How to Make Your Home Office Look Professional for Online Meetings

In the last few weeks, millions of employees have had to make the transition to working from home to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. In person meetings have gone online, causing a significant increase in the use of video conferencing to keep teams connected with each other and their business clients. 

This has led to some embarrassing Zoom and Skype calls for people that are not used to having their home showcased in video calls. 

Things like poor lighting, children’s toys, and unmade beds in the background of your video calls can definitely make an impact on how people perceive you and your company.

But you don’t have to dread those video meetings. With a few modern office IT tips you can easily create a home office space that looks great for your online video meetings and puts you in a professional light.

Tips for Great Looking Video Calls at Home 

Think of some of the video calls that you’ve been on with colleagues or customers. When you see someone sitting on a sofa with used dishes on a table next to them, you’re immediately drawn to that rather than the meeting conversation. 

A “bad look” in the background of a video call doesn’t just mean the others on the call are unconsciously judging you, it’s also often keeping the call from being as productive as it could be due to unneeded distractions.

Here are some tips for creating a professional online look for video meetings from your home office. 

Set Up a Specific Work Desk/Table/Area 

Many people use laptops because it allows them to work from anywhere in their home - a sofa, backyard patio, kitchen table. But when you’re going to be on video calls from home, you want to designate a single area for those meetings, not give people a tour of your home whenever they dial in.

Look for one spot in your house or apartment where you can control the environment behind you. It doesn’t have to be a large space, just a corner of a room that you can use each time you’re on a call, so the background remains consistent. 

Don’t Leave Too Much Space Behind You

Your home office space should have a wall within a few feet behind you. Aim for about a maximum of 8-10 feet. If you have too much area that can be seen in the background, i.e. a kitchen, it’s distracting and there is a bigger chance that a person or pet in your household is going to walk behind you during a call. 

Pay Attention to Lighting

Poor lighting during a video call can make you look too dark, like you’re sitting in a cave, or be way too bright and stark.

Natural lighting is the best if you have the option to use a nearby window. It’s often recommended to take photos in natural light because it doesn’t cause severe shadows.

Whether you’re using a natural source or artificial light, you want to sit facing a light source.  Soft, directional light is best. You’ll often hear actors talk about “lighting me right” when complementing how they look in a film.  

You can find more tips on video conference lighting here.

Position Your Camera Correctly

You don’t want to be too close to the video camera, where your face is taking up the whole screen. You also don’t want to have the camera at a strange angle. 

What can often happen when people are using a laptop to video conference is that the camera will be below their chin, giving a strange upshot of their face.

You want the camera to be eye level. So, you may need to use a stand or some books to raise up your laptop camera.

Keep the Background Simple and Clutter-Free

Less is more when it comes to the background of your home office during a video call. You don’t want so many trinkets sitting on a bookcase behind you that people are looking at them instead of paying attention.

Having just a few pictures on a wall behind you or a bookcase that’s not too cluttered work well for a professional looking backdrop.

You may also want to add a plant for a touch of warmth and pop of color in front of a white or beige wall.

Be careful about going too simple. For instance, a plain white wall behind you in a video conference can make it look like you’re getting ready to pose for a mugshot.

Don’t Sit on the Couch

Sitting on a couch for a video conference doesn’t give the impression that you’re working very hard, even if you are.

An office chair would be optimal, but if you don’t have one at home, a stool or kitchen chair can give you the height you want and not look like you’re getting ready to watch Netflix.

Be Careful of Those Virtual Backgrounds

Many types of video conference software offer a fun option where you can use a photo as your background. “Fun” is the key word here. That may be fun when you’re chatting with family and friends, but they don’t look very professional during a video meeting for work. 

Often there are distracting pixilated areas as you’re moving your head that ruin the effect. They end up being more distracting during professional calls than they are helpful.

Do “Screen Tests” of Your Video Call Look 

Once you have your background, chair, lighting, etc. where you think they need to be, video conference with a friend or family member and do a “screen test.” This will help you find any last-minute optimizations and make sure you’re completely comfortable for your next work video call.

Get Help with the Video Hardware & Software You Need

Is your business struggling to find a sweet spot with the right video conferencing solutions? BrainStomp can help by evaluating your needs and letting you know which software would be your best options.

Schedule a free consultation today! Call 260-918-3548 or reach out online.

VPN in Layman’s Terms & Why It’s Vital to Use One While Working Remotely

Millions of company networks may be at increased risk right now due to the unexpected transition to having their employees work from home during the coronavirus outbreak.

Businesses that worked hard to get a secure technology infrastructure in place at their office, now find it fractured. Employees working remotely are often on a mix of personal devices and connecting to the office through less secure home networks.

There are a number of dangers when connecting to cloud platforms, office computers and servers through a home network. These include:

·      Consumer routers typically have fewer security safeguards than business routers 

·      Home networks often have multiple higher risk devices sharing them (doorbell cameras, teen’s gaming computers, etc.). 

·      Hackers are targeting home networks due to so many employees being sent home to work during the COVID-19 emergency.

Routers and smart security cameras make up 90% of hacked IoT devices.

One of the best ways to make sure your company’s data security remains strong when employees on home networks are connecting to company assets is to use a virtual private network (VPN).

