Are you managing your IT services, or contracting with a reliable IT support organization that offers this? If you are not paying attention to this important maintenance function, you are putting your company and your data at risk of loss, hijacking, or both. The recent news about the gasoline pipeline ransomware attack should have brought this concern front and center. According to various recently published articles, law firms represent attractive targets to groups like DarkSide.
Beyond the risks posed by unmanaged and/or neglected IT services, the move to remote computing that has accelerated as a consequence of the pandemic carries with it both performance and security implications. Remote computing can be either a seamless and largely similar experience to working in the office, or it can be an endless horror show of technological obstacles which reduce or destroy productivity. The difference between “seamless” and “horror” can be largely attributed to effectively managing your IT services.
You have a day job to perform. Most likely you don’t service your own HVAC system, either in your home or your office. Why would you want to relegate what is much more complicated technology than your HVAC system to staff – or yourself – that have no training or expertise in this area? A competent IT organization can offer the following:
- Fine-tuning overall network performance
- Safely and efficiently facilitating remote access to your network
- Monitoring and updating/patching technology resources deployed in your company
- Offering on-demand support to users who experience technical issues
- Advising on security threats as they emerge, and proactively blocking threats as they appear
- Monitoring “the dark web” activity for references to your company and your personal data
The pandemic has caused us to re-evaluate much of our day-to-day lives, including the way we work. Tools that were once an afterthought for many businesses are now essential for business survival. This is not likely to change once we arrive at a post-pandemic existence, in either our business or our personal lives. Crosspointe’s own IT service provider (SpiderNet Technical Consulting) has published a very solid introduction to the services typically offered by a Managed Services provider. You can read their post here to learn more about the offerings of a typical provider.
Confused about your current technology assets, or interested in learning what you can do to both improve and secure your IT environment? Contact us to discuss your needs and get some advice for improving your computing infrastructure.
Jack Schaller has been active in the field of law office technology since 1989, and has worked with a variety of commercial accounting, legal billing, practice management, and document management software products during his twenty plus years in the software consulting field. During his tenure as a software consultant he has garnered many sales and service awards for his work with legal software products. Jack is a frequent presenter at legal conferences and seminars, and is a regular contributor to TechnoLawyer and other technology publications.