If you're currently looking around for a Pilates class, either by visiting fitness centers and gyms, or simply by searching for courses on the Internet, you're sure to have come across the term 'Core Strength' countless times. All Pilates classes boast that their programs can help boost your core strength as a vital part of improving your overall health. It's become a real buzz term but do you know what it means? When pressed many people say it's something to do with stomach muscles but surely our sit-up regime is taking care of that! There's a little more to core strengthening than pumping up your abs. In fact, it's so vital that Joseph Pilates put it at the very heart of his exercise program.

Core strength is about more than getting rid of a belly and toning your abdominals, though both are laudable aims. It is more about your general fitness, power and bodily alignment. Your core comprises the muscles that make up your mid trunk area, including your abs and lower back and side muscles (called obliques), as well as muscles around the top of your hips and glutes. All muscle groups vital to supporting your spine.

Your core muscles are the link between your upper and lower body and and if this link is strong, your body is better able to work as an integrated whole. If you envision your body as a tree, where is the strength coming from? It isn't in the branches and twigs but from the trunk. Without strength in your trunk  there is little point working out the rest of the body - the trunk supports the whole.

The benefits of core strengthening:

• A lot of people suffer from debilitating back pain. However, in many cases, it isn't your spine that is weak, but the muscles surrounding it. By strengthening your lower back muscles you create a natural, supportive corset, making you less at risk of injury. A strong core can also stop you developing back problems as you age, especially if you have a sedentary job which can lead back pain too.
• A strong core improves your posture. People who work out a lot rarely slump or slouch. By adding strength to your core, you stand straighter, making you look leaner.
• Your core gives you agility and stability, which are vital for any functional movement. Even if you are not in the best of shape, you still need to turn, bend over to put on your shoes and lift things up. When you perform these movements you use your core. It is vital to your everyday health. When you train your core you are also improving your ability to flex and move more freely.

Pilates and the core

Forget about only working solely on your abs or that ever elusive six-pack, those will come in time. By targeting the areas around your middle, or 'centering', you initiate a process of controlling movement from your center through your abs, back muscles and buttocks. This is the heart of any Pilates program.

Mat Pilates in particular aims at making a mind-muscle connection with your abdominal muscles. Through this you can use your abs for improved support, stabilization and power and enjoy better functionality in all activities. Pilates also helps bring flexibility to muscles rather than simply firmness. A muscle that is flexible is a strong muscle. It allows functional movement rather than just allowing you to look good in your beach attire.

If you are interested in taking a Pilates class merely to lose weight, you are probably in the wrong place. Pilates is not really a cardiovascular exercise or calorie burner. Yes, you will trim your body down and have a flatter midsection but the real benefits are deeper and longer lasting: a stronger, healthier back and body.

The beauty of Pilates is that it offers something to everyone, whatever your age or fitness level and isn't simply a fad for gym fans looking for the perfect body. It helps to eliminate the aches and pains of life and leaves you feeling better...to the very core.

How do you measure fitness? Is it by muscle strength, performance or athletic prowess? While abilities and measurable elements might be part of the picture, one aspect that is perhaps less quantifiable is what you might call the feel-good factor. Nothing feels as good as working the body into a state of happiness and joy and what better way to do that than with an energizing yoga session?

Yoga is renowned for relaxing your whole body, reducing stress and enhancing your mood. The energy that you feel after practicing yoga also gives you an extra spring in your step. These feel-good factors are important elements to well being, which encompasses far more than your physical state, with a greater emphasis on the interconnectedness of your whole being.

Relaxing

Yoga is relaxing for the body and the mind. It it not just the classic Hatha Yoga, which is based on gentle movements that inspires this state of feeling either, but even more intense practices such as Power Yoga. After and even during a yoga class you feel restful in your body and mind. This is a feeling of ease and that your mind is unwinding, rather than an indolent state of inertia. Breathing exercises or a focus on your breathing also contributes to the active process of letting go. Stretches that massage the body internally lead to a release of physical tensions that have been keeping the body hostage to feelings of tiredness, stress and lack of mobility.