Business VPN’s Explained

Using a VPN adds an important layer of security to the data transmitted over an internet connection. Instead of connecting directly from your computer through your network to the internet, the VPN is acting as a middleman. 

·      Normal Internet connection: Your device > Internet

·      VPN Internet connection: Your device > VPN server > Internet

Why add the VPN middleman? Because it encrypts your communications, protecting them from being compromised by a hacker who has broken into a home network. A VPN also secures your online session if you’re connected to a free public Wi-Fi.

The “private” part of the virtual private network is the fact that your IP address is kept private.

Normally when you’re connecting to the internet, the sites you visit will read your IP address, which roughly identifies your location. The IP address will typically be assigned by your internet service provider. 

When using a VPN, you’re given a choice of servers to use to connect to the internet. The IP address of that VPN server is the one that websites see, not your personal home IP address.

How Do Employees Use a VPN?

Using a VPN is simple for employees. First, the company signs up for a business VPN account with a trusted provider. Then they can assign employee devices to their VPN account. 

Employees simply download the VPN application onto the devices they use for work. Sign in with their company account details and turn the VPN on. 

This will automatically direct their internet connection through the secure VPN server, so their data transmissions are encrypted and protected.

Advantages of Using a Business VPN

There are several advantages for businesses that use VPNs, both during this pandemic, and anytime.

Keeps All Connections Secure

It’s not generally possible for a business to control every network that remote or mobile employees are using to connect to business apps and data. A VPN gives them blanket coverage for all connections, despite the security level of their current wireless connection.

Business VPNs use enterprise-level encryption to keep hackers from being able to intercept data transmissions.

Additional Web Protection through DNS Filtering

Most business VPNs include critical DNS filtering to help combat phishing attacks. DNS filtering looks at the URLs that a user is visiting and checks for malicious sites before directing your browser. 

This is an important protection against phishing emails that use hyperlinks directing users to sites that download malicious code on their device as soon as the page is loaded. DNS filtering can block those malicious web pages. 

Servers Designed to Improve Speed 

VPN providers use multiple servers placed throughout the world to offer the lowest latency (lag time) and best speeds that they can for online connections. Users can be routed through the best VPN for them based upon their location.

The speed comes from the fact that some VPN servers can translate domain addresses faster than home ISP’s. This results in faster connections to cloud applications and when browsing online. 

Protect Your Cloud Business Apps

You can connect a business VPN to your cloud apps – Office 365, Salesforce, etc. – to create a secure access point that keeps unauthorized users from accessing your cloud data.

This secure access point then allows you to control which users can access which cloud applications. The VPN also allows you to monitor cloud access traffic, which can help you spot any strange behavior that may suggest an attempted attack.

Easy to Deploy 

It’s quick and easy to deploy a VPN throughout your organization to protect all your employee connections at once. Accounts can be set up in minutes and all employees need to do is download the app, sign in, and turn it on.

That blanket of protection is critical when you have the dual risk of multiple remote workers and hackers trying to take advantage of them.

Need Help Getting Started with a Business VPN?

You can focus on running your business and BrainStomp will ensure your operations and remote workers stay secure. 

Contact us today to get set up with a secure VPN! Call 260-918-3548 or reach out online.

Is a Remote Work Program Right for Your Company?

In the just last five years, remote workers have gone from a rare company phenomenon to something that’s much more common to run across. The combination of cloud services enabling remote workers and virtual freelancers, has make telecommuting a trend that is reshaping businesses around the world. 

Between 2005 and 2018, the number of employees working from home has grown by 173%, and as of 2018, 4.7 million US workers worked from home at least part-time.

Flex-work programs that allow employees to work from home either part of all of the time are very popular with workers but can also have several benefits for employers as well. 

But just because telecommuting is a growing trend, does that make it right for your business? How do you ensure productivity stays up when people aren’t in an office environment? How should you structure your office IT to accommodate remote workers?

While a retail clerk or truck driver might not be able to telecommute, as much as 50% of the US workforce has a job that is compatible with at least partial remote work.

If you’ve been wondering whether this is a good idea for your business or how to go about setting up a remote worker program, read on for some clarity.

What Are the Benefits of Remote Workers?

In order for a business to seriously consider allowing employees to work remotely, they often want to know how it’s going to impact their bottom line. Is it going to cost them more in administration costs or less due to fewer space and equipment needs? 

The benefits that companies can see when they begin a remote worker program can come from a variety of areas. 

Cost Savings

Companies save on average $11,000 a year per remote employee. The employee themselves can also save anywhere from $2,000 to $7,000 annually.

Employer cost savings add up from a number of areas, including: 

·      Needing less physical office space

·      Fewer desk, chairs, other furnishings to buy

·      Electricity and other office utilities

·      Fewer days off and sick days taken (less need for temporary help)

·      Savings from other office related expenses (providing coffee, etc.)

Productivity Improvement

One of the biggest fears that employers have is that their employees won’t work as hard when they’re working from home, but statistics show that the opposite is true.

Remote workers have far fewer interruptions from people stopping by their desk, asking for a “quick favor,” etc. and many don’t want to lose the ability to work from home, so they put in additional effort to ensure that their employers don’t feel their work is lagging behind. 

Statistic show that: 

·      53% of remote workers are willing to work overtime, as opposed to 28% of office workers.

