danieljones0094's blog

It’s 2024 and so there’s no secret that businesses must ensure that their IT infrastructure is not only efficient and reliable but also compliant with industry regulations. For healthcare-related businesses, this includes adhering to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Partnering with a HIPAA-compliant Managed IT Service Provider can offer numerous benefits. Here’s why:

Ensuring Regulatory Compliance

Healthcare providers and businesses handling sensitive patient information must comply with HIPAA regulations. Non-compliance can result in severe penalties, both financially and legally. Managed IT service providers specializing in HIPAA compliance ensure that all systems and processes adhere to these stringent regulations. This compliance helps protect your business from potential fines and legal actions.

Protecting Sensitive Data

HIPAA-compliant IT support services are designed to safeguard Protected Health Information (PHI). These managed services implement robust security measures, such as encryption, secure access controls, and continuous monitoring, to protect against data breaches and unauthorized access. By working with a HIPAA-compliant IT solutions company, you can ensure that patient data remains secure and confidential.

Expertise in Healthcare IT

Managed IT service providers – such as ClickAway – with HIPAA compliance expertise have a deep understanding of the specific challenges and requirements of the healthcare industry. This specialized knowledge allows them to offer tailored IT support services that address the unique needs of healthcare businesses. Whether it’s managing electronic health records (EHR) systems or ensuring secure communication channels, these providers have the skills and experience to deliver optimal IT solutions.

Cost-Effective Solutions

Outsourcing IT services to a HIPAA-compliant managed services provider can be more cost-effective than managing IT in-house. ClickAway offers scalable solutions that can grow with your business, allowing you to pay only for the services you need. Additionally, they can help reduce the risk of costly data breaches and compliance violations, providing a solid return on investment.

Enhancing Operational Efficiency

A reliable IT MSP company ensures that your IT infrastructure runs smoothly and efficiently. By leveraging advanced technologies and proactive monitoring, these providers can prevent potential issues before they disrupt your operations. This proactive approach minimizes downtime, improves productivity, and allows professionals to focus on delivering quality customer service.

Comprehensive IT Support

HIPAA-compliant managed IT services for small businesses provide comprehensive support, including 24/7 monitoring, regular updates, and rapid response to any IT issues. This ensures that your systems are always up-to-date and functioning optimally. With a dedicated IT support company, you have peace of mind knowing that expert help is always available when you need it.

Customized IT Solutions

Every business has unique IT needs, and HIPAA-compliant IT service providers understand this. They offer customized solutions tailored to meet the specific requirements of your business. Whether you need managed IT support for small business or more extensive services for a larger organization, these providers can design and implement solutions that align with your goals and compliance needs.

Local Expertise and Support

For businesses located in specific regions, such as San Jose, Silicon Valley, Campbell, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Santa Cruz, Monterey, Los Altos, Sunnyvale, and nearby areas, finding a local HIPAA-compliant managed IT provider is crucial. ClickAway understands the regional market and can offer prompt, on-site support when needed.

Partnering with a HIPAA-compliant Managed IT Service Provider is essential for businesses in the healthcare industry. ClickAway offers expertise in regulatory compliance, data protection, and customized IT solutions, ensuring your business operates efficiently and securely. Whether you need managed IT services for small businesses or comprehensive IT support for a larger organization, choosing a HIPAA-compliant provider can enhance your operational efficiency and protect your sensitive data.

If you’re looking for reliable and compliant IT support, consider working with a local provider in your area. Whether you’re in San Jose, Silicon Valley, or any of the surrounding regions, Click Away is ready and able to meet your needs and ensure your business stays compliant and secure.

Information Source- https://clickaway.com/businesses-should-work-with-hipaa-compliant-it-services/

Data is one of the most valuable assets for businesses. From critical financial records to sensitive customer information, safeguarding your data is crucial. While cloud backup solutions offer convenience and accessibility, having a physical data backup is equally important. Here’s why combining both strategies is essential for comprehensive data protection.

