Want to Extend Your Laptop’s Battery Life? Try These Tips

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One of the worst obstacles for an on-the-go small business professional is a laptop battery that’s about to die. Without taking the right precautions, even a fully charged battery can run out fast, delaying project completion and interrupting teleconferences. Stay productive on the go with these tips for maximizing your battery life.

Lower the brightness to raise your battery life

Your laptop’s screen is a huge energy drain. A maximized brightness setting can reduce battery life by hours. Get those hours back and lower the brightness of your display. Windows 10 gives you many different options for customizing your screen backlight, such as automatic adjustment when your laptop is unplugged or adaptive adjustment that takes surrounding ambient light into consideration.

Save battery life with automatic screen shut-off settings

You can gain even more battery life when you turn the screen off altogether. That is, if you remember to do it. Luckily, modern operating systems can automatically shut your screen off when your laptop is not in use. Set it to 5 minutes of inactivity and enjoy your laptop battery for longer. If you’re on Windows, you can even customize different shut-off times, keeping your screen on for longer when it’s plugged into the wall.

Forget Sleep Mode, put your laptop into Hibernate Mode

What’s the difference between Sleep Mode and Hibernate Mode? In Sleep Mode, the computer keeps the system state in RAM and uses a small amount of power so that your laptop can start up right away when you need it. When entering Hibernate Mode, your laptop writes the system state to disk and then powers off completely. It might take a little longer to start up later, but you’ll have noticeably improved battery time over Sleep Mode.

Disable WiFi and Bluetooth for quick battery life gains

It’s surprising how much battery power WiFi, Bluetooth and other services require. Your WiFi card uses a significant amount of power when searching for an access point or transferring files. Bluetooth doesn’t use as much, but over time it adds up. Try turning off your WiFi when you don’t need to be on the internet, and wait until you’ve plugged in your laptop to access that big PDF from your email. You can even save a small amount by trading in your wireless mouse for an old-school wired one.

Mute your speaker when you’re not plugged in

Your laptop’s speaker can be another energy drain. Every time your speaker needs to make a sound, whether it’s playing a video or a quick system beep, it draws power from your battery in order to do so. The best way to avoid this is to mute your speaker entirely. Otherwise, lowering the volume can make a small improvement in your battery life.

Shut down applications you’re not using and enjoy big savings

If you’re not using an application, it might still be running in the background, eating up battery power for no good reason. That’s why it’s important to periodically check what apps you have running and exit the ones you no longer need. It’s easy to adjust background settings for individual apps on Windows or to stop them from running entirely.

Watch the temperature and keep your battery healthy

A surprise factor in long-term battery life is heat exposure. Regularly exposing your laptop to heat can reduce your battery’s maximum capacity. Get out of the habit of leaving your laptop in a hot car or on a shelf in the midday sun. If your laptop has any vents, make sure these are clear so the laptop can ventilate properly. Extreme cold can also damage your battery, so don’t let your laptop freeze either.

With help from Bluwater Technologies, you can enjoy enterprise-level support and advice for all your peripheral devices, from laptops to smartphones and beyond. Contact us today and enjoy premier IT support tailored to your business needs.

The RobbinHood Attack Could Cost Baltimore $18 Million

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In May 2019, the city of Baltimore found itself in major IT trouble.

A crippling ransomware attack took down systems in almost every government department. The files became encrypted and couldn’t be recovered. The perpetrators demanded 13 Bitcoin — about $76,000 — to restore the files.

To its credit, the city refused to pay the criminals. To its discredit, the city’s IT management was in such bad shape that fixing the damage cost the city millions. Baltimore was not prepared at all for any large-scale data disaster. Other IT operations should learn from Baltimore’s example and avoid its mistakes.

The Attack on Baltimore

The ransomware that hit Baltimore goes by the name of RobbinHood. It’s an aggressive piece of malware that attacks Windows computers. It starts by stopping services that could interfere with encryption, including security software. It disables Windows automatic repair. Only then does it encrypt the documents on the computer and display a message demanding payment.

Currently, there’s no known way to recover the files without paying.

The attack on Baltimore’s systems disabled email and other services. They lost a large number of important records. The city’s emergency services, including the police and fire departments, withstood the attack apart from losing email access. A few other systems did as well.

Email and payment processing systems remained down for weeks. People were unable to pay taxes and fines. The lack of access to data held up real estate transactions.