·      Employees that telecommute are 35-40% more productive than those that work in the office.

·      82% of employees have lower stress levels working at home than they do in the office.

Employee Retention & Morale

In a competitive hiring landscape, attracting and retaining top talent can be more challenging. Employees see the opportunity to work remotely as a major perk and it’s one that not only can attract them to a company, but also keep them from leaving once they’re there. 

76% of employees are more willing to stay with their employer if they have the flexibility of remote working. 

What Do I Need to Set Up a Successful Remote Work Program?

Just letting your employees work from home without a plan in place or the technology tools needed can be a recipe for disaster. In order to have a telecommuting option for your staff that garners all those great stats on cost savings and productivity, you need to take certain steps to ensure success. 

Put the Right Cloud Tools in Place

It goes without saying that in order for employees to access their work, cloud software is the way to go. It allows them to access their work from any location and the company can retain control over work product that can be stored in a cloud platform, like Office 365, rather than having it on an employee-owned computer.

You also want to make sure you’re using a communication tool like Microsoft Teams or Slack that enable real-time, channeled communications that keep everyone as connected as if they were in the next office. Features like the ability to put an “at lunch” status up clear up confusion when people aren’t working side by side.

Create a Work Hours Policy

Should a remote worker be available the same hours that they are when at the office or can their work be done at any time? Make sure you’re clear about your work hours policy so there is no confusion and the transition to working remotely goes smoothly.

Also, ensure employees know to take breaks and lunch per any employer local, federal, or state guidelines.

Ensure IT Security for Remote Connections 

Network security can be tricky when you have employees using home networks to login to your business apps and data.  

Make sure you work with your IT provider to update your IT infrastructure to secure offsite devices and the way they are connecting to your business data.

Evaluate Hardware Needs

If your employee is using their home computer, can it handle the same applications as their work desktop? Do they have the right headset they need to take customer calls over VoIP when telecommuting?

Make sure you’re setting up your staff for remote working success by giving them the hardware support they need to handle all the same tasks that they do at the office.

Need Help Setting Up a Remote Work Infrastructure?

BrainStomp can help you with security and cloud solutions to support a remote working program that’s a win for both you and your employees.

Schedule a free consultation today! Call 260-918-3548 or reach out online.

These Two Microsoft Security Features Can Greatly Improve Data Security & Compliance

In today’s digital world, file security has changed dramatically. In the “olden days,” you could lock files away in a filing cabinet locked in a separate room with a passcode. But now files are electronic and easily sharable online, requiring completely different security strategies.

The ease of online communication has also led to more challenges when it comes to compliance with data privacy or financial regulations. Those in the financial industry, especially, can find it harder to keep specific departments from interacting in a world of instant chat and screensharing. 

Have you been trying to come up with modern office IT solutions for document security and compliance?

If you’re using Office 365, then you may already have the solution.

There are two key features in the platform, one that’s been available for a while and one currently rolling out now, that address both these areas of company security to streamline office procedures and make safeguards more automated.

Using Microsoft Sensitivity Labels

The first feature we’ll discuss is Sensitivity Labels, which is widely available in Office 365 and continues to get updated to add more capabilities.  

There are major differences in how you want to have your staff handle security for a sales brochure as opposed to a spreadsheet containing trade secrets. But if your system can’t tell the difference as far as security goes, how can you ensure they aren’t both handled by your staff in the same way?

That’s the purpose of Sensitivity Labels. These are labels that you can add to Office documents and emails that then come with document handling guidelines that your administrator has put into place.

For example, you might have a sensitivity label of “Public” on your sales brochure that allows it to be emailed, shared from OneDrive and basically has no restrictions on use. 

For the spreadsheet containing trade secrets, you can set a sensitivity label of “Confidential” that could stop the Excel document from being copied, shared online, or emailed, and add a watermark to the document stating handling procedures.

You can set the label classification types that you want and the automatic handling parameters that go along with them. Then whenever an employee creates a Word, Excel or PowerPoint document or an email, they can manually apply the Sensitivity Label, or it can be applied automatically by the system based upon document/email content. 

With Sensitivity Labels, you can:

·      Encrypt and watermark content

·      Protect content across different platforms and devices

·      Prevent copying, attaching, and otherwise prevent sensitive content from being leaked

·      Protect content even if it’s in a 3rd party app, like Salesforce or Dropbox.

·      Generate document usage reports

·      Prevent content from being deleted

Administrative features allow admins to require that users add a Sensitivity Label to a document or email when they create it. Default labels can also be added to all content and admins can require a justification before a label is changed. 

An upcoming feature rolling out in 2020 is automatic Sensitivity Labels being applied to documents stored in SharePoint and OneDrive based upon scanned document content.

Information Barriers for Compliance Help

Microsoft created Information Barriers as a way to help companies that need to silo communications due to particular compliance needs.

It was first created as an answer to financial companies that need to comply with certain FINRA regulations, such as this one that restricts communications within a company to prevent conflict of interest.

But, it’s a helpful tool for anyone that needs to restrict communication between departments. Such as only allowing your R&D department to instant message with your product development department, but not sales department.

Information Barriers currently impacts communications in Microsoft Teams, and an expansion to SharePoint sites is currently in private preview.

