An IT helpdesk can be a major asset to any small-to-midsized organization without adequate internal resources to manage its infrastructure. This article outlines some of the major benefits of partnering with an IT helpdesk.

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Fast resolutions to day-to-day issues
One of the most important aspects of handling IT issues is the response time. An issue that is left unresolved can result in extended  downtime, as well as cause further issues in the future if left unchecked.
Partnering with a professional IT helpdesk ensures that you always have access to a team of professionals equipped to help you troubleshoot any IT issues that may occur. From printer jams to network instability, an IT helpdesk provides technicians specialized for any type of problem that you will face.
In addition, many IT helpdesk providers such as GIGE Corporation provide a wide range of channels to access support, including direct telephone lines, email, onsite support, or remote troubleshooting. Through these versatile methods, issues are flexibly diagnosed and troubleshooted in the most efficient and fastest manner possible.

Assist your Existing Team
Many organizations have existing IT resources. However, understaffed IT teams may struggle managing the infrastructure for their entire organization, particularly if its issues are highly varied and unpredictable.
As a result of this, IT infrastructure projects often suffer from delays caused by unexpected day-to-day tasks and issues. For instance, lengthy updates to troubleshoot issues may leave your team unable to make significant headroom in achieving the organization’s long term goals.
For these organizations, an IT Helpdesk can help alleviate the day-to-day pressure from your existing team, enabling them to focus on maintaining the core infrastructural elements of your organization. A major advantage of working with a helpdesk is its flexibility – depending on your company’s specific needs and resources, you can customize the relationship that your existing team has with the IT staff to ensure that your resources are being utilized as efficiently as possible.

Predictable and efficient costs
Often, IT helpdesks provide services on a monthly payment model, ensuring that you have consistent access to their teams for a flat recurring fee. A one-off IT call due to an emergency can result in significantly higher and unpredictable costs compared to a regular monthly expense, making an IT helpdesk the more reliable and predictable choice.

Don’t let IT issues slow down your company’s productivity. GIGE Corporation has over 30 years of experience helping Canadian organizations manage and troubleshoot their IT infrastructure. Call us at +1 888 366 4443 to get started today.

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In the digital age, cyberattackers are constantly detecting new vulnerabilities in existing software, with the goal of exploiting them as intrusion points into a victim’s network. In this light, it is essential to keep your organization’s equipment up-to-date at all times in order to protect yourself against attack. This article aims to provide an overview of the advantages of keeping your hardware up-to-date.

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Increase Security Against Cyberattack
From ransomware to DDoS attacks, cyberattacks have become one of the most prevalent threats against any organization in today’s world. Falling victim to one of these attacks can have major consequences against a company, from reputational damage to financial and legal repercussions as well. Outdated software is one of the most common methods that cyberattackers use to gain access to an organization’s network. Vulnerabilities that have been discovered and not repaired provide an entry point that a malicious actor can exploit. This is especially important for critical devices such as servers and endpoints, as these are often the devices targeted first by cyberattacks.

Improved Productivity
Updating the software on your devices can not only have benefits towards security, but also towards the productivity of your team. One of the major leading causes of slowdowns to a computer or server is outdated software. Software engineers are constantly pushing for additional updates for their software to ensure that it works optimally within the OS environments they were built for. Failing to keep software up-to-date can result in software instability and slowdowns, leading to a reduction to productivity as a whole.

Avoiding Data Compliance Problems
Many industries have requirements to how organizations need to manage their clients’ sensitive data. From financial information to personal data, it is essential to be able to protect this information against unauthorized eyes. Failure to comply to the data handling practices outlined in your industry can result in costly fines and legal consequences.

Therefore, keeping this data safe against attack should be of up-most priority. Reducing the chance of cyberattack through diligent software update management is one of the most effective methods of ensuring that your organization is protected against intrusion.

Reduce Operation Costs
A device running obsolete software will not use the hardware’s full capacity. Over time, this can increase the operating costs to your organization’s IT infrastructure. For organizations running a large number of devices, these costs can quickly add up. Replacing one of these devices is an option to reduce operation costs, but it is often costly up-front. Prior to this solution, it is recommended to check that your current hardware is fully updated, ensuring that it is optimally performing to its fullest capability.

