Your Accounting

Time to put your books in the cloud? Want to save time and money on bookkeeping in 2016?
If your company hasn’t already made the switch to a cloud-based accounting system, it may be time to migrate. Here’s why: with a cloud system, you can outsource your bookkeeping, saving you staffing costs as well as office space. Plus, your team saves time dragging files back and forth and keeping current versions backed up and secure. And an added plus is that you and your team can enter expenses on the go via smartphone. Popular apps include QuickBooks Online, Xero, Zoho Books and FreshBooks. Choose based on robust feature sets, solid support, ease of use and, of course, time and money saved.
Aggregated from recent issues of PC Magazine, Business News Daily and Merchant Maverick

Cybersecurity Alert: Backup Your Files To Thwart A Ransomware Attack

Ransomware scams involve a type of malware that infects computers and restricts users’ access to their files or threatens the permanent destruction of their information unless a ransom— anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars—is paid.

Once Ransomware gets on your machine, it is nearly impossible to access your files. Over the past year, several police departments in the U.S. have been infected with Ransonware – and they paid ransoms of up to a few hundred dollars each in order to regain access to their files.

The good news is that Ransomware is the easiest malware to protect against – by simply backing up your files. Ransomware is not always a ‘virus’ that disables your computer or creates any type of malfunction (although it is classified as ‘malware’ – meaning badware that is intended to cause harm). The hackers know that a good percentage of people don’t backup, and they’ll get their fair share of ransoms.
Aggregated from Forbes Magazine

Microsoft, Once Infested With Security Flaws, Does an About-Face

Microsoft’s chief executive, Satya Nadella, says he is listening. On Tuesday, he delivered a speech to government technology workers in Washington about the importance of security in the technology business and how Microsoft has evolved to confront security threats.

Mr. Nadella, in a phone interview, said his aim was to lay out how Microsoft products make it harder for hackers to compromise PCs, and how the company has eliminated the corporate divisions that separated security managers from each other to improve how threat information is shared.

“It’s kind of like going to the gym every day,” said Mr. Nadella, who himself runs about three miles a day. “You can’t say I’m serious about security without exercising the regimen of keeping security top of mind every second, every hour of the day.”

Talking about security was long taboo in the technology industry. But in recent years, it has become a marketing tool. Silicon Valley companies like Google and Facebook have started to advertise the work they do to secure their infrastructure and customers’ personal data, particularly in the aftermath of disclosures by Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked classified information.

Mr. Nadella’s speech coincides with one of his top business priorities: cloud computing. Microsoft and others in the industry are aggressively promoting cloud services, which means persuading companies to store their corporate data outside their own walls. Analysts have warned that companies that do not take security seriously risk losing corporate customers, particularly foreign customers, to cloud-based services overseas.
Aggregated from the New York Times


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