Stress reducing

The evidence that yoga is a stress buster is not just anecdotal but backed up by scientific research. Many studies point to yoga not only making people feel less fraught but possibly impacting depression and anxiety issues in a positive way too. One study in 2008, published  in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, found that yoga sessions increased gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) levels. This neurotransmitter has a calming effect on the brain and can lessen anxiety. Yoga's focus on the present moment and mindful practice is also believed to be a real stress reliever, bringing with it sharper focus and greater clarity of mind.

Mood enhancing

While all types of exercise are renowned for giving your brain a feel-good boost, yoga is renowned for its impact on the nervous and endocrine system. This means that yoga can help balance hormones which can bring about a feeling of calm and groundedness. This also stimulates the release of neurotransmitters such as endorphins too. These happy hormones combat pain as well as negative moods. It is the deep breathing and relaxation that yoga encourages that activates these anti-stress responses, with studies also suggesting that dopamine release levels are increased through meditation techniques.

Energy flowing

One way of looking at yoga is to imagine that it is conditioning and stimulating parts of the body, such as the lymphatic and circulatory systems. This is really about the flow of energy and the connectedness of your whole body and being. It is this flowing relationship between your muscles, connective tissue and nerves that needs to be focused on. Knots and tight muscles signify stored energy that is not flowing as it should, causing pain and tension. Experiences and emotions have an impact on the body and where energy flows, as in the case of the fight or flight response. This highlights the importance of the impact yoga has on both the physical state and the mind too.

Stress is the precursor to many debilitating health problems. On the other hand, flexibility and muscle tone can really improve functionality and movement for a better quality of life. Yoga is a dynamic practice where feel-good is far more far reaching than simply a feeling.

Pause for a minute and ask yourself if your business is prepared for a disaster. Chances are you have some plan for a large scale disaster like hurricanes, earthquakes and fire, but what about other disasters like hackers or human error? The truth is, many businesses with a disaster recovery plan often forget to ensure they cover all potential disasters.

Here are five tips to help ensure that your business is fully ready for the next disaster.

1. Backup everything While it can be tempting to only backup the most important data and programs, it can be a chore to identify what is deemed to be important. Who knows, a file that is non-essential today may become essential in the future. If it is lost due to a disaster, this could prove to be a problem.

It would be a good idea to look for a backup solution that covers all data and programs. But, having a full backup solution isn't enough, you also need to ensure that recovery is easy and can be implemented quickly.

2. Look into tiered recovery Establishing a tiered recovery method means identifying the value and importance of existing systems and utilizing a recovery method that meets needs. It would be a good idea to identify mission critical systems and adopt a recovery method that can have these systems up and running as quickly as possible. From there you can tier different systems and match a recovery method. For example, archived files are likely not needed right away, so they can be recovered at a later date, using a slower recovery method.

3. Keep copies of all keys and licenses With the amount of software and programs businesses use on a daily basis growing, it would be a good idea to keep copies of the activation keys (the string of digits and letters you enter to activate the full version of software) and purchased licenses.

While many of these are now distributed electronically through email, there are still software developers that distribute keys by mail or with the physical install CDs. If you lose the codes in a fire, you will be out of luck and have to purchase the software again. This is an extra charge you likely don't want.

4. Pick the right recovery locations The best recovery plans offer numerous backup solutions which are hosted in different locations. A good provider knows this and will utilize data storage centers as far apart as possible. If you choose to backup your own data, it would not be a good idea to keep the backups in the office.

Similarly, if you are preparing for a big disaster, you likely have physical locations that you can move to if your main business location is damaged or destroyed. Optimal plans will have more than one location identified, and have them as far apart as possible. This will minimize the chances of losing full operations and increase your business's ability to bounce back quicker.

5. Match your recovery plan to your business There are so many different backup and recovery options that it can be tough to pick one. The best course of action is to look at your systems and how they work. If you operate strictly offline, a cloud based backup solution likely isn't your best bet. Or, if you operate fully in the cloud, a physical tape or hard disk backup may not be optimal.

If you are looking to beef up, or establish a disaster recovery plan, try working with an IT partner like us, who can help you find the optimal solution that can meet your needs and budget.

