What is Bring Your Own Device (BYOD, also know as Bring Your Own Technology or BYOT) and why should your company be concerned about it? BYOD refers to the trend of letting your employees use mobile devices they own personally to access your company’s information and applications.

While it’s often convenient for both employers and their employees, BYOD may put your company at greater risk of being vulnerable to ransomware or other malware.

What Makes Mobile Devices So Risky?

When it comes to your company’s own systems, security is in your hands. This isn’t the case with personally owned mobile devices.

Obviously, a cell phone, tablet, or laptop owned by your employee is going to be easier to physically steal. But even if the device itself isn’t stolen, it can often be more easily hacked. This potentially allows hackers access to your systems. From that point, they may be able to lock down your files and information and hold them for ransom.

Physical theft isn’t the only risk you face. With personally owned mobile devices, you also have to rely on your employees to keep all security patches up-to-date and rely on them not to download vulnerable applications. This is difficult for even well-meaning employees.

Due to constantly increasing competition for victims among ransomware creators, mobile smartphone apps make a tempting choice. According to Symantec’s Internet Security Threat Report from April 2016, Android smartphone users are a main target of attack. However, Apple devices are not immune. Attacks on Apple devices rose considerably in 2015. According to the report, attackers are using newer, more sophisticated techniques to profit from their victims. For example, there were cases where phone ransomware was observed as it started to encrypt files on phones.

Mitigating the Risk for Mobile Devices

There are several features that should be included in your company’s security policies to protect against mobile malware. Some of these are:

• Make sure access to mobile devices is password protected, including biometrics if possible.
• Update regularly. Updates often contain features designed to protect against newly uncovered vulnerabilities.
• Install and make use of remote “find and wipe” tools, in case devices are lost or stolen.
• Download and install apps only from trusted sources.
• Pay close attention to which permissions apps require. Consider noting in your security policies which permissions are allowed and which are not.
• Make use of on-device data encryption.
• Do not allow your employees to jailbreak or root devices that they will use with your system.

Increased Risks Expected in the Future

In spite of all precautions, the current trend is for the risks associated with mobile devices to increase in the near future and possibly beyond. The increasing use of smartphones and all other mobile devices is simply too tempting for cyber criminals to pass up.

If you would like to find out more information on how to protect yourself and stay ahead of the risk then please follow our link to find out about our special event we our hosting to specifically go over security in the IT world.

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Hello everyone,

We would like to introduce you to our newest employee.  Tracie has accepted our offer of employment as our Inside Sales Specialist.  Her first week started today and she has already started out doing an amazing job.  Tracie has multiple years of experience as a Life Insurance Agent and graduated with one of highest IQ’s in her class.

As an Inside Sales Specialist, Tracie is responsible for assuring that our clients’ are ordering the right products and that all of their services are being renewed.

Here are some of Tracie’s responsibility:

-Assists the sales team by preparing and then following up on any sales quotations made for clients,

-Negotiating terms with distributors to find a cost best suited for our clients

-Liaise between other departments and the client to provide the service most suitable to the client’s needs, cost and time restraints

-Work closely with the sales team to assess the progress of the department and develop sales strategy accordingly

-Produce reports on progress within the department and outline any developed strategies to improve

We are really excited to add Tracie to the team and she is going to be a big help by being able to fully dedicate herself to her new role.

Thanks for Welcoming Tracie,

-Cary Warner CMO

For the past fifteen years, Aperio IT has provided our commercial and corporate clients in the Sacramento area with information technology services and products, combined with expert guidance in planning and providing for their information technology needs. August of this year marks our official fifteenth anniversary, and we invite you to join us in celebrating!

APERIO IT IS GIVING BACK TO OUR COMMUNITY

To mark our fifteenth anniversary, our team will be participating in United Cerebral Palsy of Sacramento and Northern California’s “Steptember” charity event. Our goal is to raise a total of $3,000 toward United Cerebral Palsy of Sacramento and Northern California’s efforts to “help pay for equipment, therapy, and support for people with cerebral palsy and other disabilities.” We’d be delighted if you’d like to join us in supporting this worthy cause. If you want to sponsor our team, please go to the “Steptember” donations page and enter one of our team names. We have three teams competing, each with the goal of raising $1,000:

• Gang of Nerds (Cary Warner, Jodi Smith, Lee Burt, and Timothy Devlin)
• Hoard of Nerds (Gene Munger, Matthew Patten, Jeff Youell and George Davis)
• Clan of Nerds (Dave Burchiel, Jeremy Schaffer, Nick Avey and Joe Jacir)

You can also keep an eye on our Facebook page to see how our teams are doing.

Many members of the Aperio IT team already support charities in the community in an individual way. Participating in United Cerebral Palsy of Sacramento and Northern California’s fund raising efforts represents our company’s first effort to get involved as a team. And although this is our first attempt, it certainly won’t be our last. We’re eager to give something back as a thank you to the community that has supported us over the last decade and a half and helped us to grow and succeed!

TODAY AND IN THE FUTURE

Supporting our community

In addition to supporting more charitable events as a team, Aperio IT plans to continue to support the charities and organizations we’re already involved with. These are some of the groups we’re honored to be able to support:

• The American Cancer Society – provides prevention education, support for cancer patients, funding and conducting research, and more.
• El Dorado Hills Little League – located in El Dorado Hills, California; providing the great game of baseball to boys and girls for over 25 years.
• GiveLocalNow – aims to increase the number of donations being made in the Greater Sacramento Region, increasing the number of donations being made, the amount donors are giving, and how much is being given to local organizations.
• Muscular Dystrophy Association – the world’s leading nonprofit health agency dedicated to finding treatments and cures for muscular dystrophy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and other neuromuscular diseases; funds research, provides health care services and support to MDA families, and more.
• Go Ben Black! – community support for Ben Black and family.

We had such a wonderful turn out today for our Lunch & Learn events at Seasons 52.  We are so thankful for everyone that attended.  Thank you to all the speakers, Demetrius and Michael from Microsoft Office​ and Tom and Dave from Nimble Storage​.  Your presentations were amazing and very informative. And of course it couldn’t of been done without the help of Jill , Phoebe and the rest of the crew at Season’s 52 Sacramento​ who did an exceptional job.  A big shout out for their Chefs who made such a delicious meal and eloquent dessert as well.  We will be having another event focused on security by ESET​ and Unitrends​ on August 19th so stay tuned for our next event!