GIGE Corporation has over 30 years helping Canadian organizations keep their IT infrastructure up-to-date and protected against cyberattack. Call us at +1 888 366 4443 to get started today.

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Ransomware

Over the last 5 years, ransomware has become one of the most widespread strains of malware. In a ransomware attack, a malicious actor locks a victim’s sensitive data behind an encryption wall, scrambling it into a format that is unreadable to the affected computer. On some occasions, the ransomware attacker would also steal a copy of the locked data. Once the victim has been made aware of the intrusion, the attacker would establish contact and demand a ransom to be paid for the safe decryption of the data, often in the form of untraceable cryptocurrencies to a digital wallet.

Ransomware attacks rely on leveraging productivity stoppages to force its victims to pay the ransom fee. Every day that goes by without access to the data is another day where business functions and service delivery cannot be completed, leading to financial and client loss. An effective method of protecting yourself against this is through cloud backups of your most critical data. By keeping up-to-date copies of your important information, you can simply recover copies of the locked data in an attack, reducing the leverage that the attacker has on your organization’s productivity.

Phishing Attacks
A phishing attempt describes a type of cyberattack where a malicious actor sends communication to a victim, often through email, posing to be a legitimate source. The email would request the user to log into a fraudulent portal, download malicious files, or open an infected document.

If a victim is successfully fooled, the attacker may gain access to information such as the user’s credentials. In some cases, the infected file may download additional malware onto the victim’s computer such as data-stealing trojans or keyloggers.

Phishing attacks rely on a victim letting their guard down during their day-to-day activities. By posing as a legitimate source, it can be difficult to users that handle hundreds of emails a day to spot at-a-glance. As such, it is essential for any organization to ensure that its employees are familiar with the tell-tale signs of a phishing attack.

For example, it is important to always check the sender’s address for suspicious email domains. Additionally, spelling errors or non-solicited attachments may also be red flags for a phishing attack. By providing your team with the proper training to identify these signs, your organization can reduce the risk of falling victim to a phishing attack.

Don’t fall victim to cyberattack. GIGE Corporation has over 30 years of experience helping Canadian organizations manage its security. Call us at +1 888 366 4443 to get started today.

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VoIP, or Voice over IP, brings many benefits ranging from cost savings to new productivity features that can be highly useful to organizations of any industry. However, the process of updating your existing infrastructure can seem complicated and daunting. This discourages many organizations from making a transition that would have major benefits in the long term. This article aims to provide an overview of some of the main advantages of updating your systems to VoIP.

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Increase Productivity and Reduce Missed Calls
One major pain point for many organization is missed calls. When a client or potential lead cannot reach a member of your team, client satisfaction is often negatively impacted. With VoIP, you gain access to highly configurable call forwarded matrices that allow you to redirect your call to multiple devices, ensuring that your team never misses a client’s request.
This can also be highly useful for employees on vacation, as they can easily and efficiently set up call forwarding to colleagues and mobile devices.

Cost Reduction
Traditional phone infrastructure can be expensive. Month-to-month and long distance call charges can quickly add up, particularly for organizations with international clients or distributors. With VoIP, you can save up to 90% on international calling bills, reducing the overall financial strain that your telephony infrastructure places on your organization’s bottom line.

Flexible Communication Channels
For organizations with remote workers, being able to reach your team in times of emergency is vital. With VoIP, keeping connected is made simple and reliable. Customized forwarding policies can help your employees set up alternate methods of contacting them should their primary device be unreachable. Best of all, the forwarding process can be made completely automatic.

Secure and Reliable Conferencing
Conference calls remain a great way to hold remote meetings. However, traditional phone systems may impose additional charges for multi-caller meetings. With VoIP, you can bring multiple people onto calls without additional expenses.

Highly Scalable
Company growth can be a costly process for small business. As your headcount increases, your IT infrastructure may not be able to support the new employees, requiring you to spend additional resources purchasing and setting up new equipment. With VoIP, you can simply this process as these systems can often increase its capacity seamlessly, without having to replace any existing hardware.

Empower your business with VoIP to maximize the efficiency of your communication. GIGE Corporation has been helping businesses with their IT for over 30 years. Call us at +1 888 366 4443 or email info@gige.ca to get started today.

