Imagine that you are an employee of a small or mid-sized business who handles financial transactions. Company executives regularly send you emails asking you to send money via wire transfer. It’s just part of your job. So, you arrive at the office on a Monday morning to an email in your inbox asking you to wire money to a specific account. How do you react?

If you’ve outsourced your technology needs to a managed service provider (MSP) within the last decade or so, you’ve probably heard about remote monitoring and management (RMM) software. When listed in an agreement or on an invoice, that line item might raise at least a couple of questions: “What is this, and do I really need it?”

By now, we’re all used to using passwords to authenticate our identities online. But as we’ve grown more accustomed to coming up with and remembering passwords, cybercriminals have gotten far better at stealing them. The result is that many of our online accounts are at high risk for breach, especially because most people have bad habits when it comes to passwords. A study in 2015 found that nearly 3 out of 4 people use the same password for multiple accounts, and that 68% of people were using passwords that were five years old or older. Unsurprisingly, this same study found that 2 in 5 people surveyed had experienced some sort of security incident online.

The problem, of course, is that good password habits are difficult to learn and even harder to carry out. Thankfully, tools now exist that can drastically improve your password security. They’re called password managers.

When businesses are deciding where to host their vital resources—email, key applications, and company data—the conversation usually revolves around two options: company-owned servers at the office or servers owned and maintained by a cloud vendor (commonly referred to as “the cloud”). But a third option, though not discussed as often, might be a better fit for some businesses. And that’s data center colocation.

A couple months back, we reviewed a social media app called After School. Because the app allows teens to post anonymously, we raised the caution flag. We acknowledged, however, that After School’s developer does seem to have implemented some important safeguards to minimize inappropriate or dangerous content. Yik Yak is a different story.

Like After School, Yik Yak is asocial media app that allows it’s users to post anonymously. Unlike After school, the app contains relatively few safety features to protect younger users.

As we continue to move more aspects of our daily lives online, cybercriminals are developing more sophisticated ways of hacking our accounts and stealing our passwords. From banking to grocery shopping to managing household appliances, we’re putting ourselves at risk every time we create a new account. It’s gotten to the point that usernames and passwords just aren’t enough to protect our privacy. 

Cheap Cell phone chargers can be dangerous. Need advice on which chargers are safe to buy and use? Contact us today online or call us.

Download the After School, a smart-phone app, designed to let teens share anonymous posts with their classmates. Contact us today to know details.

Much ink has already been spilled over Apple’s latest MacBook Pro. Some love it (sort of). Some hate it.

So, where do we, as your trusted technology partner, fall on the spectrum? Somewhere in the middle. Read on to find out why.

As we celebrate the holiday season, we’re delighted to announce two new additions to the Affinity family! Please help us welcome our newest Systems Engineers, Mike Olson and Marvin Stephens. Read on to get to know them.

Think you may be getting tech gifts this Christmas? Smart home devices—from light bulbs to thermostats to coffee pots—make great gift items. These devices, referred to collectively as the Internet of Things (IoT), are on the frontier of tech innovation, changing the way we interact with everyday household items in some helpful ways.

But with these innovative new devices come security risks.

One of our favorite things to do each year during the holiday season is to comb through the innovations of the last 12 months pull out the best ones for gift ideas. Here's a guide to the top 25 tech gifts of 2016, curated by our team of technology experts.

October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month! This is a great opportunity to raise awareness about a topic that is more pertinent than ever, as recent headlines show, and affects all businesses and organizations. To help in that effort, below is a curated list of helpful articles from our resource archives. All nine of these articles give businesses and organizations practical advice on how to keep their data safe. Read through them, and share this post with your friends and colleagues!