To access Information Barriers, you need to have one of the following: 

·      Microsoft 365 E5

·      Office 365 E5

·      Office 365 Advanced Compliance

·      Microsoft 365 E5 Information Protection and Compliance 

What Information Barriers does is allow you to restrict several types of communications within your Teams application. It can be done per individual or per group.

The goal is to reduce conflicts of interest in certain organizations and to help prevent data leakage (where sensitive data is shared accidentally).

The types of restrictions you can put into place in the Microsoft Teams app using Information Barriers are:

·      Ability to search for a certain user

·      Ability to add a member to a team

·      Starting a chat session with someone

·      Screensharing during an online meeting

·      Inviting someone to join a meeting or group chat

·      Placing a call to someone through Teams

An extremely helpful benefit of Information Barriers is that it can be used with Guest Users as well. So, if you have a vendor temporarily communicating with a certain department using your Teams platform, you could restrict them to only have the ability to interact with that specific team in your organization.

Looking for Customized Compliance & Data Security Solutions? 

Office 365 has several customizations that can reduce administrative time while improving your organization’s security. BrainStomp can help you take full advantage of them!

Schedule a free consultation today! Call 260-918-3548 or reach out online.

What's the Benefit of Upgrading Our Office from Office 365 to Microsoft 365?

Office 365 has become the most popular cloud program on the market by user count and about 1 in 5 corporate employees around the world are using the cloud platform. 

One of the reasons this cloud service is so popular is because it includes multiple applications to power modern office I.T., such as the main Microsoft suite of Office products (Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint), plus collaborative and cloud tools like Teams and OneDrive.

So, a lot of the attraction of Office 365 comes from the way it packages several tools together to provide more value from a single subscription. Depending upon the version you use, it can also include SharePoint, Exchange, Stream, and other useful applications.

Looking to top themselves and offer even more value to businesses, in August 2017, Microsoft launched another subscription service called Microsoft 365.

Some of the questions that business customers immediately started wondering include: 

·      Is Microsoft 365 an entirely different platform?

·      What’s the difference between “Office” and “Microsoft” 365?

·      Why should I upgrade to Microsoft 365?

We’ll go through the answers to each of those below to help you understand the benefits of upgrading to Microsoft 365 and what additional features it offers.

Is Microsoft 365 an Entirely Different Platform?

Microsoft 365 is not a completely different platform than Office 365, rather it’s a bundle. Just like some electronic stores will bundle a computer with a monitor and give you one price for both, Microsoft 365 bundles Office 365 with additional software. 

The Microsoft 365 bundle includes:

·      Windows 10 (either Pro or Enterprise)

·      Office 365 (either Business Premium or Enterprise)

·      Microsoft Intune (mobile device manager)

·      Advance security features

The price difference between Office 365 and Microsoft 365 will vary according the version you’re currently using, but if you’re using Office 365 Business Premium ($12.50/user/month) and upgrade to Microsoft 365 ($20/user/month), it will be an additional $7.50/user/month for the added bundle features.

What’s the Difference Between “Office” and “Microsoft” 365?

Microsoft has been expanding their umbrella to reflect the expanse of their products (Azure, Windows, etc.) and go beyond only being synonymous with their Office products.

The use of “Microsoft 365” reflects the fact that Office 365 is being bundled with other Microsoft products and is an upgrade.

Another recent change they made was to rename Office 365 Secure Score to Microsoft Secure Score and expand its capabilities to Windows security scoring as well as Office 365 security. So, this appears to be a strategic branding decision to move to more “Microsoft” named products and services.

Why Should I Upgrade to Microsoft 365?

If you’re already enjoying your Office 365 subscription, you may be wondering why you should pay the additional $7.50 per user to upgrade. 

Here are a few reasons that upgrading to Microsoft 365 can be a good value proposition for your business.

Mobile Device Security

The use of mobile devices at work has skyrocketed in the last 5-10 years, meaning more work product is being created and accessed from mobile devices. For most offices this means an employee-owned mobile device, which presents several security challenges. 

Approximately 60% of employees use smartphones for work, and that number continues to increase. Companies that don’t have a way to manage mobile connectivity to business data are at risk of a data breach. Some of the challenges of employee mobile device security include: 

·      Mobile devices are often connected to unsecure, public Wi-Fi.

·      Malware is increasingly being targeted at mobile devices.

·      Employee phones are used for both personal and work.

·      Revoking data access can be difficult if an employee leaves the company suddenly.

A major addition to the Microsoft 365 bundle is their mobile device management platform, Intune. It allows companies to easily administer a bring your own device (BYOD) or company-owned mobile phone program and keep control of data access for improved security.

Some of the advantages of using Intune (which by itself starts at about $6/user/month) are:

·      Ability to remotely lock and wipe a device

·      Reporting on mobile access to company apps and data

·      Ability to apply security policies across all devices (PC and mobile)

·      Works with both Android and iOS devices

·      Configure automatic updates for security

·      Add or revoke access remotely from a central control panel

Advanced Security Features

Microsoft 365 also includes some advanced security features that can improve your cybersecurity strategy. This includes Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection, which is designed to protect against phishing attacks with email protections, as well as defend against ransomware and zero-day threats.

Some of the other added security features you’ll have with Microsoft 365 include:

·      Control access to company information through “Do Not Copy” and “Do Not Forward” file designations. 

