Blue Ridge Technology

Are your people Christmas shopping from work? The holidays are fast approaching, and let’s be real — we’re all scrambling for those gifts, especially for the folks on our lists that are hard to shop for! More than likely, you’ve got an employee or two doing a little holiday shopping on their work machine. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they’re doing it on break time or over lunch. Still, if you and your people aren’t careful, that online holiday shopping could actually turn into a business threat! Here’s how — and how you can keep your business data safe this holiday season. Online Scams Are Everywhere We’ve said it before, and it’s just as true now: online scams are everywhere. Well, not everywhere. If you’re buying from trustworthy retailers like Amazon or Macy’s or Wal-Mart — and you’re certain you’re on their actual legit website — it’s pretty tough to get scammed. During the holidays, online scammers like to take advantage of how busy and even desperate some p...

Will your business be able to keep up with the pace of change? It’s hard to believe, but we’re almost to a new year (again!). We’re all starting to look toward what next year has in store— whether in personal development (the dreaded new year’s resolutions) or in our businesses. As we push onward into the new year, the pace of business technology innovations isn’t slowing down. If anything, it’s moving faster than ever. Here are a few of the biggest business tech developments and trends that will shape the next year — or even the next decade — of how business gets done. Process Automation Grows in Importance and Capability First, expect process automation to take off, even more than it already has. Business process automation isn’t new; it’s been happening in physical manufacturing for decades, and the software variety is already happening in mid- to large-sized companies. In fact, process automation is probably already a part of your routine in small, less noticeable ways. For example...

Why you will not be fine on this Cloud9 There’s a new online security threat circulating right now. It’s a pretty bad one, so you’ll want to make sure you and your team haven’t fallen victim to it yet — and that you don’t unknowingly do so in the future. Here’s everything you need to know about the Cloud9 threat. What Is Cloud9? Cloud9 is the name of a malicious browser extension that affects Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge (two of the most popular web browsers out there, and almost certainly what you’re using if you’re on a PC). What’s a Browser Extension, Again? Browser extensions are usually harmless and can be incredibly helpful: they let you do more with your web browser, like interact with your Google Calendar or run a grammar checker like Grammarly on any text you’re typing into a browser. Some password managers run as browser extensions, too, and we’ve told you before how much we love password managers. The problem with browser extensions is that anyone can make one. And they...