The IT Experts

If you want to try them out, be sure to open a new browser window as we don’t want you leaving the article before you get all the tips. 

Jump to Address Bar: Ctrl+L

Let’s say you are scrolling around inside of social media and you see something that piques your interest and want to look it up. Simply press Ctrl+L and it will select the text inside of the address bar. Type in your query and you don’t have to fumble around with a mouse and the cursors to get where you need to go. 

Quickly Add the Dot Com: Ctrl+Enter

How many times have you typed in a command into the address bar and instead of bringing it to the page you thought it was going to, it brings you to a web search for that term? It can be pretty annoying especially if you are always using the website. You can use Ctrl+Enter to ensure that you aren’t opening up a search window of a web address you use routinely. It will add the “www.” and “.com” to the text and take you to the website you thought you were going to.

Open a Search in a New Tab: Alt+Enter

Just as often you are typing in the address bar to search something. If you want to keep looking at the content on a website, but you want to search something in another tab, simply press Alt+Enter. This will bring the web search up in the next tab.

Open a Website in a New Tab: Ctrl+Alt+Enter

Using the two together offers the user the ability to open up websites in a new tab without having to write the full address out. Try it with “twitter” in your address bar now. 

Open Clear Browsing Data: Ctrl+Shift+Delete

When you are done browsing, you may want to have control over what kind of cookies and other stuff is left behind from your travels around the web. To bring up options to clear your browsing data, press Ctrl+Shift+Delete. 

For more great tips check back next week.

Maintaining Security

While there are many automated precautions that can help defend your business, your real weaknesses are likely derived from your users. Cybercriminals are aware of this and will not hesitate to use it to their advantage.

To help counter these efforts, you need to make sure that your employees are aware of the many varieties of threats that might darken your business’ analogous doors. Not only that, your team should be able to recognize these threats as they encounter them and know how to respond appropriately. This means that you need to educate your employees about the threats they should look out for and evaluate their preparedness through testing processes.

Basic IT Capabilities

On the topic, your entire team should have some basic awareness of best practices, with access to written documentation to help support them. For instance, they should know what is expected of the passwords they create for themselves and how to best use the tools that they are provided, taking backups, and other very important processes.

Seeking Out Assistance

Of course, should assistance be required (or even if it just makes the employee more comfortable to have a professional watching over them) your team should also know the protocols for reaching their IT support resource to report their given issue, as well as the best means of doing so.

At some point, you’re going to have to place your trust into your team. To do that, however, you also need to ensure that they are trustworthy by training them to be. We can help by giving you the technology to support your operations. Find out what else we have to offer by calling us at (954) 834-2800.

Attacking Businesses During COVID-19

The deadly novel coronavirus is still in the forefront of most people’s thoughts, and as a result, many people remain home. With so many people kept from going out, people are relying on the Internet. Some businesses have shifted to remote, some haven’t but rely on online orders and support, and many others are effectively out of work, putting a lot of people online at once. 

For scammers and hackers, this is an ideal situation. They have taken this opportunity to set up spoofed websites that are designed specifically to get people to let their guard down enough so they can gain access to their accounts, including their business’ accounts.

Unfortunately, this has become extremely common.  Of the 1.2 million new COVID-19-related domains that have been built during the time spanning March 9-to-April 26 nearly 86,600 malicious websites have been created. 80 percent of those distribute malware if interacted with. 

An incredible amount of COVID-19 spam and phishing messages have also appeared. Some fraudulent email campaigns have claimed to come from the IRS, the CDC, healthcare organizations, and other companies. 

Protecting Your Business from Scams

What are you to do with so many obvious (and some not-so-obvious) scams? 

You need to stay vigilant and remember that even though you are at home, on your home computer, that you need to function like you are on your workstation in the office. All the best practices you’ve been trained on in the office apply now and should be maintained. They include:

• Watch out for phishing - Whether it’s through email, messaging, or social media, keeping a skeptical eye out for phishing emails and spoofed websites will go far in keeping your business secure.
• Use strong passwords - Managing your passwords and keeping them up-to-date with the latest security best practices can go a long way toward securing your business.
• Keep data backed up and safe - Just because you are working from home doesn’t mean that your data is any less important. Keep it backed up and secured with antivirus and a comprehensive firewall. 

The IT professionals at KB Technologies have the experience needed to keep your business’ network secure during these hard times. Call us today at (954) 834-2800 to learn more.