·      Pre-breach threat resistance with Windows Defender Exploit Guard

·      Enable unlimited cloud archive and long-term preservation for email archiving

Learn More & Get Help Upgrading to Microsoft 365

BrainStomp can answer all your questions about Microsoft 365 and the value an upgrade can provide to your business. We can also help you smoothly upgrade your subscription and ensure you take advantage of all the new features.

Schedule a free cloud consultation today! Call 260-918-3548 or reach out online.

4 Reasons to Consider an AV Huddle Space to Facilitate Team Connections

A significant trend has transformed offices over the last decade. Cloud connectivity and the continued improvement of internet connections have made offices more virtual and mobile.

Thanks to technology, you don’t even need a physical office to run a successful business anymore. Phones, business apps, and video conferencing can all be done using cloud solutions. This has also opened up the capability to use a remote workforce, increasing talent pools and overall employee productivity. 

Currently about 66% of U.S. companies use remote workers either part or full-time.

But with the ability to connect with remote employees and clients via the internet, comes the challenge of doing it in a way that’s efficient and doesn’t leave people feeling out of the loop if they’re not at your physical office.

This convergence of the ability to connect remotely and the need to do it effectively has led to the rise of Huddle Spaces.

Huddle spaces are designed to be an easy to use and spontaneous way to professionally connect to other team members for a video meeting or do things like conduct an online product training session with a client. 

How Do Huddle Spaces Differ from Conference Rooms?

Large conference rooms set up with audio-visual equipment often can set a more formal tone when you just want to enable a quick video conversation. They also are often booked in advance, meaning they’re not usually available for a spontaneous meeting.

Also, many small companies don’t have the space to dedicate to a large conference room for video conferencing, so employees end up holding video chats at their desk, where there can be distracting visuals and sounds.

Huddle spaces are designed to take up a small area, which can be a small room or an alcove or part of a room. They’re built to accommodate about 1-5 participants in a video conference and have partitions that can minimize any visual or audio distractions.

Their small size allows companies to easily create more than one huddle space so they can be available without reservation to facilitate fluid and effective connections.

The Benefits of Setting Up Huddle Spaces at Your Office

You often hear people say that while phone and email are great, there is nothing like a face-to-face connection. The great thing about video conferencing is that you can still get that without needing to travel across the country.

Huddle spaces are designed to facilitate that face-to-face connection more naturally.  

For example, if you’re collaborating with another team member in a different city on a PowerPoint presentation and have some great ideas about how to position your value statement, you can easily move your collaboration to a video conference using a huddle space, just as you would stop by someone’s desk to brainstorm. The spontaneous video connection helps make interactions more dynamic, just as they are in person.

Here are several reasons to consider setting up your own AV huddle space for your office. 

Keeps Your Remote Team Better Connected

Companies save an average of $11,000 per year per each part-time remote employee. Remote workers are also known to have higher productivity and take less time off than their office working counterparts.

But the challenge is keeping your team as connected when they’re not in the office. Huddle spaces make it simple to have a quick collaborative meeting “on the fly,” which helps your remote workers feel more connected to your team in the office and encourages important collaboration. 

Easy to Use

Huddle spaces are typically set up with a screen, conferencing software, webcam and audio input. Rather than spending precious time trying to figure out how to connect everything, huddle spaces are designed so you can just sit down, click a button, and connect instantly. 

Because they’re not used for anything but video conferencing, they’re always ready to go when you need them and don’t require extensive set up. 

Low Cost

If you need a professional-looking area to video conference with clients but can’t afford to designate an entire room as an AV space, huddle spaces give you an inexpensive option.

Because they’re designed for just 1-5 people and require minimal equipment due to being dedicated to video conferencing only, they’re much less costly to set up than an entire AV setup in a large conference room.

More Professional Than Your Desk 

Have you ever been on a video conference with someone and there was some type of distracting poster or photo on the wall behind them or you could overhear their co-workers at the next desk? 

Video conferencing at your desk can be less professional looking, especially if you have an open office plan. Huddle spaces give you a backdrop that’s always professional and designed to limit ambient sound that could distract from your meeting.

If you often meet with clients by video chat, you’ll find huddle spaces make those conferences much easier and you don’t have to worry about cleaning up any empty cups left on your desk before a call.

Discuss Your Dream Huddle Space with BrainStomp

Wondering what a huddle space would look like at your office? BrainStomp can help you find the best location and design for an effective AV huddle space so you can make the most out of your team connections.

Schedule a free AV consultation today! Call 260-918-3548 or reach out online.

How Your Paycheck Could be Stolen Using a Direct Deposit Email Scam

Phishing tactics have become more sophisticated over the years and often one tactic feeds into another one.

For example, a scam email to gain access to your email credentials, may then allow a fraudster to send your HR Department a legitimate looking email asking them to change the account for your paycheck’s direct deposit .

At the same time, the scammer could be sending out tons of phishing emails to your coworkers and other contacts from your email to get them to click open a phishing link, that they’ll be much more likely to trust because it’s coming from someone they know. Internal emails also tend to have an easier time getting past business cybersecurity defenses. 

This tactic is referred to as Business Email Compromise (BEC), and according to the FBI, it’s a $26 billionscam and has been reported in all 50 U.S. states and 177 countries. 

