Blog

Videoconferencing 

Videoconferencing is a great way of maintaining that face-to-face communication – while maintaining Social Distancing. As you are aware, Quo Vadis has techs supporting your businesses from Florida to Ontario.  Many years ago, we recognized that simply relying on the telephone to communicate lacked some of the necessary elements to effectively communicate complex ideas or maintain engagement in group meetings.  So, we started leveraging videoconferencing.  We’ve tried different applications and have found that Zoom and Microsoft Teams provide a good solution.  For those with an Office 365 subscription, you might find Teams very easy to implement since your team will already have an account and need only download and sign in (there are no additional fees).  In our experience Zoom does provide a superior tool, but unless you upgrade beyond the free version, there are some limitations which may be too cumbersome. However, Zoom is very popular, and may be the better choice if you are looking to videoconference with individuals outside your team.  At Quo Vadis we primarily use Zoom.

Instant Messaging 

If your organization hasn’t already moved away from intra-organizational email, take this opportunity to start using a company instant messaging option. Once you do, you’ll never look back and when COVID19 is a memory your business will continue to reap the benefits of increased efficiency.  Among other improvements, your team will better be able to identify and prioritize communication coming from other team members.  At Quo Vadis, we rely heavily on Microsoft Teams for intra-organizational written communication.  This is the same Teams product mentioned above in the Video Conferencing recommendations.  It works on Windows, MacOS, iOS and Android, making it easier to reach team members on their preferred device. If you are a business which utilizes Office 365 and the Microsoft Office suite, the integration with Teams is natural and with little to no training required, your team will be quickly collaborating on company documentation.

Work at Home Precautions 

For those not familiar with working from home, here are a few tips we can recommend for success and security.

• Ensure you have sufficient Internet bandwidth at your home, especially if you plan to use Zoom or other video conferencing software. A call to your Internet provider could prove very fruitful. Our experience is receiving more bandwidth for less money.
• Consider your home computer an extension of the security protocols in effect at your office.

• Do you have antivirus/antimalware software installed that has a current subscription?
• Do you have the latest updates for your Operating System?

• Do other family members or visitors have access to your home computer without your permission or knowledge?
• Does your home computer have a password? Have you changed it recently?

• Will you need to print at home? Do you have a printer?
• Do you have a webcam (if you’re planning to join video conferences?)
• Do you have an Internet-connected device like an Apple Homepod, Amazon Echo, Google Home, etc. that is listening and responding, perhaps recording? This may violate your employer’s policies and possibly government regulation if connected while you work.

• Consider reviewing the Safety Guidelines for working at home provided by the US government at Telework.gov.

3/9/2020

With Corona virus (COVID-19) diagnoses continuing to increase around the world, Quo Vadis is committed to providing a safe and healthy environment for our employees and ensure business continuity in service of our customers. We are confident that the Corona virus will not significantly impact our ability to provide our services to you. Thank you for continuing to place your trust in us for your IT support.

As the situation continues to evolve, we are taking measures to maintain business continuity and protect the health of our employees, customers, and partners.

Here’s an overview of our current policies:

• If employees show signs of symptoms related to the Corona virus, have traveled to a restricted destination, or have been in close physical contact with someone who has traveled to a restricted destination and is showing symptoms, we require them to work from home for 14 days.
• In addition, we require visitors to the Quo Vadis Lab to complete a health assessment form for entering our premises.
• We have also shared best practice health tips with all employees and placed extra hand sanitizing stations around our offices globally, as well as increasing the frequency of office cleaning.
• Travel to certain international destinations has been stopped, and all other travel has been restricted to business-critical only. Your Quo Vadis Engineer will reach out if you have planned meetings or events to explore virtual options with you.

We want to be clear that these policies don’t change how we work with you, or our ability to provide the great services on which you rely. At Quo Vadis we have a people first culture — and these measures will help protect not only our employees, customers, and partners, but also our community as a whole. We will be continuously monitoring the situation as it evolves and will make adjustments to our policies accordingly to help keep everyone safe and healthy.

As we look ahead, we believe we have an opportunity to use our expertise in helping teams work remotely and securely, to aid our broader community in handling the challenges of the Coronavirus.

