Directive Blogs

In recent years, there has been much debate about how companies collect, sell, and use personal data. Many businesses make extra money by selling data they collect about people. This might seem like a side effect of all the data we create online, but it can lead to some tricky problems. Today, we'll look at something called the "data-broker loophole," how it works, and what we can do about it.

Your business’ data holds incredible potential for helping you improve operations, but only when it is leveraged properly. To this end, you have to identify specific metrics that you are working toward and establish how these metrics are helping you make strides forward. IT offers plenty of metrics to help you make better decisions about operational efficiency.

Over the past few years, artificial intelligence has become a bona fide buzzword amongst businesses of all sizes, with 97% of respondents to a Forbes survey seeing a potential benefit in some way, shape, or form. However, with it being integrated everywhere in our modern lives, it is important that we remember that AI is still a human invention, as such, it is vulnerable to our own implicit biases.

Any business can benefit from data and use it to improve its operations. This is especially the case where information technology is involved. By collecting the right metrics, you can better evaluate your business IT’s performance and identify areas for improvement.

Let’s review what some of these metrics should be.

One of the most important considerations that a business that relies on technology needs to make is how efficiently its technology works. Let’s discuss some ways to measure this benchmark and ensure that it is optimized to meet your business needs.

Unfortunately for small businesses, cyberthreats aren't limited to large corporations and enterprises. Even small businesses and local shops face the constant risk of cyberattacks. Let's take a look into some concerning statistics regarding one of the fastest-growing cyberthreats.

In 2004, a service called VirusTotal was launched and swiftly became a popular antivirus and malware scanner to help detect threats in various files and URLs. It became popular enough that it was officially acquired by Google in 2012 and ultimately assimilated into Chronicle, a cloud-based security operations suite for enterprise businesses. Despite this impressive pedigree, however, we find ourselves able to look to VirusTotal as a sobering reminder of how fickle cybersecurity can be, with the service being the source of some limited data exposure.

There are many ways that Google can be a hugely valuable resource for a business of any size. One way that you may not have thought of before: an automated insights collector.

Let’s talk about how you could be using Google Alerts to keep yourself up to speed on basically whatever you want.

You’re probably familiar with the concept of a mission statement, particularly in terms of your business as a whole. Did you know, however, that you don’t need to stop there? You can—and we’d argue, should—establish more specific organizational missions for your different departments. Let’s consider how you can benefit from creating a mission for your IT team to uphold throughout its operations, and how you might go about doing so.

Nonprofits typically rely on the funding provided to them by grants in order to operate. Fortunately, there are many grants out there for the nonprofit to take advantage of, many based on the cause the nonprofit works towards and many intended to support the use of technology by these organizations. Let’s explore what makes IT so critical and impactful for the nonprofit, and where technology grants may be found.

Information technology is a constantly changing industry, with practices shifting all the time. As a result, anyone you have working on your company’s IT should be actively seeking out various certifications to confirm that they are keeping up on modern trends and standards. To help you accomplish this, we’ve put together a brief list of valuable IT certifications that your IT personnel—whether they’re in-house employees or outsourced professionals—should have.

Who are you? While it’s a question that’s been asked in all contexts with all levels of metaphysicality attached—from asking someone their name to prompting someone to follow a path of spiritual self-discovery—the growth of the metaverse once again urges us to ask it in a more literal way. When accessing a conglomeration of various services and platforms, how many identities will each user need to juggle?

It’s incredibly important to keep your personally identifiable information secure, but what exactly constitutes PII? Today we offer a definition and suggestions or strategies to help you keep your PII safe.

Last time, we broke down how much data is stored in a typical book, and how much data every book in the Library of Congress contains. This time, let’s really show you what that data consists of, and some other really neat comparisons to put things into perspective. Buckle up!

Do you ever think about how incredible technology is? In a world where it’s easy to take advantage of technology and devices that were practically inconceivable just a few short decades ago, it’s really amazing to just look at how far we’ve come, and how something so small can fit so much information.