Phishing attacks that employ BEC can wreak all types of havoc, including planting ransomware on a network and gaining access to critical company files. But perhaps the most personal type of attack is one that steals employee paychecks.

The cost of payroll diversion scams increased over 815% between January 1, 2018 and June 30, 2019.

Payroll diversion scams have been on the FBI’s radar for a while. They were responsible for total reported losses of over $8.3 million between January 1, 2018 and June 30, 2019. 

We’ll explain how this scam works next and how your HR team can help prevent falling victim to it. 

Tactics Used for the Payroll/Direct Deposit Scam

The payroll direct deposit scam is generally al two-step process. The first step targets users with phishing emails designed to steal their email login credentials. 

These can look like SharePoint file sharing requests that take you to a spoofed Microsoft Office 365 login page or can be a fake warning pretending to be from your web/email hosting company saying there’s been a compromise and you need to log in to change your password.

The goal of step one is to gain access to employee email credentials so the hackers can send emails as you from your email account. 

Step two targets your HR or accounting department, whichever is responsible for employee direct deposit paperwork. The email will ask how to change their direct deposit account and it will appear legitimate because it’s coming from the employee’s hacked email account.

Most offices will honor the request and send the employee information or an online link that allows them to change their direct deposit bank account. Often it can be one or two payrolls before the employee asks where their paycheck is, and by that time the company is out a lot of money.

The average dollar loss per each complaint is $7,904, which is a significant amount for any company to divert when it comes to the pay employees are counting on. 

There’s been a disturbing upward trend in payroll diversion using BEC, with incidents spiking significantly at the end of 2018 and throughout 2019, as illustrated in the FBI graph below. It remains a major threat for companies to watch out for in 2020. 

Ways to Protect Your Company from the Direct Deposit Scam

The direct deposit scam hurts both employees and their companies. The employee can be without their paycheck for several weeks, during the time the scam is discovered, and replacement payroll can be issued. The company then ultimately bears the cost of the mis-diverted funds.

Protecting your company from falling victim to this scam takes a multi-layered approach, as do most good cybersecurity policies. Here are suggested tactics to employ to stop this scam from hurting your business and employees.

Use Secondary Factors of Authentication for Change Requests

Using another way to verify that a direct deposit change request is legitimate can help you stop it in its tracks. This could be a simple phone call or face-to-face with an employee to ensure they in fact made the payroll change request.  

Making this secondary factor a security policy and including it in your manuals for those handling direct deposit administration will help make sure it’s done every time as a standard practice. 

Train Employees on Phishing Awareness

While fake direct deposit requests can be sent from fake emails, they’re much more likely to succeed when sent from an employee’s legitimate email address. Scammers know this, which is why compromising a business email account is usually the first step in the process.

This compromise is done via phishing tactics, so regular ongoing training for your employees on how to spot phishing and what to do if they spot a questionable email can go a long ways towards stopping the scam at step one.

Employ Anti-Phishing and Spam Protections

Using security apps with advanced threat protection can help keep dangerous phishing emails from getting into user inboxes, or at the very least block most of them. Employ apps that can backstop your users, including those with web protection that will immediately alert them of a fake login page before they enter their credentials.

Schedule a Security Audit Today to Ensure You’re Prepared

A security audit from BrainStomp will review the cybersecurity policies that you have in place, let you know of any potential vulnerabilities, and suggest fixes to make sure your business is protected from scammers, data breaches, and other online threats.

Schedule a free security consultation today! Call 260-918-3548 or reach out online.

Beware of a SharePoint Phishing Scam Designed to Steal Your Office 365 Credentials

Some criminal tactics work so well year after year at fooling people into clicking malicious links or downloading malware-laden attachments that they spawn multiple variations.

Phishing is responsible for 90% of all data breaches, and just about every business on the planet has been the recipient of a phishing email. It continues to be the most popular tool in a hacker’s toolbox because it continues to work, and there are so many ways to deploy phishing.

When planning IT security solutions for business, phishing continues to be difficult to combat because it can take so many forms. A few of these include:

·      Phishing with email attachments

·      Phishing with malicious links

·      Text phishing

·      Social media phishing

·      Targeted spear or whale phishing 

And once people get wise to one type of phishing ploy, scammers quickly adjust and bring out brand new ones. One of the newer ones that was first spotted in 2018 is a SharePoint/OneDrive phishing scam that tricks users into giving up their Office 365 login credentials.

The SharePoint scam is clever in that it disguises itself as a common type of email that companies using Office 365 might see every day - an invitation to collaborate on SharePoint. 

It looks legitimate at first but is really redirecting the user to a spoofed login page to steal their username and password.  

How Does the SharePoint/OneDrive Scam Work?

This phishing scam begins when a user receives a seemingly normal invitation to collaborate through SharePoint, and it will include a link to a OneDrive document. The link will appear legitimate, having “onedrive” in the URL as it should, which tricks many users into letting their guard down and believing it to be real.

The trick of this type of phishing scam is that the link really IS a link to a OneDrive document that the scammer has put up. Because the link is to a trusted resource, it can slide right by undetected in many anti-phishing programs that look for malicious links. 

This is one way that phishing keeps evolving. As scammers find that their ploys are getting blocked, they look for ways around the system, which is through the use of links on services like OneDrive or Google Drive that an app won’t be programmed to flag as dangerous.