3/24/2020

Protocol Update:

• Asking our customers if anyone in the office has recently experienced any flu-like symptoms, a fever, or recently traveled outside the country?
• Based on this Risk Assessment we will respond according. This may include our Techs being outfitted with: hand sanitizer, face mask, single-use gloves, disinfectant wipes, safety glasses, their own keyboard and mouse.
• Our Team members will be keeping recommended safe social distance and will not be shaking hands with customers.
• Any Quo Vadis employee who develops a fever or flu like symptoms will be at home and not performing any onsite visits.  They will contact their local public health agency and follow the COVID-19 testing protocol, including self-isolation where required.

Equifax’s breach is a reminder that your personally identifiable information can be stolen and used to steal your identity. LegalShield and IDShield provide the legal counsel and identity theft protection you and your family need and deserve.

If you knew you could pick up the phone and call an attorney to ask any legal question and not receive a bill…would you?

LegalShield Plan Benefits:

• Legal Consultation and Advice
• Dedicated Law Firm
• Legal Document Preparation and Review
• Letters and Phone Calls Made on Your Behalf
• Speeding Ticket Assistance
• Will Preparation
• 24/7 Emergency Access
• And More!

If you knew there was a company with licensed private investigators, that with no co-pay, no deductible, and no out of pocket expense, that would restore and protect your identity…would you be interested?

IDShield Plan Benefits:

• Identity Consultation and Advice
• Dedicated Licensed Private Investigators
• Identity and Credit Monitoring
• Social Media Monitoring
• Child Monitoring
• Complete Identity Restoration
• Identity Threat and Credit Inquiry Alerts
• 24/7 Emergency Access
• And More!

If you’re interested in learning more about these plans, please contact Darrell Orcutt at Legal Shield:

Darrell Orcutt
Small Business, Group, Broker Certified Associate
dorcutt@legalshieldassociate.com
(w) 704-841-1211  (c) 704-301-7500

As the security needs of our clients have increased, we are investing in more robust management and monitoring tools to protect and proactively care for your workstations, servers and network infrastructure.

Depending on your current policies and standards, you may notice changes in your antivirus from Webroot to BitDefender and Ninja will coexist with ConnectWise Automate for a period of time until all functions have been migrated.

We are excited about the increased stability and reporting we hope to see from these changes. Your security is our highest priority.

If you have questions, please give me a call.

Joseph
(704) 814-8819

Most of you are very familiar with the email spam & virus filter that we know and love, SecureTide from AppRiver. This year AppRiver is rebranding SecureTide to be “Advanced Email Security“! Along with this name change comes new email security features:

• Business Email Compromise (BEC)
• Protection against Impersonation, Conversation Hijacking & Phishing
• Display name protection / Impersonation Protection

Beginning in April 2019 all $5 domain fees will be removed. The cost of Advanced Email Security will be increased to $2/user. This ramp up will be complete in December when the final increase to $3/user is implemented.

Did you know that we have Engineers available for emergency support after hours? We have a new paging service that alerts the on-call Engineer of your need quickly and reliably. Network Care subscribers will see a $2 after-hours service fee on their monthly invoice for this. We have additional coverage for emergencies one hour before and five hours after normal hours, in addition to weekends.

So if it really can’t wait until business hours, you can call the Help Desk (704) 814-8819 US or (519) 491-2909 (CAN) to leave a message, or email emergency@quo.cc. In either case, the on-call Engineer will be paged and return your call.

One of the most insidious hacks we’ve seen is the creation of an auto-forward rule in Outlook. Here is how it works.

A hacker guesses/cracks your email password. Instead of doing anything you will notice, the hacker creates an Outlook rule to forward everything that comes into your mailbox to an external account. Then he logs out and no one is the wiser.

You can change your password. You can turn on 2FA (two-factor authentication). He’s still going to get a copy of every email you receive. The hacker is now poised to follow-up with a subsequent attack on you or your firm for wire fraud or identity theft.

There’s hope! We have scanned every mailbox that we administer. We DID find some forwarding rules and deleted them after confirming with the mailbox owner that the rule was bogus. We have also changed the 365 server policies to prohibit any user from creating a “forward all rule” to an external recipient.

Rest easy. That hacker door has been closed.