According to current estimates, recovery has cost the city $18.2 million, including lost revenue. It could be even more. They diverted money from services to pay the costs, and taxpayers will certainly experience the consequences. The good news is that it will pay for major improvements in IT security.

Baltimore Mistakes

No network on the Internet is 100% immune to ransomware. They should be prepared for the worst, but Baltimore’s IT setup was not prepared at all. Some of the problems were so plain that city councillors called them “mind-boggling.” Critical data was stored on desktop machines, with no systematic backup.

The city had no IT disaster recovery plan. It had no insurance against data disasters. Ransomware insurance is a growing business, but the city of Baltimore hadn’t taken advantage of it.

They didn’t regularly patch computers to remove Windows vulnerabilities, and the systems contained weaknesses that were waiting to be exploited.

The city’s CIO received the blame and became suspended from his job. He faced criticism for poor communication after the attack. He took measures to improve security after the 2018 ransomware incident, but they proved to be insufficient.

How to Avoid a Ransomware Disaster

Every IT department should assume a ransomware attack can happen. Preparing requires two things. The first is to make the systems as resistant to harm as possible. The second is to be able to recover quickly and without permanent data loss.

Businesses need to keep all important data on well-protected servers and regularly back it up. The Internet highly exposes desktop machines and allows them to run all kinds of software. Most of their users lack skills in data management. Entrusting important data to those machines is an invitation to disaster.

Cloud storage is the best choice in many cases. Companies store it off the premises and professionally manage it to provide the best protection against all kinds of failures

The network should have a disaster recovery plan in place. It protects not only against ransomware but against natural disasters and physical theft. Disaster recovery requires offsite backup and a way to get systems running again quickly. You should periodically test the plan to ensure that it works.

Is Your Security Up to Par?

You need to create and update security plans that have multiple layers. You can’t just throw something together and hope it’s good enough. Bluwater understands ransomware, hardware failure, human error, and other threats to data. We provide assistance ranging from consultation to full security management.

Contact us to learn how we can help you avoid scenarios like the one Baltimore faced.

What You Need to Know About Containers Security

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Containerization has revolutionized software deployment. It allows faster deployment cycles, easier scalability, and consistency across environments. It’s a standard part of the DevOps process. Containers provide clear benefits in security, but they offers their own challenges.

Making a containerized environment run smoothly and securely requires specialized expertise and experience. Bluwater provides the management and support to keep the software running and minimize the risks.

Understanding Containers

Software applications have many dependencies. They use runtime environments, subroutine libraries, and system services. They need to adapt to the operating system on which they run. The container puts all the dependencies into a single package that’s deployed as a unit. The software on which the application depends will always be the same.

For instance, suppose an application runs on a Java Virtual Machine (JVM). Containerization ensures that each instance runs on the same version of the JVM, no matter where it’s deployed. The developers and admins don’t have to worry about having to run under an outdated or unpatched JVM.

However, a container isn’t a monolith that does everything the application needs. More commonly, it’s split up into services, each of which has its own container. Services communicate through APIs.

You can deploy many container instances on one machine. These numbers can be scaled up or down to meet current needs. Each one runs independently of the others. However, a container isn’t the same as a virtual machine. All the containers on the host run under the same instance of the operating system. Containers aren’t as fully isolated from each other as VMs are.

Security Benefits and Concerns

Containerization isn’t a total solution to all security problems. It makes some issues easier to deal with but introduces its own concerns. The NIST Application Container Security Guide gives a detailed summary of the issues and best practices.

Benefits

The big advantage of containers, from a security standpoint, is control. A software release contains tested and trusted versions of all supporting libraries and runtimes. When you keep them up to date, they will be up to date wherever you install the release. You only need to ensure that the latest patches are included once.

When software has to run in a diverse environment, it’s harder to test all the cases. Bugs can slip through, opening the way to attacks. Containers offer a consistent environment that we can test more exhaustively. There’s less need to worry about special cases.

Concerns

The negative side is that containers offer a consistent, predictable target. If a container has a vulnerability, every deployed instance has it. This simplifies the job of anyone trying to attack it.

Containers aren’t as isolated from each other as VMs are. Depositing malware into one container could mean easy proliferation of all the others on the same host. They can re-infect each other unless we take down all compromised instances simultaneously.