The next step in the ploy happens when the user clicks the OneDrive document link in the email to access the shared file. It directs them outside of OneDrive to a third-party website with a spoofed Microsoft Office 365 login page.

The page is designed to look exactly like the real thing that users have most likely seen so many times, they don’t think twice about entering their login credentials. 

As soon as the employee enters their login, the scammers have them and the person may then realize something is not right, because they’re not finding a shared document they were expecting to see. Others may shrug it off as something just not working right with the SharePoint service. 

What Can Hackers Do with My Office 365 Credentials?

Login credentials for an Office 365 account can score a hacker anywhere between $15-$100 each, with administrator logins being sold for the most money.

They’re so valuable because they can let criminals into all sorts of areas of the platform for nefarious reasons. With your login credentials for Office 365, hackers can access:

·      Email (for sending spam and more phishing)

·      Cloud storage with sensitive business information

·      Access to other user accounts using an admin login

Why This Phishing Attack is Particularly Dangerous 

There are two key factors at play with the SharePoint phishing scam that makes it particularly dangerous for an organization.

One is the trust factor. Users are seeing a standard OneDrive link in an email that they will typically trust. Some employees also may think that the SharePoint invitation must be an internal one and anything coming from their own company’s system would be safe.

The second factor is the ability of these phishing links to get past security applications, like Microsoft’s Advanced Threat Protection. These services won’t typically identify a OneDrive file link as malicious, so the email gets through. This also causes the user to place trust that it’s legitimate, because they mistakenly think, “the security software would’ve caught it if it wasn’t real.”

Tips to Avoid Falling for the SharePoint Phishing Scam

While phishing is getting more sophisticated, that doesn’t mean you don’t have any defenses against it. There are several things that your business can do to safeguard your Office 365 platform from this type of scam.

·      Educate Your Users: Conduct ongoing employee cybersecurity education about this and other phishing threats out there, so users know what to be on the lookout for.

·      Use Multi-factor Authentication: Using multi-factor authentication can stop a thief from being able to use stolen login credentials for your Office 365 account because they won’t have access to the device that receives the login PIN.

·      Use a Web Filtering Application: Security applications that include web filtering can warn users if they’ve just clicked to access a dangerous page, including those designed to spoof a login page. 

·      Protect Workstations with Endpoint Protection: A 3rd party endpoint protection application can often catch phishing emails that other software might miss.

Get Help Securing Your Office from Phishing Attacks

Phishing comes in multiple forms and is constantly evolving. Make sure you have a cybersecurity strategy in place that can keep your data protected. BrainStomp can help you with the best security solution based upon your office software and workflows.

Schedule a free security consultation today! Call 260-918-3548 or reach out online.

7 Pro Outlook Calendar Tips to Boost Team Performance

After email itself, the second most used area of Outlook for most people is the calendar. Whether it’s used for appointment scheduling or task reminders, having a place to plan your days and weeks often helps keep things from falling through the cracks.

Whether your calendar is a burden or a lifesaver, often depends upon how well you can optimize it and integrate it to work with the rest of your office technology.

Outlook in Office 365 has multiple collaborative tools that can boost team performance and streamline your workflow if you know how to use them. A benefit of collaboration tools is they inherently boost productivity.

When employees are connected, organizations have seen a boost in productivity of 20-25%.

Get more out of your Outlook calendar and keep your team connecting effectively with these pro Outlook calendar tips.

Tips for Making the Most of Outlook Calendar

If you’re looking to stay organized and on top of your game when it comes to calendar management, these tips are sure to help.

1. View Two Time Zones at the Same Time

When you’re meeting with people in other countries, trying to find a suitable time can be a challenge. You can make it much easier by enabling a second time zone view in your Outlook Calendar.

Just go to Options > Calendar > Time zones > Show a second time zone

2. Create a Calendar Item from an Email

Quickly create a calendar item that includes notes from an email and send it around without even leaving your inbox.

When you’re in an email message, go to the Message tab, and in the Respond group, click Meeting.

This opens a meeting window and includes the content from the email, you can edit the date and time, attach any pertinent files, and invite others from the same window. You’ll also be able to copy the meeting to your calendar with a click.

3. Use Automatic Colors for Organization

You can organize meeting types by color so you can easily see what your schedule looks like at a glance. For example, you could put marketing meetings in purple and accounting meetings in green and set up your system to do it automatically.

You use a keyword to automate the color code, such as “marketing,” and create a rule to apply that color to meetings using that keyword.

Steps include:

• Click the View tab in the Calendar window and then click the View Settings button.

• Click Conditional Formatting and Add to create a new rule

• Enter the rule name and choose a color

• Click on Condition

• On the Appointments and Meetings tab enter the keyword in the Search For the Words control

• Retain the In Subject Field Only default setting, then click okay until you return to the Calendar window

When you create a calendar item using the keyword, it will automatically be color-coded to the color you set.

4. Share Your Calendar over MS Exchange Server

If your office uses Microsoft Exchange Server, then you can take full advantage of shared calendars and can share your calendar with those inside or outside your organization or create a calendar that’s shared by a group, so everyone knows what’s happening each day.