Comprehensive Data Security

Relying solely on cloud backups can leave your business vulnerable to various risks. Cyberattacks, such as ransomware, can compromise cloud storage, potentially leading to data loss or corruption. Physical data backups provide an additional layer of security, ensuring your data remains intact even if your cloud storage is compromised. ClickAway can help you implement a robust data protection strategy that includes both cloud and physical backups.

Protection Against Cloud Failures

Cloud services, though reliable, are not immune to outages and failures. Events like server downtimes, cyberattacks on cloud providers, or even natural disasters affecting data centers can disrupt access to your data. Having a physical backup ensures that your critical business information is always accessible, regardless of cloud service interruptions. IT support companies specializing in managed IT solutions can set up and maintain physical backup systems tailored to your business needs.

Faster Data Recovery

In the event of data loss, the speed of recovery is crucial. While cloud backups can offer quick recovery options, restoring large volumes of data from the cloud can be time-consuming, especially if you have limited internet bandwidth. Physical backups, on the other hand, allow for faster data recovery, minimizing downtime and ensuring your business operations continue smoothly. Managed IT support services can provide solutions that integrate both cloud and physical backups for efficient data recovery.

Enhanced Control and Ownership

With physical backups, you have complete control over your data storage. You can manage how and where your data is stored, ensuring it meets your specific security and compliance requirements. This is particularly important for businesses that need to comply with regulations like HIPAA. A managed IT services provider can help you establish and maintain physical backup systems that align with regulatory standards and your business objectives.

Cost-Effective Solutions

While cloud storage can be cost-effective for storing large amounts of data, ongoing costs can add up over time. Physical backups can be a cost-effective alternative, especially for archiving older, less frequently accessed data. By combining cloud and physical backups, businesses can optimize their data storage costs while ensuring robust protection. IT MSP companies can assist in developing a balanced approach that leverages both types of storage to maximize cost efficiency.

Redundancy and Reliability

Redundancy is a key principle in data protection. Having both cloud and physical backups ensures that your data is stored in multiple locations, reducing the risk of total data loss. This redundancy enhances the reliability of your data protection strategy, providing peace of mind that your information is safe and recoverable. Managed IT services for small businesses can help implement redundant backup systems tailored to your specific needs.

Customized Backup Solutions

Every business has unique data storage and protection needs. A one-size-fits-all approach does not work when it comes to data backups. ClickAway can offer customized solutions that incorporate both cloud and physical backups, ensuring your data is protected according to your specific requirements. Whether you need managed IT services for small businesses or comprehensive IT support for a larger organization, tailored solutions provide the best protection for your data.

Local Expertise and Support

For businesses in specific regions, such as San Jose, Silicon Valley, Campbell, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Santa Cruz, Monterey, Los Altos, Sunnyvale, and nearby areas, partnering with a local IT service provider can offer significant advantages. ClickAway understands the regional challenges and can offer prompt, on-site support when needed.

Protecting your business information is paramount. White cloud backups offer many benefits, having a physical data backup is essential for comprehensive protection. Combining both strategies ensures robust security, faster recovery, and enhanced control over your data. ClickAway can help you implement a balanced approach that leverages the strengths of both cloud and physical backups.

If you’re looking for reliable and comprehensive IT support, consider partnering with a managed IT service provider in your area. Whether you’re in San Jose, Silicon Valley, or any of the surrounding regions, ClickAway is ready to meet your backup and data protection needs, ensuring your business stays secure and resilient.

Information Source: - https://clickaway.com/physical-data-backups-are-great-additions-to-your-cloud-backup/

Introduction:

So, you want a custom desktop computer. There is a lot to consider.

The objective for building a custom computer is to select a set of components that when assembled produces a system for your particular use with your personal best tradeoffs among performance, quality, physical size, aesthetics, power consumption, ability to adapt to the future, and of course, cost.

