Tag Archives: Small Business

Benefits of Having a Dual Monitor Setup for Your Business
Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

Benefits of Having a Dual Monitor Setup for Your Business

In recent years, the use of advanced technology in the office has increased in popularity among businesses to improve their efficiency, productivity, and effectiveness. Whether running a small or large company, it is important to know that utilizing a dual monitor setup in your office can provide quite a few advantages.

Effortless Research

It is very useful for employees who conduct research on a regular basis to have a second monitor at their disposal. By using two monitors at once, employees can view different sources at the same time, rather than having to switch between other tabs on their screen. This results in a more meaningful and effective comparison, which produces a higher quality product.

Work Efficiently

It can be challenging to manage multiple applications with only one monitor. A multitasking environment needs enough screen space to maintain multiple applications at once. Using a dual monitor setup, employees won’t have to scroll up and down the screen or resize windows to fit the information they need into the limited space available. Users can achieve greater accuracy when working with dual monitors because of the increased visibility the dual monitors provide.

Increase Productivity

According to studies, employees can also boost their productivity by up to 30% when using dual monitors in their workstations. As a result, employees will be able to work more efficiently as they won’t have to switch tabs as often, so they’ll be able to accomplish more tasks more quickly.

A dual monitor system allows users to display multiple applications simultaneously on the same screen, including web browsing, email, and multimedia. Using dual monitors at the workplace can help employees become more efficient and productive by enhancing their efficiency and productivity.

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Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

DDoS IP Protection: A New, Low-Cost Option for SMB

Microsoft announced the Azure DDoS IP Protection released as a public preview on October 19, 2022. Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) can now benefit from DDoS protection with a pricing model customized to their specifications.

DDoS Protection provides similar capabilities to DDoS Network Protection (previously known as DDoS Protection Standard). It is designed for enterprises and organizations to protect significant deployments of resources against DDoS attacks.

This new SKU includes all the essential features, such as automatically detecting and mitigating L3/L4 attacks, metrics and alerts, mitigation flow logs, and mitigation policies tailored to the customer’s needs. It also includes Azure Firewall Manager, Microsoft Sentinel, and Microsoft Defender for Cloud Integration.

Unlike the DDos Network Protection product, DDoS IP Protection does not include DDoS rapid response support, cost protection, or WAF discounts.

According to Amir Dahan, Microsoft’s senior product manager for Azure Networking, “With the DDoS IP Protection SKU, customers now have the flexibility to enable DDoS protection on individual public IP addresses. This low-cost DDoS protection option is ideal for SMB clients who only need to secure a handful of public IP addresses.

Azure’s global network provides cloud-scale DDoS protection so that users can defend their workloads against sophisticated DDoS threats. Users can minimize false negatives while protecting their apps and resources by tuning the application’s scale and actual traffic patterns. In near real-time, users can monitor and respond to DDoS attacks based on visibility into the attack lifecycle, vectors, and mitigation.

With Azure’s firewall manager, users can manage their DDoS protection and other network security services in one place. Microsoft Defender for Cloud security sends alerts and recommendations to the user. In addition, Microsoft Sentinel’s rich attack analytics and telemetry integration allow users to strengthen their security measures.

Upon enrollment, customers can enable the Public IP Standard SKU with DDoS IP protection in selected regions. Within the Azure Preview Portal, the SKU can be managed under the Azure DDoS Protection configuration window.

Billing for the new DDoS IP Protection will begin on February 1, 2023.

DDoS IP Protection is an excellent solution for SMBs that need to secure their public IP addresses against DDoS threats. It offers similar capabilities as DDoS Network Protection but at significantly lower prices. This makes it an ideal choice for small and medium-sized businesses looking to take advantage of Azure’s world-class DDoS protection without breaking the bank.

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Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

Digital Skimmers Are Dangerous For Websites With E-Commerce

If your business website incorporates an e-Commerce platform that allows you to sell directly to your customers, be aware. According to the latest research by the security firm RiskIQ, there are currently more than half a dozen large, well-organized hacking groups targeting businesses just like yours.

These groups are all using the same basic family of malicious code, collectively referred to as Magecart.  Their preferred targets are websites that use the Magento e-commerce platform. Although historically, they haven’t been bashful about targeting other e-commerce platforms as well.

The gist of how they do their damage amounts to digital skimming.  This type of attack is conducted by first penetrating your site’s security features. This allows the hackers to inject malicious code onto your site that monitors any transactions that take place when your customers make a purchase from you. In the process, they are “skimming” their payment details and sending them off to a server under the control of the hackers, where they can make use of the payment data for their own purposes.

Given the nature of the attack, there’s no outward sign that your customers’ payment information has been compromised.  They’ll only find out later, when transactions they have not authorized begin appearing on their payment card statements.

In tandem with the research conducted by RiskIQ, Malwarebytes security researcher Jerome Segura has uncovered a new twist on the basic Magecart skimming tactic. This new tactic sees attackers injecting e-commerce sites with code that causes it to pop up a malicious iFrame at the time of payment. Then, the user simply hands over their payment data, not suspecting that it’s not a normal part of the e-commerce platform.

In whatever way it is accomplished, the researchers following the development and maturation of Magecart attacks all agree on one thing.  Once the data has been collected, it is sent to a server somewhere in Russia.  Beyond that, the trail becomes too tangled to follow.

Stay alert, and make sure your IT folks are on guard against the threat.  Your customers will thank you for it.

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