Who doesn’t love nostalgia? Throughout history, people have always looked back at the “good old days” and we wanted to explore some of the weird and wacky technologies and trends that didn’t quite stick the landing for the long run, and some that ended up unintentionally paving the way.

If Edgar Allan Poe worked in an office, here’s what one of his works would sound like:

True!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I have been and am, but why will you say that I am mad? The office had sharpened my senses—not destroyed—not dulled them. Above all was my sense of hearing. I heard all things in heaven and on earth and many things in…the other place. So, how then am I mad, especially when I can so healthily and calmly tell you this story?

The blockchain has had a single purpose since it was first developed back in 1991, and that has simply been as a secure means of storing data. Its method of doing so is fascinating, so let’s examine the concept and all that it now allows us to do.

The blockchain and cryptocurrency have collected no small amount of attention over the past few years, with another trend arising—that of the non-fungible token, or NFT. Could this trend be one that businesses could benefit from?

Let’s examine what an NFT is, in actuality.

While we—for reasons that should be obvious—tend to focus our attention on preventing and avoiding cybersecurity breaches, it is important that we address how your business responds to a successful breach attempt. Let’s go over how to create a data breach response plan.

It’s important to make your website as accessible as possible to your audience. Obviously, you want to accommodate all the different customers and visitors you might have, and if you provide a poor experience for a person, they might not stick around and become a customer. This is nothing new, and over the years there have been discussions about ADA compliance and accessibility for websites. This blog is going to demystify this topic.

Google Workspace is a great tool that allows you to get a lot done, but sometimes you might find yourself in a position where you need to download the files and take them with you or send them to someone. In these cases, you might not want to share the link. Instead, you can simply download them as whatever file format you might need!

When we talk about data privacy in a business, the default is to generally think about the data the business has collected and compiled from its clientele. However, that’s just one type of data a business has. There’s also a lot of data that is collected by the business about that business’ employees. So, how well protected is this data?

Keeping your data protected is a huge concern nowadays, with more and more safeguards needed to prevent it from being exfiltrated. Encryption is a great way to prevent your data from being any good to those who might steal it. Let’s review what encryption is, and delve into how it works in practice.

Remote work has been embraced over the past two years, in no small part due to the impact of the pandemic. However, some of the impacts of remote work have made it clear to many businesses that its advantages shouldn’t be sacrificed once it is no longer necessary. Let’s review how businesses can improve by continuing the practices of remote work, even after the need for remote work has passed.

While we cannot express how important it is to update your software and hardware in a timely manner, it is important to keep in mind that some of these updates aren’t going to be perfect. An upcoming update to Google Workspace serves as the perfect example, as the company has recently released an alert to inform users about an issue affecting Google Drive.

Artificial intelligence has taken the world by storm, and the advent of emerging technologies has many small businesses thinking about how they can utilize it to cut costs, improve operations, and eliminate unnecessary or repetitive tasks. Let’s take a look at three ways your business can leverage artificial intelligence to the best of its ability.

Did you know that maps as we know them are remarkably skewed? Due to some centuries-old superiority complexes and prejudices, the maps we’ve all been raised looking at have never been completely accurate. However, this problem could soon be an element of cybercrime thanks to a developing technology that many have yet to take seriously, deepfake images, and how they could revolutionize cyberattacks moving forward.

Your business’ data is perhaps its most crucial resource—which is why it is so important that it remains protected against all threats (including those that come from within your own business). Consider, for a moment, the ongoing trial of Xiaorong You, going on in Greenville, Tennessee. Accused of stealing trade secrets and committing economic espionage, You allegedly stole various BPA-free technologies from various companies—including Coca-Cola and the Eastman Chemical Company, amongst others—to the tune of $119.6 million.

Nothing will annoy tech-savvy people more than listening to someone that basically doesn't know what they are talking about, but uses technology jargon to seem like they do. It’s pretty confusing for the non-technical too. This annoyance is largely due to the gap between using words and understanding complex and detailed technology processes. So, while there is some respect given to people who work to understand the terminology, most of the time, it’s just too much.