Social media has become an important part of any business's marketing strategy. By having an active presence on the main networks, you will likely see increased sales or at the very least an increase in brand recognition. So, while social media is an invaluable marketing tool, there are also other departments which could benefit from it.

Below are four non-marketing oriented uses of social media that businesses could benefit from.

Hiring LinkedIn is a social network dedicated to helping professionals and organizations connect and find jobs and new talent. Most social savvy companies will have a presence on this network and may even hire exclusively from here.

If you are looking for new employees, it wouldn't hurt to have a LinkedIn profile. To find the best talent, you need to forge and maintain connections (usually starting with people you know), and be somewhat active in groups and on message boards.

It's also important to not forget the other major networks when it comes to hiring. Tweeting a job opening on Twitter, or posting ads on Facebook could also help you find your next employee. Facebook can be particularly useful because you can pay to target ads (in this case, job openings) at specific demographics.

Internal communications Communication is an important part of business, and most people choose to communicate using email. You have probably seen emails with jokes, invitations to after work events, lunch orders, etc. sent to the whole company and also received the many replies that go with it. This can get very annoying, and also confusing.

Why not utilize social media for non-essential (aka. not related to work) communication. Set up a Facebook group where your employees can share content, invitations to lunch or after work gatherings, interesting stories, etc. That way you can limit email to more important, business-related aspects.

Using social media for internal communication is also beneficial for companies with younger workers. Most already see Facebook, Twitter, etc. as their main form of communication, some even feel more comfortable communicating over this medium as opposed to speaking out in meetings. Having a group portal or Facebook page could give less-empowered employees a way to voice their ideas, and maybe even improve on them with feedback from others.

Learning A common complaint of many business owners is that they have a tough time staying on top of ever-changing trends and what currently interests their customers. Using social media to connect with your customers can be a great way to learn not only hot trends but also about new ideas.

Customer service When it comes to social media, users will often complain publicly on their wall or through their tweets. This is bad for you, as the reach of this complaint can go a long way and make you look bad. Some companies have decided to confront this head on by having specific customer service accounts. If a customer complains, has an issue, or even compliments you, be active and respond using that account.

If done properly, over time, you will see more and more people reaching out to your customer service account through social media. This also gives you another way to please clients or turn around negative customer experiences.

Social media and the various platforms are not only great for marketing, but can be incredibly useful for other business functions. Do you have any other ways you use social media? Let us know. Or, if you would like to learn more about how it can help your company, then contact us today.

It seems that there is a security threat or leak in the news almost every week. The majority of these leaks tend to revolve around account information and passwords being stolen and released on the Internet for anyone to view. In truth, most of the passwords released are secure, but not 100% secure. Anyone with a powerful enough computer and the right tools can crack almost any security measure. The only thing you can really do is come up with strong passwords.

If you want to minimize the chances of your password being hacked, here are five things you should NOT do.

1. Don't pick short passwords

While short passwords are easier to remember, they are also easier and quicker to hack. The most common way to hack passwords is by using brute force: Developing a list of every possible password, then trying this list with a username.

Using a mid-range computer like the one many have on their desk, with a normal Internet connection, you can develop a list of all potential passwords astonishingly quickly. For example it would take 11.9 seconds to generate a list of all possible passwords using five lowercase characters (a,b,c,d,etc.) only. It will take about 2.15 hours to develop a list of all possible passwords using five of any computer character. Once a hacker has the list, they just have to try every potential password with your user name.

On the other hand, a list of all 8 character passwords with at least one special character (!,@,%,etc.) and one capital letter would take this computer 2.14 centuries to develop. In other words, the longer the password, the harder it will be to hack. That being said, longer passwords aren't impossible to hack, they just take more time. So, most hackers will usually go after the shorter passwords first.

2. Don't use the same password

The way most hackers work is that they assume users have the same password for different accounts. If they can get one password, it's as simple as looking through that account's information for any related accounts and trying the original password with the other accounts. If one of these happens to be your email where you have kept bank information, you will likely see your bank account drained.

