COVID19

COVID19

  • How secure is your business’s home working setup?

    The last couple of months has seen a rush, if not a stampede to work from home, following the guidelines and reducing the impact of COVID-19. However this needs to be done in a safe manner that does not not expose your business to increased security risks. It is important to remain compliant with legislation such as GDPR and PCI whatever the circumstances.

    Some points to consider when allowing staff to work remotely

    • Secure their logons
      Implement Multi Factor Authentication (MFA or 2FA). A strong password on it’s own isn’t enough. Multi factor involves an extra security step, such as an SMS or app on a phone, or biometric method such as fingerprint or facial recognition.
    • Encrypt their connection
      When users connect to your office, deploy an encrypted VPN connection. This ensures the connection between their computer and your servers is secure and the data transferred cannot be intercepted. When using cloud services make sure they use secure HTTPS connections.
    • Manage their devices
      Deploy Mobile Device Management (MDM). An MDM system will allow you to monitor, manage and secure laptops, smartphones and similar devices. If a device is lost or stolen it can be locked or wiped remotely.
    • Protect their devices
      Have a firewall that is enabled and configured correctly on the device, and use Antimalware Software that is updated and monitored.
    • Secure your business data
      Encrypt hard drives and USB drives with a technology such as Bitlocker, arrange for data to be securely backed up, and have your staff aware that they should only save data in secure locations for compliance with relevant legislation such as GDPR and PCI.

    This is where telanova can help, we have enabled our customers to work remotely and safely by implementing best practices and secure technologies appropriate to their needs. Would you like us to secure your home working setup? Contact us now.

  • How we’ve helped businesses keep working during COVID19

    As the outsourced IT team for our customers, our challenge during COVID-19 was to keep each one up and running as best we could in the evolving situation. This is how we responded.

    Before Lockdown started – we helped our customers prepare.

    In February (seems an age away) the prospect of mass work-from-home seemed likely. We helped our customers identify what the challenges would be and how they could prepare. For one customer we provided training for staff who were not familiar with working from home, and carried out a stress test by getting everyone to work from home on the same day. So when the government instruction came to work from home it was business as usual.

    For every customer we prepared our own plan, even if they weren’t ready to consider it at the time. So when the crunch came we were ready to keep them working.

    Setup and configured servers (including one in our living room)

    For a London based customer we remotely deployed a Remote Desktop server farm so that 100s of users could remotely connect. For another we procured and installed a new server to increase the remote working capacity. It didn’t arrive until just after lockdown started, so we had the delivery diverted to one of our engineers’ homes. They set up and configured it in their living room! This minimised the time needed at the customer’s site and made sure we could bring the extra capacity they needed online as quickly as possible.

    Installed hundreds of VPNs and Remote Desktop connections

    Even with all that preparation (see above) we still had to manage a tidal wave of tickets. Our skilled engineers configured hundreds of VPNs and Remote Desktop connections so that our clients could work from home. And we advised on how they could make their work from home solutions secure.

    Want to check your work-from-home solution is secure? Check out our blog here.

    Helped with Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Google Meet

    Whatever platform our customers needed to use, we have been there to provide 121 training and help desk support to help them set up and make sure the audio and video was the best it could be. We even wrote this blog to help decide which is the best platform to use. And put together 11 Microsoft Teams tips.

    Stayed in contact with everyone

    We have been regularly keeping in contact with our customers, making sure they have what they need to navigate this unique time.

    Stay safe everyone – we are looking forward to when we can write blogs from the office soon.

We use cookies to provide you with the best possible experience in your interactions on our website

You agree to our use of cookies on your device by continuing to use our website

I understand