Customs are built from the following components:

1. CPU

2. Graphics Card

3. Motherboard

4. RAM

5. Storage

6. CPU Cooler

7. Power Supply Unit

8. Case and Fans

9. Operating System

To select a set of components, start with the custom’s primary task. Custom computers are usually built for gaming, trading, 3D modeling, video editing, or AI. The first step is to determine the performance requirements for your platform. If you are a gamer, what games do you want to play and at what level? What are the recommended requirements for those games at the level you want to play? If you want a custom computer for trading, 3D modeling, video editing, or AI, what software platforms will you be using? What are the recommended requirements for those platforms? The second step is to determine the most demanding requirements, and those will be the requirements for your custom computer.

The components listed above are numbered because the decisions on the higher numbered components are dependent on the lower numbered component decisions. Components 1 through 8 should be selected in that order. Select each component to meet or exceed the platform requirements for that component and compatibility with the components that have already been selected.

In this post, we will focus on selecting components for gaming custom computers because they constitute the vast majority. The principles and methods for other custom computers are very similar. We will not address the assembly process in this post.

Note:- If you want to read this article completely then Please click on the information source given below.

Conclusion

After reading this post, most readers may be a bit overwhelmed with the number and complexity of dependencies and decisions to be made. Frequently, customers come into ClickAway with a collection of parts that they were trying to assemble into a custom computer, but they hit one or more brick walls because the parts were not compatible or were not well chosen. Clickawaywould be happy to consult with you to assure you end up with a custom computer that is best for you.

If you have never built a custom computer, it’s not as simple as it looks. If you don’t know the correct order of assembly and some of the tricks, it can become extremely frustrating. ClickAway also offers assembly services.

Information Source: - https://clickaway.com/custom-computers-how-to-select-components/

Introduction:

Everybody who signs into websites or uses secure applications has passwords – probably a bunch of them. How secure are your passwords? Are you sure? This post may shake your confidence, but it will also guide you on how to create and use secure passwords.

How Easy Is It to Crack Passwords?

Websites and applications do not save your password in text form; they save a cryptographic hash of it. Passwords like “password”, a pet name, or a common word can be cracked almost instantly using a special dictionary of common password components.

It was based on the time to crack a password hash using a desktop computer with a top-of-the-line graphics card and the time using cloud computer resources. At best, these are optimistic estimates.

Bottom Line: your current passwords probably are not strong enough.

Password Security:

Three attributes are critical to creating truly secure passwords:

·         Length

·         Randomness

·         Uniqueness

Typically, websites and application will not accept a password less than eight characters long. As passwords get longer than eight characters, they become exponentially more difficult to guess or crack. In most cases, websites and applications can accept passwords up to 64 characters long.

Truly random sequences of numbers, upper-case letters, lower-case letters, and symbols are much harder to guess or crack than passwords composed of words in a dictionary, or names and numbers that are easily discovered as associated with you. Humans are not good at creating truly random sequences, so that job is better done by a tool designed and tested for the purpose.

If the same password is used for multiple websites and applications, once hackers access it in one place, they can easily use it in other places.

Human Limitations:

Human short-term memory capability is limited. The most relevant memory capability measure when thinking about passwords is span: the number of sequential chucks of information we can hold in our short-term memory.  Span varies with the type of information to be remembered and is around seven for digits, around six for letters, and around five for words. As a side note, that’s why phone numbers are seven digits long. Long-term memories are created by transferring them from short-term memory, but only important, frequently used, and/or highly associated information is transferred. Therefore, long-term memory is even more limited than short-term memory. Since passwords are sequences of digits, letters, and symbols, our ability to remember them is quite limited.

Worse yet, we need passwords for many websites and applications, but the uniqueness requirement says each one should be different. Humans are not good at remembering a large number of such associations.

Dilemma:

Cyber security calls for long, random, and unique passwords. We see advice all the time telling us not to write passwords down. However, humans do better remembering a small number of short sequences that make sense (not random) – especially if they are written down. How can we resolve this direct conflict?

Password Managers:

Password managers are software applications that store, fill in, create, and manage passwords for users’ websites, online accounts, and applications. Password managers can create long, truly random, and unique passwords for you and then store them in an encrypted format. After the password manager creates a password, you will need to go to the website, account, or application and update the password to the one created by the manager. You do not need to remember those passwords. Whenever a password is required, the password manager can fill it in for you. You only need to remember one secure master password to access the manager.