It's therefore important to use a different password for every online account. They key here is to try and use a password that's as different as possible. Don't just add a number or character onto the end of a word. If you have trouble remembering all of your passwords, try using a password manager like LastPass.

3. Don't use words from the dictionary or all numbers

This article published last year on ZDnet highlights the 25 most popular passwords. Notice that more than 15 contain words from the dictionary, and most of the rest are strings of common numbers. To have a secure password, most security experts agree that you should not use words from the dictionary or number combinations that are beside each other (e.g., 1234).

4. Don't use standard number substitutions

Some users have passwords where they replace letters with a number that looks similar, for example: h31lo (hello). Most new password hacking tools actually have combinations like this built in and will try a normal word, followed by replacing letters with similar numbers. It’s best to avoid this.

5. Don't use available information as a password

What we mean by this is using information that can be easily found on the Internet. For example, doing a quick search for your name will likely return your email address and social media profiles. If you have pictures of your kids, spouse, pets, family, their dates of birth, etc. on your Facebook profile and have put their names in captions, it's possible for a hacker to see this (assuming the pictures are shared with the public).

You can bet that they will try these names as your password. You would be surprised with the amount of personal information on the web. We suggest searching for yourself using your email address(s), social media profile names, etc. and seeing what information can be found. If your passwords are close to what you find, it would be a good idea to change them immediately.

There are numerous things you can do to minimize the chance that your passwords are stolen and accounts hacked.

 

Corporate Social Responsibility, or CSR for short, is the idea of integrating social and environmental ideas into your company, daily operations and interactions with all stakeholders. One of the more common CSR practices adopted by companies of all sizes is the idea of ‘going green’, or helping the environment. This is a great idea, not only does it make the Earth a better place, it makes your company look more caring; human even. The thing is, it can be hard to actually go green, but there are some apps that can help.

Here are four great apps that can help you and your employees make your company a little more green.

1. GoodGuide

GoodGuide is an app that can help you find out more about products. Utilizing a barcode scanner, it can provide you with information like where the product comes from, whether it’s safe and if it’s green.

With over 170,000 ranked products in the app’s database, it’s a great way to start learning about sustainable and environmentally friendly products. The only downside of this app is that it currently focuses on the US only, and there is no word as to when, or if, service will expand. You can download it to your Apple and Android device for free.

2. PaperKarma

While we are currently living in a digital age, we still get a lot of paper-based junk mail. This is incredibly wasteful, as most people just throw it away. PaperKarma is an app that aims to reduce or eliminate waste paper.

How it works is you take a picture of unwanted mail, the developers will then contact the distributor and ask that they stop sending mail to you. This app could go a long way in helping reduce the amount of paper your office uses, which will mean lower costs for you and less trees felled. It’s really a win-win. You can download it to your iPhone or Android device for free.

3. iRecycle

An important part of any green initiative is recycling. The problem is, it can be hard to find out what, how and where to recycle. iRecycle is an app that aims to set this straight. It provides information on how to recycle almost everything and the nearest recycle points to you.

The app also provides you with recycling centric updates, news and tips to help encourage you to do more. It’s available for Apple (iPhone and iPad) and Android devices for free.

4. greenMeter

If your company has a fleet of vehicles, you are probably always on the lookout for ways to make them more efficient. Whether it be switching tires used, driving at slower speeds to conserve gas or carpooling, finding a way to cut costs is important. greenMeter is an app that could help. What it does is use your iPhone’s accelerometer and manually entered data to assess your vehicle’s power and gas usage.

While driving, this app provides real-time feedback on how efficient your driving is and how much gas you are using. This will help you conserve fuel (as you can see when you are burning more than usual) which will reduce operating costs and negative environmental impact. It’s available for the iPhone and costs USD$5.99.

These are just four apps that can help your company go green. What other CSR initiatives do you take in your company? Let us know! And if you would like more tips on how technology can help you reduce your environmental impact, let us know, we can help.

It’s safe to say that every business has goals, some are more clearly defined than others, but there is always something managers and owners strive for. During operations, you need a way to figure out how and if you are reaching your goals, this is usually done through the use of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). The question many ask though, is what exactly are KPIs?