How to Heep Containers Secure

With proper management, a containerized environment can maintain a high-security level. The old techniques don’t always work, though. The NIST guide recommends a set of practices for keeping risks low. Here are a few tips based on it.

  • Use an OS tailored for containerization. Containers contain everything they need, so they don’t require many standard operating system components and services. Using a distribution that trims them down to a minimum reduces the attack surface.
  • Use security tools that are designed for a container environment. Developers often do not design standard anti-malware tools to handle large numbers of identical processes that appear and disappear. Ensure that your security software has a rating for containerized deployments.
  • Group only related containers under the same host. Having just one application (including all its services) running on a host reduces the opportunities for cross-application attacks.
  • Use hardware-based security to isolate containers. The less visible containers are to each other, the harder it is for infections to spread.

Bluwater provides the most up-to-date security solutions, letting you focus confidently on your business needs. Consulting, threat detection, removal, vulnerability testing, and user security are just some of the ways we can help keep your systems safe. Each kind of environment poses its own challenges, and we have the experience and expertise to protect them all.

Contact us to learn how we can help you with your security needs.

Cisco: IT Decision Makers Challenged with Mobile Security and Compliance

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The digital landscape is alive with change, particularly when it comes to the proliferation of mobile devices (BYOD) in the workplace. The dawning of this phenomenon began as far back as 2009, when the phrase first took hold, becoming, as CIO notes, the ‘New Normal’ in 2013:

“CIOs can thank mobile device management vendors for pushing their messages of compliance to business users and, as a result, helping bring IT into the discussion as a BYOD enabler.”

Cisco: More control of the cloud network is needed

In fact, a Cisco survey of 4,000 IT decision-makers worldwide noted the need for more control of the cloud network. Especially with the ever-increasing array of mobile devices, smartphones, and tablets in the workplace. 

However, along with this general acceptance of BYOD in the workplace, 82 percent of those surveyed were concerned about compliance and security requirements.

Follow the ‘moving’ mobile device!

For example, aligning departmental needs with a company’s BYOD policies creates new challenges. If an employee who uses his/her own mobile device switches to a new device, how is sensitive info to be tracked and stored? Worse, what happens to that data if the person leaves the company?

Cisco notes savings with BYOD in the workplace

Are these concerns lessened when the economic metric is added in? According to a recent Forbes overview on BYOD devices, Cisco notes a typical savings of $350 annually…per employee.

Still, concerns persist about ‘security’ when it comes to mobile strategies. As Forbes notes:

“Security is one concern for there are undeniable risks in permitting employees’ access to corporate resources from personal devices. The dangers posed by malicious applications and viruses will discourage many organizations from implementing BYOD.”

Contact us to learn how our managed services can help protect your cloud network. We really focus on your business needs before recommending our managed service options—clients love our proactive approach.

Tips for Maximizing A Managed Help Desk Service

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Technology is an essential component for most businesses today because of what it can help workers and business owners achieve. Ensuring that your team has the necessary resources for handling daily responsibilities will promote the achievement of set goals. A managed help desk service is part of the resources that will prove beneficial for entrepreneurs seeking IT support services.

When you invest in technology, you need to identify competent individuals who can manage your systems and offer your employees the support they need, and that is what you will achieve through a managed help desk service. Here are some tips on how you can maximize your outsourcing solution.

Acquire the Right Help Desk Solution

One of the advantages of managed IT services is that they withdraw the financial burden of investing in hardware, which results in savings that entrepreneurs can redirect to other profitable activities within their businesses. However, you cannot take advantage of such IT services as a managed help desk service without investing in the right software.

Acquiring the ideal managed solution is advisable because it helps you maximize the services your provider is offering that relate to this particular software.

Prioritize Availability

If you want to get the most out of your managed help desk service providers, they should be available round the clock. You cannot tell when you will experience IT issues or downtime in your enterprise, and for that reason, your service provider should furnish you with details on how you can reach them whenever you need their assistance.

Outsource

Managed help desk services are critical because they facilitate the continuity of your business operations. Business operators who do not have the resources and skills necessary for establishing an in-house IT department should consider outsourcing this service. Apart from realizing profitability as a result of savings, outsourcing allows you to enjoy the professionalism of experts in this field.

If you need more information on ideas for maximizing managed help desk services, contact us today!