There are a number of available password managers with various pros and cons. Some even have good free versions. ClickAway would be happy to discuss your particular password situation and recommend and install an appropriate tool.

Write Down Usernames and Passwords:

The common advice about not writing down credentials is more likely to prevent you from accessing your own information than preventing some bad guy from accessing it. We have to help customers recover forgotten or lost passwords all the time. Recording your credentials on paper (not a computer file) stored in a safe location will ensure that you never have to experience that problem. With a password manager, you will probably only need to write down one set of credentials.

If you decide not to use a password manager, keep a written list of credentials (both usernames and passwords) for every website, account, and application you use; keep it up to date; and store it in a safe place.

Conclusion:

Weak passwords can give bad guys access to your valuable data and accounts. Forgetting your password can deny you access to your valuable data and accounts. Why take those chances? ClickAway recommends that you install and use a password manager and that you have it create random passwords that are at least 16 characters long. Make sure the master password is itself secure. Write down your important website, account, and application credentials on paper, not a computer file, and store the document somewhere safe.

Information Source: -https://clickaway.com/passwords-how-to-make-sure-they-are-secure/

Introduction:

We have grown very dependent on our technology devices, so it’s natural to want to take them with us when we travel. However, traveling with phones, tablets, or laptop computers exposes them to more threats than normal including liquid and physical damage, theft, loss, and cyber attacks. Planes, cars, trains, and hotels are technology-hostile environments. The following recommendations are gleaned from millions of miles of business and personal travel as well as customer experiences.

Liquid Damage:

Don’t put a water bottle in the same backpack or carryon as your phone, tablet, or laptop computer. Seems obvious, but we see the consequences all the time. Water bottles are prone to leaking anyway, but on planes, the pressure changes significantly increase the probabilities.

Don’t have drinks and your devices on airplane seatback trays at the same time. Turbulence or someone accidentally bumping into the seat or tray can cause liquid damage.

Liquid spills cause costly damage to devices or outright kill them almost immediately due to short circuits or, after a time delay, due to corrosion.

If your device was exposed to liquid and was turned off, do not turn it on. If it was on, turn it off immediately, and don’t turn it back on. You can wipe off the exterior, but don’t try to dry it out with rice or a hairdryer. Do not try to test it. Bring it in as soon as possible for a professional to try to save it.

Physical Damage:

Checked luggage is exposed to extreme handling shocks, cold, heat, and rain. Carryon luggage falls out of overhead bins all the time. Devices get cooked in very hot cars or used outside in bright sunlight. When you’re travelling, before you put valuable technology anywhere, think about its safety, and don’t expose it to unnecessary risk.

Theft:

Leaving your valuable devices unattended in airports, cars, or hotel rooms or putting them in checked luggage is an invitation to thieves. Keep them with you at all times, and be vigilant.

Loss:

Travelers absent-mindedly leave valuable devices in airplanes, trains, taxis, rental cars, buses, hotels, and restaurants. Sometimes, with significant effort and/or expense, they get them back, and sometimes they don’t. If you’re travelling for business, your schedule may be hectic and your surroundings unfamiliar. It’s pretty easy to get distracted. If you’re travelling for pleasure, the whole point is to relax in unfamiliar surroundings. It’s pretty easy to lose focus. When you’re travelling, make a special effort to keep track of your technology.

Cyber attacks:

Using unfamiliar networks is an unfortunate fact of life for travelers. Most public networks are not very secure. The probability of exposure to cyber security threats is much higher when travelling. To avoid infections and attacks, your devices should be protected by a defense-in-depth. Check out our posts about security for more guidance.

Unless you are certain that the network that you’re using is secure, avoid doing anything online that would expose your sensitive information, e.g. banking or credit card transactions.

Security Scanners:

Travelers frequently question the safety of security scanners. Security scanners use very low levels of radiation and/or magnetic fields to detect dangerous objects and are not a significant threat.