Below is an overview of KPIs for business.

Define: KPI
The Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a tool used to measure performance of a business or employees. Many businesses use this tool to look at either the overall performance and success of all or specific operations. To many, the terms performance and success are synonyms.

How do KPIs work?
Most modern versions of this tool come in the form of software applications that track specific data and criteria set by managers or owners. The software allows them to compare these criteria, commonly referred to as Score Cards, with the established goals and gauge overall performance or success.

This data, usually collected from spreadsheets, databases or even manual data entry, is displayed to the user in an easy to read format called a dashboard. The dashboard is typically a graph or similar visual display.

A common dashboard is the traffic light. Let’s say for example that a company is measuring the success of their latest marketing campaign. A green light indicates that the expected number of conversions is being met or exceeded, yellow means actual conversions are slightly below normal and red means actual are well below expected.

Benefits of KPIs
The biggest benefit of these tools is that they allow users to easily gauge the performance of a business. Beyond that you can set many KPIs with triggers that will alert you when the measurements are poor. This will allow the company to figure out ways to fix issues before they can cause bigger problems.

Effective KPIs
For many businesses, effective KPIs are tailored to the needs of the business. For the majority of businesses, KPIs need to be: Measurable, achievable, specific and result-oriented. The best way for a business to figure out the which will be the most effective is for the manager or owner to look at the aspects that are most important to a business.

This can be hard to figure out, especially for business owners who often think that everything related to their business is important. A business intelligence expert or IT partner can help define what really matters most and help to implement the tools needed.

If you are looking for a better way to measure the success or performance of your business, please contact us today.

Email has become the main communication medium for companies and the public alike, as it’s just so much easier and faster than writing a letter or even making a phone call. Unfortunately, email has also made it easier to commit crimes like fraud. It can be hard to detect a fraudulent company or email, but there are some things you should look out for.

Here’s five tips to help you spot email frauds or scams.

Look at the email address
One of the easiest ways to spot a fraudulent email or scam is by looking at the email address of the sender. Many credit card application scams use third party email services like Gmail or Yahoo. Some scammers go so far as to set up accounts in the name of the company e.g., AMEX_121@gmail.com.

Sophisticated scammers will actually try to copy the legitimate company’s email account – a practice called spoofing. They will usually have a few changes like a missing letter from the address, or an extra . added.

The easiest thing you can do is look for the sender’s site on the Internet. For example: You get an email from AMEX OPEN (American Express’s small business credit card) and notice that the sender’s email address just doesn’t look right. Go to Google and search for amex fraud. You’ll likely find the fraud page which tells you exactly how the company sends emails. If the sender is a smaller company, most of these will have email contact addresses right on the site, take a look and compare the two. If they are different, the email is likely a scam.

Look at the sender’s website
If you think an email is fraudulent, try looking up the website associated with the sender. Should you be unable to find the site, it’s likely a scam.

If you find a website, click through some pages to see if there is anything that looks out of place. For example a website selling a new financial service has pages with Coming Soon or you get errors when you try to load the page. If it looks fishy, it likely is – delete the email.

It would also be a good idea to go to archive.org’s Wayback Machine, copy and paste the website’s URL into the The Wayback Machine Search bar and hit Take me back. This will bring up previous versions of the website. If you see that the site in question was something completely different a few months to a year ago (e.g., it is a financial services page now, but six months ago it was a page selling prescription drugs), chances are high it’s a fraud.

Call them
Many scammers will put phone numbers into emails to make them look more legitimate. If you are unsure about whether this email is legitimate or not, why not try calling the number? Many scammers run more than one fraud operating at the same time and may answer the phone with another name, or not at all.

Similarly, if you call a local number of a supposedly small business and get routed directly to voicemail, it’s likely fraud.

Look carefully at the body of the message
The body of the email can also be a great way to suss out email scammers and potential fraud. Because many fraudulent emails originate outside of the major English speaking countries, there will often be language that just sounds different from the way people write in your area. One great example of this would be a line like ‘We wish to sell you a great product.’

