Administrative Arts » Computer Security/Maintenance

Is It Safe To Copy Documents

Jodith — Mon, 24 May 2010 08:00:00 +0000

If you have a newer digital copier, the answer may be no. According to a story on CBS, most digital copiers made since 2002 contain a hard drive, which keeps digital copies of documents you copied in the past. And guess what? When your lease on that equipment is up, the leasing company most likely isn’t reformatting the hard drive before it resells the copier.

CBS looked at 4 randomly selected copiers out of 6,000 in a warehouse in New Jersey, and found copies of paystubs including names, addresses and social security numbers, a list of gang members wanted for arrest in Buffalo, $40,000 in copied checks, and 300 pages of personal medical records (can you say HIPPA violation).

If you are using one of these copiers and are concerned about document security, make sure that the hard drive gets erased before your lease ends or you sell the machine . This danger poses a threat to the confidentiality of your customer and company records. Call your leasing company or the manufacturer of your copier to find out how you can protect the data on your copier’s hard drive.Similar Posts:

Gmail Now More Secure

Jodith — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 09:00:12 +0000

I had a question last year about security on Gmail, Google’s e-mail system. Previously, any mail you opened or sent was not sent securely, so it could be intercepted by a third party. In 2008, Gmail added encryption for Gmail, but it wasn’t the default setting, so most folks were still sending mail unsecured.

The good news is that after China hacked many Google Gmail accounts earlier this month, Google decided that the benefits of keeping mail secure was more important than any slow down in opening and sending mail. So Gmail now has encryption turned on by default. If you didn’t have it turned on before, you might notice the service is slightly slower than before, but it’s worth it to keep your mail safe.

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What Are Your New Year’s Goals?

Jodith — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 16:36:53 +0000

As the holidays wind down, New Year’s Day looms, and with it the spectre of New Year’s Resolutions. While most people look at these resolutions in a personal sense, like losing weight, exercising more, or being more assertive, I’ve found it beneficial to apply the idea of New Year’s Resolutions to work as well. We need goals in our jobs as well as in our personal life. After all, how do we know what we are achieving if we aren’t striving for something?

How to make good, achievable resolutions

We often make resolutions, but after a few weeks, they fade into the background, and we don’t think about them again until the next New Year. Here’s some tips for not just making, but keeping your resolutions:

Keep it achievable. Make sure your resolution is possible. Don’t shoot for the moon, but rather incremental steps toward your goal. If you set your bar too high, you can feel overwhelmed by the challenge. Instead, set small, achievable goals that will step you along the way to the ultimate goal of your resolution.
Make it specific. A goal that is too general isn’t always an impetus for change. State specifically what you want to achieve. Losing weight is too general. Losing 20 pounds is an actual goal that you can mark yourself against.
List concrete steps towards your goal. Don’t just state what you want to achieve, but make part of your resolution specific steps you intend to take to meet the goal. If you want to be more assertive, add a goal of speaking up at least once in every staff meeting. Again, keep it achievable. And every time you achieve your goal, remember to reward yourself, even if it’s just a mental pat on the back!
Share your goal with at least one other person. It’s easy to lie to ourselves, but it’s harder to backtrack when we have someone else helping us to be accountable.

My work related resolutions for this year are fairly simple:

Learn CSS (cascading style sheets). I’ve already dabbled with CSS in my blogs, since it’s the backbone of WordPress. However, since it’s also the styling for SharePoint, learning CSS is a good direction for me to take not only in my current job, but in my career as well. So, I resolve to spend at least 1 hour per week this year working on my CSS skills.
Keep my desk neater. Neatness has never been my forte, so this year, my goal is to keep everything neater. Keep my pens in a cup, keep my papers in their folders. Put things away when I’m not using them. I resolve to spend 10 minutes every evening before I go home and 10 minutes before lunch every day tidying up my desk so it remains neater.
Be more assertive in asking for new duties. I’ve been holding back in this job so far, but I’ve seen a number of things around this office that I can lend my expertise to. So I’m putting together a list of things to cover with my boss on extra duties I can take on when I’m not tied up with my primary job here. I resolve to set up a meeting with him during the first two weeks of January to share my ideas.

So, what are your work and/or career resolutions for this year? It can be anything from a small resolution relating to a current duty, or something as big as getting a new job in another industry. Share with us your resolutions for 2009 and how you want to go about achieving them. Or if you aren’t sure how to achieve them, ask and we’ll help you with some ideas for achieving your goals this year.

So, what are your goal for the New Year? Share them with us. Maybe we can help?Similar Posts:

Tips for Traveling With Your Laptop

Jodith — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 14:33:38 +0000

I know many of you are travelling during the holidays, and many of you are taking laptops with you. Following are some tips for keeping your laptop secure while traveling.