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How do VPNs Work?
In short, a VPN scrambles data coming from a company device (computer, phone), and a server through a process called encryption. While unencrypted data can be read and understood by anybody who gains access to the connect, encrypted data is unreadable unless an attacker gains access to its key. This adds an extra layer of protection for data being sent and received over the internet.

Work From Anywhere
With a VPN, your organization can gain a high level of flexibility in how and where your employees work. As long as you have an internet connection, your employees can gain access to their files and programs. In addition, utilizing cloud storage can ensure that important client files are kept protected against theft or data loss.
Through VPN, you can increase the flexibility of your organization’s workflows, allowing your existing workforce to stay connected and work from anywhere, while also allowing you to explore a larger talent pool from various geographical regions.

VPN Boosts IT Security
Cybercrime has increased rapidly in recent years following computing power increases. In this light, it is essential to deploy thorough cybersecurity measures to ensure that your organization remains safe against attack.
Failure to do so can result in devastating financial or legal consequences to your organization should an attacker gain access to your networks. Furthermore, an attack or data leak can also cause irreparable reputational damage to your organization’s brand, calling into question its ability to keep sensitive client information safe from the public.

A VPN can help protect your organization against data leaks. It can work in tandem with other appliances such as firewalls and endpoint antivirus software, ensuring that your data is kept protected against prying eyes. The encryption that VPNs use to protect your information ensures that an attacker who gains access to a connection still does not have access to your data.

Scalable Solutions Help Save Costs
Traditionally, IT hardware would need to be purchased according to your organization’s specific usage needs during the time of purchase. If you upsize or downsize your organization however, you may subsequently need to replace hardware that does not adequately serve your new needs.

Many VPN solutions are entirely scalable, meaning that they can grow or shrink with your company as it changes. This means that you can always rest assured that your network will stay protected, regardless of changes that you make.
Don’t fall victim to Cyberattack. Call +1 888 366 4443 or email info@gige.ca to get started today.

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With such a complex network of equipment working together, it is not uncommon for IT issues to appear on a day-to-day basis, inhibiting overall productivity. While larger organizations may have the financial resources for a full team of internal IT employees, many small-to-midsized organizations face the challenge of managing these issues internally.

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Partnering with a managed service provider (MSP) can be a cost and time efficient way of ensuring that IT issues never become the reason that your organization falls behind. By partnering with a team of professional technicians, you can focus your resources on excelling in your respective industry. This article aims to provide some of the main benefits of partnering with an MSP.

Improve IT Security
Cybercrime is a constant and immediate threat to any organization. From ransomware to trojans and phishing attacks, your data is always under the threat of being accessed or leaked by malicious individuals. Protecting your clients’ sensitive information should be an upmost priority of any organization, as failure to do so can result in irreparable reputational or financial damage.
Managed service providers can help your company design and manage its IT security, from managing antivirus software to procuring and managing firewall appliances, and system monitoring. Having a team of cybersecurity professionals always ensuring that you are protected against cybercriminals can be one of the best ways of ensuring that you won’t fall victim to cyberattack.

Hardware Management
Eventually, all hardware becomes obsolete. From desktops to network equipment, slowdowns and instability can be caused by failing hardware including hard drives or motherboards.
If left unchecked, these issues can develop into complete failures, resulting in data loss or loss of network connectivity. Furthermore, outdated systems can also leave your organization open to cyberattack if they have passed their End-of-Life (EOL) date.
MSPs can help you inventory and manage your organization’s computer hardware, ensuring that you are never in danger of losing data or vulnerable to attack.

Offload Day-to-Day Troubleshooting

IT issues can often occur on a day-to-day basis, from printers not working to computers randomly disconnecting from the network. Having to troubleshoot these issues yourself can be a time consuming and frustrating process if your team does not have the technical expertise. In addition, per-incident IT services can be expensive, making it an unviable option for many organizations. MSPs can help you handle your day-to-day IT issues through a dedicated IT helpdesk available to your team at any time. With GIGE Corporation, for example, you can gain access to a team of professionals with a 30-minute guaranteed response time to any issue you may encounter. We ensure that a technician is working on your issue quickly and efficiently, with robust escalation matrices to ensure that the perfect technician is working on your specific problem at any time.

