Directive Blogs

Email is an aging communication protocol, but it’s still an important asset nonetheless. Even though society continues to push toward bigger and greater things, the modern office still depends on having an email solution for a communication medium. While we can’t get away from email completely, it’s important to make sure that using it is as easy as possible, especially for the busy business owner.

At the frontlines of the battle to secure your network is your company’s email accounts. Facing an onslaught of spam, malicious links, virus-filled attachments, and more, it’s up to each user to know what to look for and not let it through. This is a task that’s easier said than done.

Your business is literally assaulted by thousands of threats a day, and they could ruin your organization's goals in an instant if not for your defenses. With such powerful security measures at your disposal, we don’t blame you for lowering your defenses; however, it should be mentioned that your network security doesn’t protect you from all manners of threats. Attacks like phishing scams have a tendency to bypass your security measures, which makes them dangerous.

We all know that hacking is one of the biggest risks we must deal with in today’s technology-based society. Most hackers out there try to take advantage of the latest vulnerabilities in software, but there are some that use a more sophisticated method. These hackers try take advantage of the weaknesses found in the human psyche, rather than the technological flaws that consistently get patched.

With the critically-acclaimed television series, Game of Thrones returning to viewers this spring, it seems apt to discuss a manner of hacking attack called Dyre Wolf. This particular threat is just as fierce as its name implies, and can potentially cost businesses between $500,000 to $1.5 million per attack. It takes advantage of a multi-step phishing process, and your employees should understand how to avoid attacks like these.

Email has revolutionized the way we communicate, but in some cases it can be a dangerous distraction to productivity. This is especially true if your company is trying to maintain its own Exchange mail server. Does having email on the brain give you a headache? If so, you might consider looking into a hosted email Exchange solution from Directive.

Are your eyes constantly glued on your email inbox during the workday? It’s not bad to keep up with what’s going on in the office, but a recent study has linked constant email-checking to higher stress levels. This probably isn’t surprising to some, but some folks, like the researchers at the University of British Columbia, claim that there’s a maximum number of times to check your email throughout the day to minimize stress in the workplace.

While email offers several great benefits to those willing to deal with it, the most popular method of communicating in the office has its flaws. One of the most crippling is spam, which can ruin your inbox and your productivity. The unfortunate truth is that even the most diligent workers get hit with spam, but that doesn’t mean that your business’s productivity needs to suffer from it.

One of the most common ways computer viruses spread is through email. Most of the malware-carrying messages are caught in your account's spam filter, so you don't have to worry about those. It's the malicious emails that make it to your inbox that you need to be mindful of, and phishing emails are by far the most dangerous.

There's a computer security threat so menacing that not even the best security technology can stop it. It's called psychology, and it's used with email phishing scams to trick users into overriding their security solution. The only way to stop this threat is with common sense, and unfortunately, there's no app for that.

Takeaway: A local employee wins the grand prize of a new car after becoming the 1,000,000th visitor to a random website, much to the jealousy of his fellow employees. His co-workers respond by entering every online sweepstakes while at work, bringing productivity to a halt.

Anytime you take a step into the Internet, there's a pretty good chance that you are going to step in a fresh and steamy pile of spam. Spam can ruin your company's Internet footprint. Spam can also find its way into the depths of your website and stink up the whole place. It's especially embarrassing when you don't even know that you have spam on the bottom of your virtual shoe; here's how it got there.