Keep your laptop with you at all times. Locking it in your trunk is not a good solution. Many laptops are stolen from car trunks where they are locked to keep them safe. A thief can pop a lock off of a trunk in a matter of seconds. Mall, hotel and airport parking lots are common places for vehicle theft.
When not in use, keep your laptop out of site. While laptop bags are very convenient, you’re better off not using a bag identifiable as a laptop bag. A backpack or standard briefcase will attract less attention of thieves.
If you’re using your laptop at the local coffee shop, lock it up while you’re there. Attach a Kensington lock to the laptop, wrapped around a table leg. It’ll prevent a snatch and run thief.
Put your laptop away when it isn’t being used. Thieves tend to steal what is easily accessible and don’t spend a lot of time going through closets looking for items to steal. Not having the laptop out in obvious sight may save your laptop if you’re burglarized.
Of course, all the protections in the world won’t protect your laptop 100%. Be sure to protect your data just in case of theft. Encrypt your files, disable guest log-ins, and require a log-in every time you start the computer.

Wherever you travel this holiday, keep it a safe one, for you and your laptop.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

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Create a Secure Password

Jodith — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 18:28:24 +0000

photo credit: Phillip

The first point of entry of any computer security system is, of course, the password. But just how secure are most passwords? The truth is, not very. Most people use passwords that are fairly easy for someone who knows them to guess (or in the case of Sarah Palin, someone who can find information about them on the internet).

So, what makes a good strong password?

Length

Use at least 8 digits, preferably more, for your password. My average secure password is 11 digits long. Some are longer, some are shorter.

Characters

Don’t use just text for your passwords. The more different characters you use, the harder your password is to crack. For instance, using both upper and lower case letters doubles the number of possible characters in your password. Adding numbers increases it by ten. You can increase that number further by adding special characters such as !, #, $, %, (, and others allowed by your system.

Order

Don’t use your capital letter just at the start and your numbers and/or special characters just at the end. Mix it up. Put the capital letters and numbers scattered through the password.

Words

Don’t use words in the dictionary for your password. If you need a word to help you remember the password, misspell the word. Make Lotion into lOshuN. Use numbers to replace letters, like “5″ for “S”, or “0″ for “O”, or “1″ for “L”. Use your imagination.

Sentences

Make up a sentence you can remember, and use the initial letters for your password. Example: “I always wanted to be a ballerina when I grew up” would become “1aWtbw!gU”. You’ll notice I substituted both a “1″ and an “!” for the I’s in that sentence. Be creative!

Avoid Known Information

Remember, avoid birthdays, anniverseries, names of children, pets or parents, and other easily researched information for your password. Be obscure, just not so obscure that you can’t remember it yourself.

Password Reminders

Remember, the strongest password in the world won’t protect the network if your password is written down where someone can find it. Over the years, I’ve found passwords on notes stuck to monitors, slipped under the keyboard tray, in the desk drawer with the pencils, and in many other obvious places. Needless to say, don’t do that! If you need a reminder of your password, keep it under lock and key.

Multiple Passwords

One last tip. Like most folks these days, you probably have multiple places on-line requiring passwords. Don’t use the same password for every location. I have several password levels I use. I have a generic, simple, not-very secure password that I use for places like forums where I don’t really care if I get hacked. For work related sites, I use a pretty secure password, but not generally my best. For financial sites like the bank or credit card, I use my super-duper, heavy duty, you’re gonna have to work to hack this, password.

This way, for the sites that I visit daily, like blogs and forums, I have one, easily remembered password to access them. For other places, like my work related sites, I have a password that’s strong and uses many of the tips listed above. It would take some time and effort to hack. But for really important sites, like where my money is concerned, my password is so strong even I have trouble remembering it sometimes *laughs*.

In summary, remember to keep your passwords strong and don’t post them where anyone else can find them.

This post is continuing my series on Computer Security/Maintenance.Similar Posts:

Making a Computer Backup Plan: Don’t Get Caught With Your Pants Down

Jodith — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:35:16 +0000

In my post Questions for the IT Guy, I went over some of the information you need to know about how computers and files are handled in your company. If you followed my advice there, and you found out that your company doesn’t do backups of files on the PCs, you will need to develop a plan for backing up those files yourself.

What Files Should You Back Up?

You could back up your entire hard drive, including operating system and software files, however that is fairly time consuming, especially if you have an older, slower computer. For most of us in the administrative field, the most important files that you need to back up are your document files. If you keep all of your files in one location, such as My Documents, this is fairly easy to do. Having your files scattered all over the place makes backing up very difficult. If you aren’t using a central location for your files, I recommend moving them all to a central directory and using that location going forward. This will help your backup process immensely.

When to Perform Backups

How often you perform backups is up to you. It can be daily, weekly, or even monthly. The more often, though, the more secure your documents are. For instance, if you perform a monthly backup, and you have a crash on the last day of the month, you’ll lose an entire month’s worth of data.

Personally, I like doing daily backups. Well, technically, it’s a Monday through Friday backup, since I’m not coming into the office on the weekend just to perform backups. I keep each backup for 1 week, so if I know a document is lost or damaged within a week of it happening, I can restore the document from the backup.

Keeping Your Backup Secure

Just performing backups is not going to keep your data secure. You can backup daily and still lose everything if you keep all backups on-site. One fire can wipe out not only your PC, but your carefully performed backups as well. Remember, you need to keep at least one backup off-site at all times.

