October 2020

Do These Things To Protect Your Business From Getting Hacked

1. Train Employees. Your team needs to know how to identify and handle today’s IT security threats. Cybercriminals often rely on your employees’ lack of training to break into your network. Ongoing training gives employees tools and resources to overcome this and many other IT security challenges. Make training a top priority!

2. Hold Employees (And Yourself) Accountable. Training and company guidelines don’t mean much without accountability. When you set rules, follow them, just as you follow industry and government rules and regulations when operating your business. Be willing to hold anyone who does not accountable.

3. Have A Disaster Recovery Plan. Things happen. When you store sensitive data, you need to have a plan in place to recover and restore that data should anything happen. This doesn’t just include data loss from malicious attacks but other types of disasters, including hardware failure, fire and flood. How is your data being backed up and saved? Who do you notify in the event of a breach? Who do your employees call in the event of disaster? SmallBiz Technology, Dec. 26, 2019

4 TIPS TO GET PROJECTS DONE ON TIME WITH A SMALL TEAM

Give Them The Tools And Resources They Need — We all need tools to get things done – project management software, content creation tools, messaging apps, virtual private network access and more. Have a conversation about what each team member needs to maximize productivity and work closely with them to meet that need.

Set Aside Time For Proper Research Don’t jump headfirst into a project without jumping into research first. Information is a powerful tool to get things done efficiently and effectively.

Assign Accordingly — Before the team goes to work, make sure assignments or responsibilities are delegated properly and check in with everyone on a regular basis to make sure things are going smoothly (or to see if they need help).

Plan And Plan Again —Plan out the project before you set to work. Give yourself and your team a map to follow as you work through the project. As with any project, expect obstacles along the way and be willing to update your map accordingly. Small Business Trends, July 4, 2020

Nine Lies About Work

by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall

We all believe certain things about work and the way we run our businesses. But as authors Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall point out, not everything is as it seems. In Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide To The Real World, they break down nine lies we tell ourselves or have been told. One example: the best plan wins. Good plans can get good results, but the best plans can still fail. In the real world, there are countless obstacles or variables that can derail our best-laid plans. The authors discuss how to overcome this “lie” and others. Change your perspective with Nine Lies About Work.

Employees Are Letting Hackers Into Your Network ... What You Can Do To Stop It

Cyberthreats are everywhere these days. Hackers, scammers and cybercriminals are working overtime to break into your network – and the network of just about every business out there. They have a huge arsenal of tools at their disposal, from automated bots to malicious advertising networks, to make it possible.
But there is one “tool” that you may be putting directly into their hands: your employees. Specifically, your employees’ lack of IT security training.
While most of us expect hackers to attack from the outside using malware or brute-force attacks (hacking, in a more traditional sense), the truth is that most hackers love it when they can get others to do their work for them.
In other words, if they can fool your employees into clicking on a link in an e-mail or downloading unapproved software onto a company device, all the hackers have to do is sit back while your employees wreak havoc. The worst part is that your employees may not even realize that their actions are compromising your network. And that’s a problem.
Even if you have other forms of network security in place – malware protection, firewalls, secure cloud backup, etc. – it won’t be enough if your employees lack good IT security training. In fact, a lack of training is the single biggest threat to your network! It’s time to do something about it. Comprehensive network security training accomplishes several things, including:

  1. Identifying Phishing E-Mails Phishing e-mails are constantly evolving. It used to be that the average phishing e-mail included a message littered with bad grammar and misspelled words. Plus, it was generally from someone you’d never heard of.

    These days, phishing e-mails are a lot more clever. Hackers can spoof legitimate e-mail addresses and websites and make their e-mails look like they’re coming from a sender you actually know. They can disguise these e-mails as messages from your bank or other employees within your business.

    You can still identify these fake e-mails by paying attention to little details that give them away, such as inconsistencies in URLs in the body of the e-mail. Inconsistencies can include odd strings of numbers in the web address or links to YourBank.net instead of YourBank.com. Good training can help your employees recognize these types of red flags.

  2. Avoiding Malware Or Ransomware Attacks. One reason why malware attacks work is because an employee clicks a link or downloads a program they shouldn’t. They might think they’re about to download a useful new program to their company computer, but the reality is very different

    “Every device on your
    network should be
    firewalled and have updated
    malware and ransomware
    protection in place.”

    Malware comes from many different sources. It can come from phishing e-mails, but it also comes from malicious ads on the Internet or by connecting an infected device to your network. For example, an employee might be using their USB thumb drive from home to transfer files (don’t let this happen!), and that thumb drive happens to be carrying a virus. The next thing you know, it’s on your network and spreading

    This is why endpoint protection across the board is so important. Every device on your network should be firewalled and have updated malware and ransomware protection in place. If you have remote employees, they should only use verified and protected devices to connect to your network. (They should also be using a VPN, or virtual private network, for even more security.) But more importantly, your employees should be trained on this security. They should understand why it’s in place and why they should only connect to your network using secured devices.

  3. Updating Poor Or Outdated PasswordsIf you want to make a hacker’s job easier than ever, all you have to do is never change your password. Or use a weak password, like “QWERTY” or “PASSWORD.” Even in enterprise, people still use bad passwords that never get changed. Don’t let this be you!