Conclusion:

We’re all very dependent on our technology devices, so we want them with us when we travel. Travel exposes them to more threats. So, be careful out there. clickaway computer services is always happy to help you keep your devices safe.

Information Source: -https://clickaway.com/how-to-travel-with-your-tech/

Threats, Risks, and Backups:

Things go wrong. Devices fail and are subject to accidents, cyber attacks, theft, loss, fire, and natural disasters. You can protect your devices from some of these threats. Other threats can be mitigated but not completely eliminated.

If an unanticipated event occurred that rendered your device unusable or unavailable, what would you lose? Does your device store irreplaceable or costly-to-replace data:

·        Tax, financial, legal, or medical documents?

·        Work products?

·        Photos, videos, or recordings?

Maintaining one or more current backups of your valuable data and/or entire system is a critical security layer that can mitigate the risks associated with the threats listed above.

Backups:

Backups are copies of your data and/or system stored on a different device or in the cloud.

If you want to back up a Mac, just use Apple’s Time Machine, and if you need coaching, we’d be happy to help.

If you have a PC, you should have a backup plan that answers the following questions:

·        What should be backed up?

·        How many backups should be maintained?

·        Where should backups be stored?

·        How frequently should backups be done?

·        Should backups be manual, scheduled, or incremental?

·        What tool should be used to create a backup?

The remainder of this post will help you develop answers appropriate to your specific situation.

What to Back Up:

If you want to be able to restore a backup to either your failed or an identical system and be able to use it as if nothing bad happened, then you should back up your entire system. If, however, you just want to be able to restore your data to a compatible system, then you should back up your data.

Number of Backups:

ClickAway recommends that you maintain two backups – one conveniently close but still safe and another far enough away not to be compromised by the same threat.

Where to Store Your Backup:

For a backup to be helpful, it must still be usable when the backed-up device is not. That means backups should be stored in a safe place that is physically separated from the backed-up device. There are three ways to accomplish that:

1.     Store the backup on an external device, and keep that device where a threat is very unlikely to destroy both the original and copy,

2.     Store the backup in the cloud using an online backup service, or

3.     Store backups on both.

This decision is personal. Some users just want backups to happen automatically without their intervention, and for them, backing up to the cloud is probably the right decision. While backups stored in the cloud are encrypted to protect privacy, other users don’t want to give up physical control of their data or be dependent on the internet to get their data back, and they don’t mind the performing the backup task themselves. For them, backing up to one or more external drives is probably the right decision.

If you decide to back up to external drives, you should maintain two – one kept conveniently nearby (not too close) and another kept safely farther away. One good way to do this is by rotating consecutive backups between your two locations.

If you decide to back up to an external drive and to the cloud, you will maintain one copy conveniently nearby (once again, not too close) and another in the cloud.

Backup Frequency:

Users have different thresholds of pain regarding loss of work/changes. Can you tolerate a month’s worth; a week; a day; or an hour? Match your backup frequency to your threshold of pain.

Backup Process:

You can do manual, scheduled, or incremental backups. For manual backups, you decide when you need to initiate a backup with appropriate software. For a scheduled backup, you pre configure appropriate software with your desired schedule, and the software then initiates backups according to that schedule. Some offerings implement incremental backups, and they wake up periodically and backup only what has changed since the last backup – more efficient.

Once again, this is a personal decision. The down-side to doing manual backups is the human tendency to forget; if you experience an event that makes it necessary to restore a backup but have not done one for too long, then you will lose an unacceptable amount of work/change. The down-side to doing full scheduled backups is the amount of time that they take to complete. There really aren’t significant down-sides to incremental backups; that’s why Apple’s Time Machine does incremental backups.

Backup Tools:

There are many backup tools out there. The answers to the previous questions should guide your tool selection. ClickAway is familiar with many tool offerings and can help you decide.

Conclusion:

As you can see, backup plans can be complex. This is not a one-solution-fits-all situation. ClickAway computer serviceswould be happy to help you craft and implement a complete backup plan that fits your needs and preferences.

Information Source: - https://clickaway.com/backups-why-you-need-then-and-how-to-plan-them/