The Official Fusion Factor Blog

Cybercriminals are fairly experienced at avoiding detection. By the time you notice they’ve infected your computer with malware or hijacked your account, serious damage has most likely already been done. To make matters worse, they have another way to hide their illegal activities, and it involves sending thousands of spam emails.

Did you just get the newest MacBook Pro? Or the Lenovo Yoga 920? Either would be very exciting, but before you start showing off your new purchase, there are five steps you should take to make your laptop experience even more enjoyable and long-lasting.

From CryptoLocker to WannaCry, ransomware has grown in sophistication and scope over the past few years. And given its widespread success with hackers, more ransomware attacks will likely be developed further into 2018. In anticipation of these attacks, many experts are saying that virtualized disaster recovery solutions may be the best way to defend against future ransomware.

Microsoft isn’t always the first company that pops into mind when talking about virtualization, but it does offer one of the best solutions in the industry. In an ongoing effort to compete with companies like VMWare and Amazon Web Services, Microsoft has released a massive upgrade for its virtualization platform -- and it’s totally free!
Azure: Microsoft’s virtualization platform
As a full-service cloud solution, Azure is a secure and flexible data center that businesses of all sizes can benefit from.

Transmitting voice conversations over an internet connection can be risky, with no way of knowing whether or not anyone is tapping your calls. In response to this concern, Skype has just released a new feature that can encrypt all conversations, ensuring more privacy when calling or texting.

Yammer, Outlook Groups, and Microsoft Teams have plenty in common. They’re all Office 365 tools designed for sharing files and communicating with colleagues. So what differentiates each from the other and when should you use them? Here's a quick rundown to help you decide.

Installing security patches is usually such a humdrum task that even the most inexperienced users handle it. Unfortunately, that has not been the case with the Spectre and Meltdown fixes. This time around, we recommend you skip installing the update and let an IT professional handle it for you.

Truly optimized security settings and software are beyond the capacity of most business owners. You just don't have time to tinker with your office IT. Instead, try these quick and easy tips before calling us.
Cover up your webcam
There must be some credibility to doing this if Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, former FBI director, James Comey, and NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden all believe their webcams could be compromised.

During a power outage, responsible business owners use emergency power to keep desktop computers from unexpectedly shutting down. While that’s certainly a good strategy for keeping machines operational and preventing data loss, there’s something else you can do to ensure that your staff remains productive while weathering a storm: uninterruptible power supply (UPS) for networking equipment.

On January 3, 2018, two hardware flaws were announced that affect nearly every computer sold within the last 20 years. Every virtualization service available relies on vulnerable computers, but you needn’t worry -- almost every vendor has already protected your virtual machines.