OnSite I.T. Blog

There has been a good deal of controversy about how personal data has been collected, sold, and used over the past few years. Companies of all types package and sell data to create a valuable extra revenue stream for their business, and while this should be thought of as a side effect of all the data that is created by people, it can also create some pretty difficult situations to try and navigate. Today, we’ll take a look at the data-broker loophole, how it works, and what can be done about it.

Artificial intelligence has become one of the most talked-about technologies throughout every sector of society. It’s being widely used in business, education, and civic life. We want to focus on the latter element and discuss how the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is using AI to improve its ability to keep Americans safe. 

Cybercrime is a concern for businesses of all—and we mean all—sizes, from the small mom-and-pop shop down the road to the multinational enterprises, and it’s a concern for a variety of reasons. Let’s take a look at some of the reasons that these massive businesses worry about cyber incidents and see if there isn’t some common ground.

Data is a critical asset for modern businesses, simply because it can be utilized to help improve an organization’s operations in a variety of ways. Let’s explore some of the various approaches you can take to leveraging the data you collect to add value to your business.

We frequently discuss the importance of keeping PII—personally identifiable information—secure, but what does this include? What data qualifies as PII?

Here, we’re going to lock down on a definition (and you may be surprised by what this definition covers).

Since its origins back in 1991, the blockchain has had one core purpose: to securely store data. The methods behind it are exclusive to it as well. Let’s explore the concept of the blockchain a little further to gain a better appreciation of what it has enabled.

We like to focus our efforts on preventing data breaches and cybersecurity attacks, but it’s important to know what you should do if you do fall victim to such an attack. Let’s go over how you should respond to a data breach and what you must consider to come out on the successful side of it.

Passwords have been front-and-center for data security since 1960, but even their creator–MIT researcher Fernando Corbató–doesn’t think he should take full credit passwords. In fact, if you brought this up to the researchers who did create them, they would tell you that the security concerns for their time were much more limited.

Privacy for business means a lot more than protecting the data and personal information of clients. It also extends to just about all data collected by a business, including that of the employees. How can you go about protecting this data without also violating the privacy of your employees themselves?

In the business world, the term “informatics” is generally used synonymously with computer science. While they are certainly quite similar, they are also quite different. What exactly does the field of informatics pertain to, and how can knowing this help your business prosper in the years to come?

When it comes to your business’ security, your team members can either be your greatest vulnerability or your greatest strength. In order to ensure that the latter is the case, you need to make sure that they are all trained up in the proper security measures. For your convenience, we wanted to share a few tips to help make this training more effective.

Artificial intelligence has taken the world by storm, and with recent improvements to automated technology and machine learning, it should be clear that this technology is not going anywhere anytime soon. With proper implementation, artificial intelligence can help your business cut costs, improve operations, and mitigate unnecessary or repetitive tasks, all of which compounds to create a smoother and more manageable workload for your employees.

Have you ever listened to someone talk about something that they really have a good handle on? One of two things will happen. First, their language will be filled to bursting with buzzwords and jargon that—while they clearly know what it all means—is confusing for a layperson. We can be guilty of this ourselves, so we wanted to take a few moments to take the second option and discuss what they mean in more common terms… and, despite how others may use them, what they don’t.

The 2020 election is months away and traces of it can be seen everywhere. As people quarrel about how social media is being used to interfere with the political process, there is pressure mounting on election officials and tech companies, alike, to do what they can to keep solicitation and corruption out of the ballot box. Let’s take a neutral view of the changes that some online platforms are making to the way that political information is shared.

Big data, or massive data sets that can be used to make inferences and reveal patterns, has become an increasingly important part of modern business and can be leveraged in many different ways. There are a few different options for storing this data available, which the use case for the data will dictate. Here, we’ll evaluate whether a “data lake” or a “data warehouse” would better suit your needs.

Huawei has found itself in an... interesting spot lately. Despite being the top telecom supplier in the world and second in phone manufacturing, many countries have banned the use of the Chinese company’s networking equipment. This is primarily due to the close ties Huawei has with China’s government, and the potential spying Huawei could do.

For some time now, businesses have more or less had to choose between utilizing solutions provided by Google, or those that Microsoft has developed - exclusively. This was because these solutions offered no real inter-compatibility… until now, at least, as Google now allows users to edit Microsoft Office files in Google Docs.

Regardless of whether or not you handle this facet of your business for yourself, the knowledge of how to code is becoming increasingly useful - and there are more and more resources available to help you gain this knowledge. Below, we review some that you may consider leveraging to improve some of your skills.

It’s a scene familiar from many science fiction movies: a simulation pulled up on a screen, the effects of some proposed action being predicted and demonstrated, telling the heroes that their plan just might work. As it happens, this kind of process is no longer relegated to the sci-fi genre, and is used practically in many industries. Here, we’ll discuss the phenomenon of the digital twin.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure. Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. File Transfer Protocol. Internet Message Access Protocol. Post Office Protocol. While it may not be outwardly apparent, we certainly rely on quite a few protocols in order to use our computers and more directly, the Internet, as we do. Today, we’ll introduce you to what a protocol actually is.