What if I were to tell you that, by the time you finished reading this sentence, all personal data in existence was exposed? If every text sent, every Google search executed, every website visited, everything we had ever done online, was made public? Gizmodo recently reached out to an assortment of experts for their insights. Here, we’ve assembled their responses for you to consider.

The United States of America is well into its 2020 election season. Social media platforms, and other online services, are taking notice. Given the misuse of social media and other platforms in past contests, there is little wonder that there is some very real pressure on these platforms to establish policy and security measures to prevent these behaviors this time around.

Here, we’ll take a neutral look at the situation, and explain the initiatives that online platforms are now enacting.

With the COVID-19 crisis far from over, many businesses have had their attention pulled away from their cybersecurity needs by the concerns that the current health crisis has generated. Here, we’ll be reviewing some of the observations that a group of 273 cybersecurity professionals have made, courtesy of an annual survey.

Big data, or massive data sets that can be used to make inferences and reveal patterns, has become an increasingly important part of modern business and can be leveraged in many different ways. There are a few different options for storing this data available, which the use case for the data will dictate. Here, we’ll evaluate whether a “data lake” or a “data warehouse” would better suit your needs.

One of the most common file types you hear about is the Portable Document Format file - although you probably know it simply as a PDF. PDFs are so well known because they are the best way to save a document so that, regardless of the device it is viewed on, the file will always appear the same. Did you know that you can do more than just look at a PDF? Here, we’re providing some tips on how you can make your PDFs work for you.

Many businesses have taken the cloud into consideration as their next technology implementation… but there’s more to adopting a cloud solution than going to the cloud store and asking for one. First, you need to determine what kind of cloud solution is best suited to your needs.

It only makes sense that you would want your staff to know what they are doing as they tackle their daily work responsibilities - otherwise, there isn’t really the chance for very much work to be done. This is why training your staff is so important - it’s practically a prerequisite for productivity.

Messaging applications have carved out a foothold in businesses, clearly proving their operational benefits. However, it simply isn’t responsible to leverage a solution without making sure that the solution is secure. There are a few criteria that you should consider to determine how secure your chosen application really is.

Businesses deal with compromises every day, whether it’s leaving late to let someone else get an early out or coming in on your day off to get a critical project finished on time. One of the compromises you absolutely don’t want to leave out is your business’ future. It’s up to you to acquire a solution that minimizes downtime without costing your organization an arm and a leg, but this is much easier said than done.

When you’re talking about something to do with a computer, you’re going to start hearing about some word that ends with “-ware.” You could probably list off a few yourself, but have you ever stopped to think about why they’re all described as “something-ware?” For this week’s Tech Term, we’ll take a peek at why we refer to things that way.

When you sign up for any service online, you will be asked to create a username and a password. Today, we will be going over the purpose of a username and provide you with some best practices on how to create a username that works to your benefit.

There’s a big difference between running a smart business and making smart business decisions, although one could say that one contributes to the other. More businesses than ever before are looking to their data to create better opportunities and make smarter decisions. We’ll take a dive into what the differences are between business intelligence and business analysis, as well as how they can contribute to your organization's success.

Although we’re in the habit of discussing ways to keep your business more secure, we unfortunately have to discuss how to keep yourself more secure against a business. Walmart recently filed a patent that could potentially be used to undermine the security of everyone there, from shoppers to employees. We took the time and dug into the jargon in the patent to give you a better look at the situation.

The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has gone into effect, and with this new law comes a lot of information your organization needs to consider regarding individual data protection. In particular, the technology of blockchain is difficult to talk about in regard to GDPR, as it’s basically an encrypted and distributed digital ledger. How can blockchain work properly in tandem with the new GDPR regulations?

A solid business decision needs to be based on more than just a gut feeling. It takes quantifiable data to choose the right path for your company, leveraged in a process known as business analytics. Today, we’ll explore this process, as well as discuss a few ways you can use it to your advantage.