Don’t fall victim to cyberattack. GIGE corporation as over 30 years of experience managing Canadian organizations’ IT infrastructure. Call us at +1 888 366 4443 or email info@gige.ca to get started with us today.

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One of the best methods of countering brute force attacks is Multifactor Authentication (MFA). Using this type of security adds an additional layer of security to your account, preventing a user from accessing it should they gain access to your username and password combination.

How does MFA Work?
MFA requires a login from an unfamiliar device to provide an additional piece of authentication to ensure that the user trying to log in is the authorized individual. Often, this is done in the form of a temporary code sent to a personal device such as a user’s cellphone or email.
An attacker that has gained access to your credentials through brute force attacks would not be able to provide this second piece of authentication, as they would not have access to your personal device. Therefore, this type of security is effective at mitigating direct brute force attacks.
There are many methods of multifactor authentication available. While codes sent via SMS are a common type, others include authenticator apps installed on a smart phone, or physical tokens that display secure, rotating codes.

Bypass Vulnerabilities
While MFA is a great addition to any account’s security, it cannot be seen as a complete solution, as there have historically been methods of bypassing it. Previous vulnerabilities in WS-Trust (Web Services Trust Languages) have been shown to provide security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by cyberattackers to bypass the extra authentication needed by MFA. As of April 2022, WS-Trust has been retired by Microsoft. However, new vulnerabilities are constantly being discovered by both cybercriminals and cybersecurity professionals, some of which may threaten the security of even MFA-secured accounts today.

The Danger of Intrusion
An attacker that gains access to your sensitive account, such as Microsoft 365, essentially has access to all of your important or private files. If your organization store client information in a cloud environment, this could also give the attacker access to steal, delete, or otherwise leak this data to the world.
Oftentimes, an intrusion will lead to devastating consequences for any organization, both financially and legally. In addition, reputational damage can be immense with customers losing trust in your organization’s ability to sensitively handle and protect their private data.
Don’t fall victim to Cyberattack. GIGE Corporation has over 30 years in managing Canadian Organizations’ IT security systems. Call us at +1 888 366 4443 or email info@gige.ca to get started with us today.

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This article aims to provide some common strategies to avoid damaging your hardware.

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Keep your Devices away from heat
Heat is one of the main factors of long term hardware damage. Computers, hard drives, and servers are all susceptible to extreme temperatures, especially if they are kept in areas without proper ventilation or under direct sunlight.
Overheating hardware can result in slowdowns, instability, CPU throttling, and ultimately hardware failure. While you do not need to keep your equipment in an isolated room of near freezing temperature, it is important to keep them in areas that allow them to perform optimally.
Room temperatures below 25 degrees Celsius and enough space around them for proper air circulation are acceptable environments to keep your hardware.

Routine Cleaning
Dust, while seemingly insignificant in the short term, can become a major issue for computer circulation. IT hardware’s cooling system almost always rely on adequate airflow. Over time, dust can accumulate on the computers’ fan intakes, causing them to clog and blocking airflow. This can in turn make it more difficult for the hardware to manage its internal heat, resulting ultimately in overheating and long term damages.
It can be difficult to diagnose a dust-covered computer without physically opening the case and checking its contents. However, symptoms such as slowdowns or instability when multiple programs are open can be early indicators that a computer is suffering from overheating problems.

Human Error
Best practices of handling computers can help them stay operational for longer. Human error such as incorrect shut down and restart processes, and poor practices when taking physical care of machines, can cause long term hardware damage to end user machines. It is important to educate your team on the best practices of handling computer equipment in order to ensure that potential risk for damages is kept to a minimum.

Neglecting Failing Hardware

When a hardware item has reached its end of life, it is important to replace it with new hardware. A failing component such as a power supply has the potential of causing additional damage to other components such as hard drives if they cause system instability. It is important to deal with these issues early to prevent issues getting worse over time.

Don’t let your IT hardware become a thorn in your organization’s side. GIGE Corporation has over 30 years of experience managing IT infrastructure for Canadian organizations. Call us at +1 888 366 4443 or email info@gige.ca to get started with us today.

