GS Blog

When you think of threats to your organization’s safety and security, you might envision burglars breaking into your facility, natural disasters that destroy entire buildings at a swipe, or coordinated attacks on your IT system’s stored data. But have you ever thought about the possibility that danger might take the form of an “inside job?” Sadly, insider threats can and do occur, so the more you understand about the nature of these threats to your technology, the more effectively you can guard your precious data against them.

Boo! Once again it’s time for us ghouls at Gravity Systems to don our capes, sharpen our fangs, and fire up our mad-scientist lab equipment for our annual Halloween blog post. After all the real-world frights and stresses offered by the past year, the harmless fun of this holiday actually comes as a welcome relief. Even so, there are some genuine scares lurking out there for business owners who haven’t taken the necessary safeguards against the dark forces that can wreck their IT systems’ productivity and function. So while you’re buying goody bags for the trick-or-treaters and decorating your office with paper skeletons, watch out for these potential ghosts in your IT machine.

Without functioning drivers, your employees would never be able to operate their cameras, microphones, printers, mice, USB thumb drives, and the many other devices they use each day. In other words, when a driver can’t do its job, neither can you. Check out some common driver issues and answers, courtesy of your Austin IT support experts at Gravity Systems.

Hurricane Ida, the second largest hurricane in Louisiana history, flattened trees, flooded countless buildings, left at least a million people in the state without electricity, and racked up over $50 billion in damage. Not satisfied with this damage, the storm continued to move up the East Coast, flinging heavy rains and winds as far north as Canada.

If you wish to gaze upon the future of IT, look to the clouds. Cloud computing and related trends are fueling digital transformation for all kinds of organizations. As more and more companies adopt these trends, you’ll see them become increasingly common in the business world -- and, potentially, among your competitors. Let’s take a closer look at these trends and their potential impact on your business.

Malware isn’t going away anytime soon; in fact, even as data security companies build new defenses against previous offenders, new bad guys continue to pop up and offer new challenges, like a technological Whack-A-Mole game. The more you know about the most recent threats to your IT system, the more easily you can recognize them for what they are, teach your employees to steer clear of them, and make the necessary updates to your security arsenal at the appropriate time. Here are three kinds of malware creating problems for organizations in 2021.

Malware never stops, and neither do the unsavory individuals who regularly employ it against people and companies. If you want to keep a sharper eye out for these digital attacks on your business, teach your workers to watch out for the following three popular techniques.

The ability to back critical business data up to the cloud has undeniable advantages. After all, the cloud network runs on hardware you don’t have to purchase or maintain, and it allows for completely automated backup routines. If you suffer an in-house data disaster, you can rest
assured that your data still exists safely in the cloud. But before you ditch all your current backup methods for a cloud-only solution, you should know that non-cloud backup can (and should) continue to play a key role in your organization’s data management system.

Downsizing your IT department might reduce your payroll and your operating expenses, but it can also leave you in a bit of a personnel pickle as your remaining technicians scramble to cover an increased workload. In many organizations, this change wasn’t even planned; instead, it was forced on them by exhausted IT workers burned out from the extra demands of keeping remote workers working during the pandemic. The accelerated transition into virtual collaboration and meetings has already compelled millions of technology staffers to abandon their posts in a wave sometimes referred to as the Great Resignation.

You’ve no doubt heard the expression that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. In the complex world of computer networks, that weak link can take many forms, including the cables used to string all a network’s components together and make the flow of data possible. If your organization has developed a network failure, you need to know how to recognize common cable problems. Here are a few possibilities worth troubleshooting.