To share a calendar, click “Share My Calendar” on the Navigation Pane. This opens a Permissions tab in Calendar Properties.

Select the calendar to share and the permission level, then click to add users to give access to.

5. Insert Holidays (from Any Country) into Your Calendar

Save time when planning around holidays both in the U.S. and other countries. When you insert holidays into your calendar, you don’t have to Google them each time to schedule around them.

Go to File > Options > Calendar > Add Holidays, and you’ll get a list of multiple countries to choose from.

6. Start Outlook in Calendar View

By default, Outlook opens at your email inbox, but if you’d like to get a view of your day first before sorting through email, you can change this to open in the calendar window instead.

Go to File > Options, click Advanced. In the Outlook Start and Exit section, click Browse and then click Calendar.

7. Attach a Calendar Reminder to Emails

Following up with colleagues who are late for meetings or miss deadlines can be tiresome and time-consuming. Make it easier by attaching a calendar reminder to an email.

This feature will send a calendar alert to your email recipients reminding them of an important date for you.

From the Outlook Home tab, choose Follow Up and then click Add Reminder. Set the time you’d like the alert to appear and click the Reminder checkbox.

Keep Your Office Connected and Efficient

Looking for ways to better utilize your technology to keep your team connected, efficient, and productive? BrainStomp can help you streamline your workflows and choose the applications that will support your needs the best.

Schedule a free technology consultation today! Call 260-918-3548 or reach out online.

Effortlessly Organize Your Microsoft Outlook Email

How organized you are has a direct correlation to time management. According to the Wall Street Journal, office workers waste an average of 40% of their day due to lack of organizational skills.

With a good deal of that workday time spent reading and responding to emails, applying organization to your Outlook inbox can make a big difference in productivity and time management.

Often, companies looking for modern IT solutions adopt applications that can help them streamline and reduce wasted time, but to get the full benefit from apps like Office 365 and Outlook, it’s important to know the secrets of good organization and how they can help you achieve it.

The average person spends 28% of their workday reading and replying to email.

Our BrainStomp team has put together some of our favorite ways to effortlessly organize your Outlook email and become a master of efficiency.

Tricks for Saving Time witth Outlook Organization

These tips can help even the most unorganized person find more time in their day by spending less of it searching for things in their inbox. Try out these tips and see for yourself!

Use Outlook Folders

Creating personal folders in Outlook allows you to easily separate your mail by category or subject, making it much easier to find that last email from that big customer or review online purchase receipts.

You can use them in multiple ways to save time, here are two:

• Have all mail come into your inbox, then once addressed, move it to the appropriate subject folder.

• Automate incoming messages based upon sender or subject line to automatically move from your inbox to the appropriate folder.

In the left pane of Outlook, right-click where you’d like to add the folder and click New Folder, add the name and press Enter.

Add Color Codes with Categories

Reduce time searching through your inbox by using categories to color code according to subject. It will help you instantly spot a message of a particular type.

Color categories also help you stay organized across other Outlook items and will impact:

• Email messages

• Notes

• Contacts

• Appointments

From an email message, you can right-click the message and select Categorize, then select a category from the list.

Create categories by going to the Tags group on the top ribbon and select Categorize > All Categories. In the Color Categories dialog box, select New.

Let Quick Steps Organize for You

You can set up Quick Steps in Outlook to give you an additional helping hand when it comes to your email organization. It’s a big time-saver and can eliminate hours spent trying to sift through an inbox that’s become overwhelmed.

You can use any number of automations in a Quick Step, here are some of the defaults that Microsoft provides for you to get started.

• Move a message to a specific mail folder and mark it as read

• Open a reply to a message and delete the original message

• Forward a message automatically to others on your team or to your manager

You can create a Quick Step by selecting Home, then in the Quick Steps group select the More arrow. This opens the Manage Quick Steps dialog. Select a Quick Step or select one to change and click Edit.

You’ll see multiple options to use for actions that you can combine together so they execute in one click.

Use Focused Inbox to Designate Important Mail

A handy organizational feature that splits your inbox in two is called Focused Inbox. What it does is create two different inbox tabs, Focused and Other. In Outlook for Windows the Focused Inbox is available for Office 365, Exchange, and Outlook.com accounts.

You can use the View tab to easily tab between your Focused Inbox and Other, so you can keep more important messages grouped together in one place. You can easily move messages between the two inboxes when needed and set all messages from a particular sender to automatically come into your Focused Inbox.

Delete Redundant Messages with Conversation Cleanup

Do you have multiple messages with much of the same information due to replies back and forth? An easy way to reduce your inbox clutter is through the Conversation Cleanup tool in Outlook.

When you use Conversation Cleanup it will evaluate the contents of each message in a specific conversation, and if a message is completely contained in another message, it will move it to your deleted items.

To use it, go to the Home tab and in the Delete group, click Clean Up.

You can then choose from the following options:

• Clean Up Conversation

• Clean Up Folder

• Clean Up Folder & Subfolders

You also have flexibility in setting specific commands, such as to never delete a flagged message.

Find More Time-Saving Tricks with BrainStomp

The BrainStomp team is all about technology optimization and we can help your office reduce wasted time and make the most of the applications you’re using to positively impact productivity and your bottom line.

Schedule a free technology consultation today! Call 260-918-3548 or reach out online.