    A good IT security training program stresses the importance of updating passwords regularly. Even better, it shows employees the best practices in updating the passwords and in choosing secure passwords that will offer an extra layer of protection between your business and the outside world.

    A good IT security training program stresses the importance of updating passwords regularly. Even better, it shows employees the best practices in updating the passwords and in choosing secure passwords that will offer an extra layer of protection between your business and the outside world.

    If you or your employees haven’t updated their passwords recently, a good rule of thumb is to consider all current passwords compromised. When hackers attack your network, two of the big things they look for are usernames and passwords. It doesn’t matter what they’re for – hackers just want this information. Why? Because most people do not change their passwords regularly, and because many people are in the habit of reusing passwords for multiple applications, hackers will try to use these passwords in other places, including bank accounts.

    Don’t let your employees become your biggest liability. These are just a few examples of how comprehensive IT and network security training can give your employees the knowledge and resources they need to help protect themselves and your business. Just remember, you do not have to do this by yourself! Good IT training programs are hard to find, and we are here to help.

Free Report: What Every Small-Business Owner Must Know About Protecting And Preserving Their Company’s Critical Data And Computer Systems

This report will outline in plain, nontechnical English the common mistakes that many small-business owners make with their computer networks that cost them thousands in lost sales, productivity and computer repair bills, and will provide an easy, proven way to reduce or completely eliminate the financial expense and frustration caused by these oversights.

Download your FREE copy today at
www.RangerSolutions.com/protect or call our office at 469-202-5777.

Cartoon Of The Month

SHINY NEW GADGET OF THE MONTH

Ovo Portable Steam Iron And Garment Steamer

The Ovo Portable Steam Iron And Garment Steamer is much smaller than your average iron and yet capable of so much more. It’s an iron and a steamer and the perfect companion for when you’re traveling and want to look sharp. Or keep the Ovo at home to save space!

The Ovo fits easily in your hand. It’s lightweight and won’t take up much space in your luggage. Plus, it holds enough water to create up to 10 minutes of steam. You can quickly switch from the metal ironing plate to the brush attachment to add finishing touches to delicate fabrics (and remove any lint or pet hair). It even comes with a heat-resistant travel case. Learn more about this minimarvel at bit.ly/2CgQzJG!

Do Smartphone Apps Listen To Your Conversations?

We’ve all seen this: you scroll down Facebook or Google search results and see an ad for a restaurant or product you were just talking about the other day. How can this be? Was your phone “spying” on you? According to Consumer Reports, not exactly.

Instead, what you’re seeing is a personalized ad created by your search habits. Google, Facebook and others collect data as you enter search terms and click on various results or other ads. They know you, and as a result, you are likely to see ads regarding things you just talked about last week. The best way to get around this is to turn off app permission, browse in “incog

The Leader’s Most Important Job

Can you guess what the most important trait is for effective leaders? You can probably guess all sorts of things: relationship building, communication, awareness, positivity, innovation … The list goes on. And you probably do a lot of those things too.

When I speak with leaders, I emphasize that a person’s success as a leader doesn’t come from what they do or how they do it — it’s about how often they do these important things.

The Most Important Thing For Leaders: Focus Your Team

A leader’s most important job is taking the time and effort to focus their team. Leaders must help their team members focus their time and expertise to complete the organization’s most important work.

The most successful businesses are driven by profit, innovation, efficiency and effectiveness.

Your team’s revenue and results are all driven by how people spend their time (effort) and expertise (knowledge and skills), and these are the keys to elevating your team’s success. By doing these things and being a role model for your team, you can experience amazing results.

How To Elevate Your Team

1. Passion Creating a vision requires passion. This passion elevates your own commitment and helps both you and your team be productive. It’s unlikely that a leader will be fully immersed in their role, their organization or their team if they are not passionate about what they are doing.

2. Time, Expertise And Motivation Everything is the by-product of time and expertise. When a leader invests both time and expertise into their team, the team grows. When time and expertise are invested wisely, the organization also achieves great success. By putting the time and expertise into your team members, you can motivate them to improve in their roles.

3. Focus This goes hand in hand with time and expertise. By focusing on the strengths (and weaknesses) of a team and learning how to constantly improve and grow, an organization can produce positive results. When a leader doesn’t have this focus, the organization suffers. Mediocrity becomes the norm.

A great deal of time and expertise is wasted in companies where employees are doing lowpriority work or work that shouldn’t be done at all. When a team lacks an effective leader, it is difficult for them to know what they should be doing instead.

When a leader takes the time to show their team the importance of their work and how their work will achieve success, the whole organization grows. This commitment is what creates remarkable performances. You can learn more about this in my book The Encore Effect: How To Achieve Remarkable Performance In Anything You Do.

At the end of the day, it’s most important for leaders to regularly take the time to focus on and elevate their team. Just as a conductor makes sure members of an orchestra are all playing the right music to the best of their ability, so does an effective leader do their job.


Mark Sanborn, CSP, CPAE, is the President of Sanborn & Associates, Inc., an “idea studio” that seeks to motivate and develop leaders in and outside of business. He’s the best-selling author of books like Fred Factor and The Potential Principle and a noted expert on leadership, team building, customer service and company change. He holds the Certified Speaking Professional designation from the National Speakers Association and is a member of the Speaker Hall of Fame. Check out any of his excellent books, his video series “Team Building: How To Motivate And Manage People” or his website, marksanborn.com, to learn more