You should also look for spelling errors, grammar mistakes or inconsistencies. While some fraudulent emails will have minor spelling inconsistencies, others will spell common words wrong. If you see mistakes like ‘our product are a great deals’, this should raise a warning flag.

Spelling and grammar errors are a part of business communication, so don’t expect a perfect email from all companies, especially if you see that the company is located overseas. It’s the emails with mistakes supposedly coming from companies in your area that should really raise alarm.

The sender asks for money or passwords
It’s kind of an unwritten rule that when sending out emails you never ask for a person’s credit card number or account passwords. Banks, large companies and many social networks will never ask you for passwords or account information, credit card numbers, pin codes, etc of any kind over email. If you notice that an email selling something asks for you to reply with a credit card details so you can make a purchase, it’s best to delete the email as it’s likely a fraud.

Email fraud is a big deal, and unfortunately it will likely become even more common in the near future. This means you should be able to spot potentially fraudulent emails. If you think an email is a scam, it’s best to just delete it immediately. Don’t respond or forward it to colleagues or employees. If you need to let people know, write another email that describes the suspected email but has no links. You can also forward a screenshot to your colleagues or friends to illustrate the scam.

Looking for more ways you can protect your company? Contact us today. We can work with you to develop a security system that will meet your needs.

If you read the news or follow tech related blogs, it seems that there is a new security threat nearly every day. Some days it’s a new website that hijacks your mobile browser, other days it’s a sensationalized news story about an elite hacker group releasing the names of a website’s users. With all these issues, it can be hard to zero in on which threats you should be worrying about.

Here’s an overview of the three most common security threats small to medium businesses face.

Targeted external attacks
Large, organized cyber-crime groups do exist, with Anon proving that. When these groups set their sights on something, nothing is safe. Luckily, the possibility of a smaller business like yours coming under attack from targeted external attacks is pretty slim. While rare, it could still happen and you should take steps to ensure your server(s) and systems that connect to the Internet are up-to-date. You should also ensure your firewalls and/or virus scanners are properly configured, and internal systems (Intranet) are separated from the Internet.

Taking these steps will ensure your system is nearly 100% safe. Granted, skilled and determined hackers can always find ways into systems though. Systems that are harder to hack, or take longer to hack due to stronger security measures, will generally deter nearly all external attacks.

Targeted internal attacks
Just because your systems are safe from external threats doesn’t mean you’re safe. In fact, most security threats to smaller businesses come from the inside. That last security breach likely wasn’t due to an uber hacking collective from Russia, but disgruntled Joe in accounting. If your internal systems are unsecured, or you store a list of machine passwords on a network drive – sounds silly, but you’d be surprised how many companies do this – you are basically inviting employees to steal information. Other security threats come from employees who just don’t know what they’re doing with some technology.

If this sounds like your company, it’s a good idea to take stock of who has access to what, and see if maybe you’ve been a little too liberal with it. You don’t want to completely lock systems and acces down though, as this could hinder your employees from doing their jobs. If you have servers or routers it probably isn’t a good idea to give all employees access to the settings of the system. Instead, either let someone with experience manage these systems, or work with a Managed Service Provider who can look after all this for you.

BYOD
As technological devices proliferate, employees are increasingly tempted to want to bring their own devices to the office. This concept, commonly referred to as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) has the potential to be disruptive – both for the better and worse. If done right, you could shave thousands off your budget. If done in the wrong way, your organization could be exposed to nearly every security threat  imaginable.

Many BYOD related security cases we’ve seen come from when an employee brings in a device that isn’t up-to-date and connects it to the network. Reading update notes for most programs will show that the patch fixes many known security issues; an unpatched machine makes it easier for hackers or other criminals to gain access to a network. Aside from that, many companies don’t have a method in place to identify what devices employees bring to the office. This makes it hard to pinpoint where security breaches happen, and how to fix them.

We’re not saying BYOD is bad, it just needs to be handled properly. You should create a list of approved devices along with a list of who brings in what devices, and establish a policy that employees must ensure their systems are up-to-date and follow company security measures. One of the easiest ways to do this is to have your security expert look at the devices connected to the network. Each device has a MAC address – a unique ID – that can be recorded and added to a security white list. If the device doesn’t meet established standards, or isn’t on the MAC address list, then it’s not allowed to connect without authorization.