My procedure is as follows. After I run my daily backup, I put the most recent backup in my purse to take home. That night, I switch the most recent backup from my purse to a storage spot at home, and take the one from the previous day and put it in my purse. The next day, I place that backup into my office storage area and put the current one in my purse. So, at all times, you have one with you, one at home, and three in the office (assuming you are doing the M-F plan).

Example: On Monday, I have Friday’s backup at home, and Thursday’s in my purse. When I run my backup on Monday, I take Thursday’s backup and add it to the three that stay on-site, and I put Monday’s in my purse. When I get home that night, I place Monday’s in my home storage area, and place Friday’s in my purse.

I used to just keep one backup off-site. But then it occurred to me that if there was a fire while I was at work while I was in another part of the building and couldn’t retrieve my purse, my “off-site” backup would burn along with everything else. So now I keep two off-site: one secure at home and one in transport.

Regardless of your frequency of backup, the most recent backup should be kept off-site. However, remember that you should keep any confidential data that is taken off-site in a secure, encrypted manner.

What Media to Use

The media that you use to keep your backup is going to vary depending on the size of your backups. If you have a smaller size backup, you can use a CD or DVD for the backup. You can also use a USB drive (aka a thumbnail drive). I personally like these. You can get them in large sizes, and you can get them encrypted, so that your data is secure on the drive. They are also more durable and less likely to be damaged. I’ve seen 4 gig encrypted drives for less than $20 including shipping.

This information should cover the basics of creating a backup plan. Later I’ll talk about how to actually perform your backups.Similar Posts:

Questions for the IT Guy

Jodith — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:24:42 +0000

Or girl as the case may be.

As an administrative assistant, part of your duties is to maintain and safeguard your boss’s files, including electronic files. I will be writing a series of posts on managing computer security and maintenance for administrative and executive assistants.

Before you start on the wonderful world of safeguarding your electronic files, you need to gather some information. If you are lucky enough to have an IT (Information Technology) department, this is where you should start. If you work for a small company without an IT department, you’ll first need to find out who handles those duties. If no one handles those duties, then congratulations! You just acquired a new job.

photo credit: Jacob Bøtter

So, let’s start at the beginning. What office IT information do you need from the IT Guy or Gal?

What files are backed up? Are only the network files backed up or are the files on individual PCs backed up as well? If only network files are backed up, then you want to be sure all files are kept on the network. IF PC files are backed up, when is the backup performed? Should you leave your PC on but logged out at night for the back-up?
How often are files backed up? If backups are only performed once a week, you want to consider performing your own backups in between.
Does IT perform regular computer maintenance such as scan checks and defragmentations? If not, you need set a schedule to do them yourself. If they do, when are they performed? Do you need to leave your PC on and logged off at night for the maintenance?
Does each employee have a secure (i.e. private) network drive? If so, can you have access to your boss’s drive (with his permission, of course). It’s a huge help to have access to your boss’s files so that the two of you aren’t keeping different versions of the same file.
Can you get access to your boss’s e-mail (again, with permission)? Some company’s have policies against this, but many bosses do want their assistants to manage their e-mail for them. If you are using Outlook, he can give you permissions to his e-mail. Other e-mail systems have different rules for sharing. You’ll want to explore that with your IT contact.
How is e-mail backed up and archived? Are attachments backed up along with the e-mail. Not all systems will backup attachments. If IT isn’t backing up and/or archiving e-mail, then you need to put a system in place to do so.

One of your best friends should be the IT person responsible for your office. Make friends with that person, bring him cookies, remember her birthday. Remember, when an IT disaster happens, you want to be at the top of the list for help. Always stay on the good side of IT.

What other vital IT information do you consider essential?Similar Posts:

Floppy Disk Disposal

Jodith — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:42:18 +0000

photo credit: matsuyuki

If your office is like mine, you have stashes of floppy disks hanging around from the days when they were the way to transport electronic documents. These days, we tend to just toss them in the trash when we find them, since most PCs don’t even have floppy drives.

Before you trash those disks, though, you need to make sure they have no proprietary information on them. Even if the disks are old, they may still contain sensitive information. If you are in the medical, mental health, or legal fields, or really any field that maintains confidential client files, it is doubly important to make sure any computer media is completely cleaned before trashing them.

Just deleting files isn’t enough to clean the disks. Those files can still be possibly be recovered by someone up to no good. The best thing to do with these disks is to reformat them prior to junking them. Don’t worry, it’s an easy process. Just pop the floppy disk into the drive (if you don’t have one in the office, a USB floppy is fairly cheap to obtain, and worth the peace of mind), right click on the drive in Windows Explorer, and choose Format. Make sure the “Quick Format” box is unchecked. You want a complete reformat of these disks. Click start and let it run.

This is a good job for a summer intern. Takes some time and teaches them something about office security. As a matter of fact, I have a huge pile of floppies sitting on my desk waiting for one of our interns to spend some time on them before we trash most of the lot. Oh, we’ll keep a few around for the couple of people who still like to use a floppy on occasion, but the rest of them will be tossed to reclaim some room in the office supply cabinet.

BTW, you can reformat CDs and DVDs with the same method. It’s a good idea to do this before tossing them back in the office supply cabinet for re-use.Similar Posts: