VPNs and the processes of setting up a password manager are essential to keep your business protected. 

Also, ensure to notify staff about updates to security systems since when these are left uninstalled, some security features may be out-of-date or not working correctly. Sending out emails or text message updates can help keep employees up-to-date and ensure maximum security. Make sure to conduct check-ins often to ensure employees understand security protocols and don’t get overwhelmed with the new procedures. 

Maximise Your IT Efficiency With Deployus 

If you have any questions or inquiries about cybersecurity for your business, contact Deployus today to discuss how you can utilise us as your managed service provider.

Having effective IT support services for your business is vital to ensure your company is secure and efficient. With so many services available, it is important to understand each one and which ones best support your business objectives and vision. We’ve compiled a list of the top IT services you should consider implementing into your business today. 

Cybersecurity Services

Security is becoming increasingly important as more devices connect to company networks and as remote work becomes more common. Setting up cybersecurity services for your business is essential to protect yourself and your employees. These services are designed to protect your devices and remote work accessibility with endpoint protection, email security, and multi-cloud security from cyberattacks, natural disasters, or technology malfunctions. 

Cyberattacks can happen to any business regardless of size, which means everyone can be at risk. Deployus offers a range of cybersecurity measures that are highly customisable for your business . With meticulous attention to detail, Deployus can readily protect your company’s assets and data.

Cloud-Based Services

Maintaining an organised onsite storage system for your hardware and software is time-consuming and difficult for onsite teams to manage. An Infrastructure As A Service Provider (IaaS) can benefit your business by allowing access to on-demand virtual services such as networking, storage, and hardware. 

Deployus are IaaS provider specialists that can help integrate software and processes into your business seamlessly. With the abilities to train your staff, alter computing configurations to suit your needs, and install security measures to keep your data safe, Deployus can improve workplace productivity.

Technical Support and Maintenance

Strong technical support services are important to ensure your employees are looked after and know who to go to for help. A designated technical support team can help your business with troubleshooting network problems, monitoring network performance, and maintenance of IT equipment.

To ensure your business runs smoothly, Deployus offers preventative maintenance. This benefits businesses by providing proactive resolutions for issues before system deficiencies, improved uptime to increase productivity, and reliable and consistent backups.

Business Network Design

Designing network infrastructure is key to every business. Network design consists of virtualisation techniques, storage ideas, cloud applications, unified communication mediums, systematic upgrades, mobility increases, disaster recovery models, and more. 

Ensuring your business has a practical design solution matching your needs and goals is a priority at Deployus. Our services include assistance with the implementation of company servers, data storage, licensing, networking equipment, and more. Our Service Catalogue has a full scope of our offerings that can enhance your business’ network solutions. 

IT Outsourcing Services

Utilising outsourced IT professionals in your business will majorly benefit your business’s productivity and efficiency. Providing your business with access to experienced professionals allows for individuals with high levels of expertise and up-to-date technology to work alongside your employees ensuring fewer risks of system failures, constant support, and reduced costs. 

Managed service providers offer businesses a seamless integration with your existing teams to provide swift and effective technical support and solutions.

Deployus Innovates Businesses With IT Solutions

Supporting businesses with IT services, disaster recovery, cloud-based services, cybersecurity, and maintenance is important to us at Deployus. Contact us today to discuss how your business can benefit from utilising us as your managed service provider. 

There are three commonly talked about P’s for business success: people, process, and product. Being able to effectively manage each of these can improve productivity and profit. We’re lucky that operating in a digital environment increases accessibility to useful technology, which can help focus on people, process, and product with great efficiency.  

Cloud-Based Collaboration Tools for Businesses

Collaboration is important for many industries, opening up new perspectives, ideas, and strategies to improve projects and tasks. There are many companies that choose to employ remote workers or have adapted hybrid models, meaning they must account for staff offsite. This can create a disruption to the usual collaborative process.

Cloud collaboration bridges the gap between onsite and offsite staff in hybrid workplaces. Applications, such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex, and more have boomed in popularity following the pandemic. These softwares increase accessibility, communication, and collaboration, in turn boosting productivity in the workplace.  

Cloud Computing For Efficiency

Onsite storage requires a lot of manual and continuous maintenance. Setting up hardwares and softwares can become time consuming for in-house IT departments, keeping them from other more pressing tasks. 

As an alternative, companies can utilise offsite data management. Cloud computing is an effective means of storing all important data, information, and resources. The process removes the need for tedious maintenance tasks and provides the opportunity to engage with Managed Services Providers that alleviate the stress from in-house IT experts. 

Redirect Meetings to Technology

Since the pandemic, many meetings have had to be conducted online. Initially this was a burden and disruption to the usual business processes. However, with many companies being able to return to in-person meetings, it’s been observed that these online meetings in many cases were much more time efficient and the preferred method for communication.

Migrating meetings to online programs, such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Cisco Webex, can free up more time and boost productivity. With online meetings there’s no need for travel time or arranging locations, which in turn creates a more accessible meeting space. Additionally, the small talk element that flows so easily at in-person meetings is reduced.

Managing Technological Risks

Technology, like everything, has its benefits and downfalls. One such downside is that there is a certain amount of risk in storing your data. There are many things that pose threats to your important information, including natural disasters, cyber attacks, employee errors, and power outages. Major disruptions like this can have hugely negative effects on productivity in the workplace.

One of the benefits of technology is that there are ways to manage this risk. Offsite data storage and management is a great way to prevent disruptions to daily processes. As mentioned earlier, cloud computing is effective at increasing productivity of in-house IT departments, but it also minimises the risk of and the impact of devastations.

Managed Services For Improving Productivity

Implementing major changes to your existing processes can be overwhelming and time consuming. However, the payoff is worth so much more in the long-run as your team can operate at full capacity with improved technological processes. To further improve the productivity of your team and IT Department, businesses can connect with Managed Service Providers to set up and maintain all processes.

Deployus is ready to assist with the introduction of your new technology to ensure it increases productivity.

Deployus is a leading Managed IT Services company in Brisbane, improving business productivity and connectivity. We offer expert services in disaster recovery, cloud computing, virtualisation, and ongoing monitoring to enhance business processes. Contact us today.

Technology has advanced quicker than most people could have imagined. Whether you work in the IT industry or heavily rely on technology within your company, it’s important to stay up to date with the latest technologies. The next best thing is to be one step ahead of the advancements – that’s why we have identified current trends to help predict the future of IT security and cyber security.

Artificial Intelligence

The rise in Artificial Intelligence and the increasing accessibility of it all makes us feel as though we really are living in the future. As with every other form of technology, AI has also been exponentially advancing. With AI being used to create automated processes, data collection and analysis, and decision-making, there could be an increase in cyber security risks. Hackers can target AI systems as they attempt to mine large amounts of important data.

Though this could be a rising threat, there’s also the flipside: AI can help with cyber security services. Cybersecurity developers can create and implement AI in a way that helps identify and resolve any vulnerabilities. With this, it’s predicted that there will be a surge in cybersecurity companies utilising AI to repel any threats and attacks.

Hacking

With all that being said for the rise in AI, there too has been an increase in hackers and cyber attacks. Techjury reported that in 2022, globally, over 30,000 websites are hacked each day and it’s estimated that every 39 seconds a cyber attack occurs. This is because accessibility to and knowledge of technology has improved over the years globally.

Following the trend of increased hacks, we can forecast that there will be an increased demand for cyber security services. Consumers and organisations seeking support and protection against hacks could expect to see an increase in offerings or even pricing.

Reduced Talent Pools

Despite the increase in demand for cyber security professionals, there’s been an observed reduction in qualified individuals. The Global Information Security Workforce projected that by 2022, the gap between qualified people and available job positions will be 1.8 million jobs. 

This means that organisations will likely struggle to hire in-house IT and cyber security experts, leaving them vulnerable to external and internal threats. In order to overcome this obstacle, organisations will have to consider working with external Managed Service Providers such as Deployus to secure their important information. Further, these providers will be working to train up workers in the field and campaigning against the misrepresentation of women in the field to help reduce the worker gap.

Social Engineering Threats

The safety of online communication is on the rise. Large communication platform companies are addressing the social demand for more secure messaging systems. This will have a direct impact on how securely employees will be able to share information on company networks. However, there is always the risk of human-error. 

Scam and hack threats present themselves in many different formats. Lately, there has been an influx in email and text message phishing techniques. Employees are vulnerable to clicking infected links in emails and messages unintentionally. It’s important to train up your team to avoid any potential threats and set up effective security measures to prevent infected messages.

Cloud Computing

An ongoing and unfading trend within cyber security is that of the cloud. This service has made it easier and quicker than ever for individuals and companies to quickly store large amounts of data off-site. However, there is a growing concern with the overall safety of this process. 

Inattentive management of cloud storage or poor authentication can create vulnerable spots in cloud storage. With this, there’s a greater demand for professional monitoring of off-site data storage. For more information about this service and how a Managed Service Provider maintains the security, visit our blog about Disaster Recovery As A Service.

Future-Proof Your Systems

With these identified trends in cyber security, your company is better able to learn about and begin implementing better security measures. Remaining aware of upcoming technologies is an important, yet time-consuming and mind-boggling task. Engaging in work with a Managed Service Provider saves you time, money, and resources when setting up and monitoring cyber security technologies. Contact Deployus today to future-proof and safeguard your company’s information and data.

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