Contact us to find out how we can help reduce security threats in your business.

Computers, while used in nearly every office, still mystify the vast majority of users. Sure they know how to operate one, but when it comes to ideas like the Internet and viruses, malware, trojans, etc. most people are lost. This is largely because of the large number of myths and lies about things like viruses, it’s hard to know what is fact or fiction.

Here are five common myths about viruses that confuse people, and the truths associated with them. Before we delve deeper it would be a good idea to explain what a virus is.

A virus is a computer program that infects a computer and can generally copy itself and infect other computers. Most viruses aim to cause havoc by either deleting important files or rendering a computer inoperable. Most viruses have to be installed by the user, and usually come hidden as programs, browser plugins, etc.

You may hear the term malware used interchangeably with virus. Malware is short for malicious software and is more of an umbrella term that covers any software that aims to cause harm. A virus is simply a type of malware.

Myth 1: Error messages = virus
A common thought many have when their computer shows an error message is that they must have a virus. In truth, bugs in the software, a faulty hard drive, memory or even issues with your virus scanner are more likely the cause. The same goes with if your computer crashes, it likely could be because of something other than a virus.

When you do see error messages, or your computer crashes while trying to run a program or open a file, you should scan for viruses, just to rule it out.

Myth 2: Computers can infect themselves
It’s not uncommon to have clients bring their computers to a techie exclaiming that a virus has magically appeared on the system all by itself. Despite what some may believe, viruses cannot infect computers by themselves. Users have to physically open an infected program, or visit a site that hosts the virus and download it.

To minimize the chance of being infected you should steer clear of any adult oriented sites – they are often loaded with viruses, torrent sites, etc. A good rule of thumb is: If the site has illegal or ‘adult’ content, it likely has viruses that can and will infect your system if visited, or files downloaded from there.

Myth 3: Only PCs can get viruses
If you read the news, you likely know that many of the big viruses and malware infect mostly systems running Windows. This has led users to believe that other systems like Apple’s OS X are virus free.

The truth of the matter is: All systems could be infected by a virus, it’s just that the vast majority of them are written to target Windows machines. This is because most computers run Windows. That being said, there is an increasing number of threats to OS X and Linux, as these systems are becoming more popular. If this trend keeps up, we will see an exponential rise in the number of viruses infecting these systems.

Myth 4: If I reinstall Windows and copy all my old files over, I’ll be ok
Some believe that if their system has been infected, they can simply copy their files onto a hard drive, or backup solution, reinstall Windows and then copy their files back and the virus will be gone.

To be honest, wiping your hard drive and reinstalling Windows will normally get rid of any viruses. However, if the virus is in the files you backed up, your computer will be infected when you move the files back and open them. The key here is that if your system is infected, you need to scan the files and remove the virus before you put them back onto your system.

Myth 5: Firewalls protect networks from viruses
Windows comes with a firewall built into the OS, and many users have been somewhat misled as to what it actually does, and that firewalls can protect from viruses. That’s actually a half truth. Firewalls are actually for network traffic, their main job is to keep networks and computers connected to the network secure; they don’t scan for viruses.

Where they could help is if a virus is sending data to a computer outside of your network. In theory, a firewall will pick up this traffic and alert you to it, or stop the flow of data outright. Some of the bigger viruses actually turn off the firewall, rendering your whole network open to malware attacks.

What can I do?
There are many things you can do to minimize the chances of infection. The most important is to install a virus scanner on all of your systems, keep it up to date and run it regularly. But a defensive strategy like this isn’t enough, you need to be proactive by:

• Not installing programs from sources you don’t know or trust
• Being weary of any program that asks you for your password
• Not installing any browser add-ons or plugins suggested by websites. Instead, download them from the browser’s app store, or the developer’s website.

If you are worried about the security of your systems and network, call us today. Our team of security experts can work with you to provide a plan that will meet your needs.