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Why dashboards are vital tools for your business

People are visual creatures, which means we interpret visual data better than written words. That’s why most businesses turn to dashboards as a business intelligence tool to present data in a way that’s easy to understand, making dashboards a critical part of the business analytics process. Here are some common uses of dashboards across various business functions.

Marketing insights

An organization’s marketing department analyzes a significant amount of data from various channels. Whether the purpose is to forecast monthly sales, predict trends, or build marketing strategies, marketing specialists use dashboards to compare, sort, and analyze raw data to churn out meaningful information presented in an easy-to-understand format. This helps key decision makers in formulating better marketing campaigns.

Tracking sales opportunities

Sales dashboards are perfect for tracking your organization’s products and services. They help you identify sales opportunities by monitoring top-selling products and comparing the growth in revenue on a regular basis. Sales dashboards sync to your raw data, so your charts are always up to date, thus eliminating the need to spend hours manually entering and preparing sales reports and charts.

Social media management

Social media management is more than just posting statuses on your business’s social media accounts. And in most cases, your social media platform’s default dashboard doesn’t give you deep insight into your social media campaigns. What’s more, managing multiple social media accounts can quickly become a cumbersome process since you have to use several login credentials. Instead, you can manage your accounts all at once through a comprehensive social media dashboard, saving you valuable time and effort.

Financial reports

Presenting financial data is a complex process that it often leads to misinterpretation and misunderstanding of critical data. Dashboards make creating financial reports much easier, and financial analysts can take advantage of dashboards to display sensitive data in a comprehensible graphical format — be it customer invoices, progress toward revenue goals, or business expenses.

Project collaboration

Businesses of all sizes require their employees to collaborate on projects, whether on-site or online. Project supervisors need to get their teams together to give them projects’ requirements, deadlines, and responsibilities, and to get progress updates. With the help of project collaboration dashboards, members will see the complete workflow of the project, allowing for a more efficient and collaborative working environment.

Dashboards eliminate the complications of presenting complex business data and make your team more efficient. If you’re looking to implement dashboards and other cutting-edge tools to make your job easier, contact our consultants today.

Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. Source.

Why you shouldn’t use public charging kiosks

Smartphones have become a vital part of modern life. And as we spend more time on these gadgets, the likelihood of needing to recharge them while on the go increases. When your phone’s juice runs out and you’re nowhere near your charger, a public charging kiosk can look pretty promising. But what you might not know is that recharging phones at public charging stations can make you a victim of juice jacking.

What is juice jacking?

While newer phones can be charged wirelessly, older models still need power cords to power up their batteries. This charging method has one dangerous flaw: the cable used for charging can also be used for transferring data. Cybercriminals can exploit this flaw to commit juice jacking, or the act of using the USB data/power cable to illegitimately access phone data and/or inject malicious code into a device.

Juice jacking often happens at public charging kiosks. When you charge your phone, it is paired with a computer concealed within the charging stand. The computer can then access all of the information on your device, including personal data such as your address book, notes, photos, music, SMS database, and keyboard cache. It can even initiate a full backup of your phone, which can be accessed by the hacker wirelessly anytime.

Apart from stealing your data, cybercriminals can also inject malware into your phone through a public USB hub. All it takes is a minute of being plugged into a public charger for your phone to be infected by malware. Once infected, your phone can be prompted to display ads, download apps, or view web pages without your authorization.

How to avoid juice jacking

The most effective precaution against juice jacking is simply not charging your phone using a third-party system. Here are some tips to help you avoid using a public kiosk charger:

  • Keep your battery full. Make it a habit to charge your phone at home or at the office when you are not actively using it. When unexpected circumstances happen and you get stuck outside, your phone will have enough juice and you won’t need to charge it.
  • Carry a personal charger. External batteries like power banks have become very small and portable in recent years. Always have one in your bag so you can charge your phone securely on the go.
  • If your device has a removable battery, carry a backup battery with you anywhere. If the idea of carrying a spare battery doesn’t appeal to you, you can opt to carry a battery case instead: it’s a phone case that doubles as a battery.
  • Lock your phone. Without the proper PIN code or fingerprint and face ID scan, your phone cannot be paired with the hidden computer in the kiosk charger.
  • If you must use a third-party power source, use power-only USB cables. These cables are missing the two wires necessary for data transmission, ensuring that they can only be used for charging.

Technology threats are all around us. Even something as trivial as powering your phone in a public kiosk station can compromise your device’s security. If you want to learn more about how to protect your gadgets from today’s security threats, don’t hesitate to call us. Our technology experts are happy to help.

Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. Source.

Two-step and two-factor authentication: What’s the difference?

Every business should have a strong cybersecurity posture to keep cybercriminals from infiltrating their network. One way to do this is by implementing a strict authentication process using two-step or two-factor authentication. These two processes are so similar that many confuse one with the other. Learn the difference between the two and how you can leverage them to safeguard your network.

If you want to improve your business’s cybersecurity, you should take a closer look at your authentication process. Two-step and two-factor authentication are two of the most commonly used authentication methods. Many businesses use the terms two-step and two-factor authentication interchangeably, but there are subtle differences between the two.

Two-step authentication

A two-step authentication process requires a single-factor login (such as a password or biometric reading) as well as another similar type of login credential that a user must provide. This process typically requires entering a password for the first step and entering another security code for the second step, which may be accomplished by providing a one-time code generated by an authenticator app such as Google Authenticator.

Two-step authentication adds an extra step in the verification process, making it more secure than single-step authentication (i.e., providing only a password). However, if a person or business is hacked, it won’t be enough to stop hackers from getting a hold of whatever they are looking for.

Two-factor authentication

Two-factor authentication, a subset of multifactor authentication, is significantly more secure than two-step authentication. This type of authentication requires two different types of information to authenticate a user’s identity. For example, it could be a combination of a fingerprint or retinal scan as well as a password or passcode. Because of the additional authentication information required, hackers would have great difficulty breaking into a network using a two-factor authentication system.

Which one is better?

Relying on a single-factor authentication process is no longer sufficient in ensuring the safety of your network. Securing the authentication process and making it difficult for cybercriminals to access your network should be on top of your priorities. Deciding whether to use two-step or two-factor authentication largely depends on your business’s specific security requirements. To take the stress out of securing and protecting your network, call us today for expert cybersecurity advice.

Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. Source.

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