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What is IT Infrastructure?
To begin, the term IT infrastructure will be clarified. This term includes all the various components that make up your organization’s computing hardware. While different organizations’ infrastructures can differ significantly in their design and equipment, there are many core elements that are considered essential. These are:

Networking Equipment: Switches, routers, modems, or access points that make up the network that connects all your equipment together, allowing them to communicating internally and externally through the internet.

Servers: Powerful computers dedicated to shared file storage, managing applications, print services, or email.
Software: The digital applications and programs that your hardware runs on.

Firewalls: The antivirus, spam filters, and security applications designed to protect your information against cyber threats.
Today, many organizations also have cloud infrastructure including services from Google or Amazon.

Ensure Hardware is Up-To-Date
While upgrading your existing hardware carries the upfront cost of purchasing the new equipment, outdate hardware can become one of the most easily exploitable weaknesses for cybersecurity threats.
Consequences of a cybersecurity incident on your organization can be devastating, data breaches can result in financial, legal, and reputational damage to your company’s name, far exceeding the costs of upgrading your hardware prior to an attack.
Furthermore, ageing hardware can also be a major cause of slowdowns and crashes, risking productivity stoppages and lost data.

Employ Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is quickly becoming one of the most popular IT infrastructural evolutions for many organizations. Since it reduces the amount of hardware that you need to maintain on an onsite capacity, migrating to the cloud can be a great way of offloading costs while still maintaining your current infrastructural needs. In addition, cloud infrastructure from reputable vendors such as Google or Microsoft come built-in with state-of-the-art security features, ensuring that your data is always kept safe from attack.

Thorough Data Backups
Data loss and corruption can be a major issue for many organizations that handle sensitive customer information.
Years worth of data can be potentially lost should a disaster occur, resulting in clients losing trust for your brand. Data loss also does not have to occur due to malicious attacks. Power outages, formatting errors, or accidental deletion can also cause information to be destroyed forever.

Employing backups, whether onsite on local drives or offsite on cloud servers, can be an effective way of protecting your information from loss. If the original copies are ever destroyed, your team can simply pull the backups from the redundant source and resume work immediately.
Don’t let your IT infrastructure get in the way of your organization’s productivity. GIGE Corporation has over 30 years of experience managing the IT of Canadian businesses. Call us at +1 888 366 4443 or email info@gige.ca to get started with us today.

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Flexible Integrations

One of the biggest advantages of VoIP systems is its flexibility in integrating itself with other aspects of your communications infrastructure, streamlining processes and saving you and your team time.
Some of the technologies that VoIP can integrate with include teleconferencing software, video calling software, email, and faxing. With integrations, you can easily communicate seamlessly across software, ranging form methods such as phone calls to video conferences.

Support for Various CRM Systems

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is a cornerstone technology of many organizations today. For organizations using CRM platforms, their information such as past conversations, ticket history, and customer contacts can often be easily transferred and integrated into VoIP software.
This helps your team reduce the effort required to transfer data between their software systems, increasing convenience and saving your team time throughout the day.

Powerful Call Forwarding
It can be difficult to track all of your incoming and outgoing business calls, especially for individuals with multiple lines or whom travel regularly. In these cases, missed calls and phone tag can be common occurrences in a day-to-day capacity.
With VoIP software, powerful and customizable call forwarding policies can be set, automatically transferring calls to other devices or even to colleagues of groups of colleagues should a phone be unreachable at any one time.
With this, you can ensure that important client calls are never left hanging, reducing friction in your business processes and increasing client satisfaction as a whole.

Easy Call Recording For Training Purposes
New front-line customer support agents can always benefit from additional training on company protocols and customer etiquette. A great resource during this period is recordings of historical calls made by previous agents.
With VoIP, call recording policies can be easily configured, creating a repository of available training resources automatically generated for your team’s use in the future.

Voicemail Transcription
Missing calls is never ideal. However, in these cases a reliable voicemail can ensure that important information does not get lost in miscommunication. Some VoIP can allow you to automatically transcribe voicemails that you receive into written text, reducing the time that you need to catch up on your missed calls.

VoIP can hold many benefits for your organization. GIGE Corporation has over 30 years helping organizations migrate and manage their communication systems. Call us at +1 888 366 4443 or email info@gige.ca to get started with us today.

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