Sophicity

Video Conferencing Safety, Security, Tips, and Best Practices: While some tech-savvy people might take naturally to video conferencing, many employees might be struggling with this technology. Video conferencing can really help your municipal operations, but you want to make sure it’s safe, secure, and easy for employees to use. Let’s look at several components of video conferencing that will help your employees.

Video Conferencing Safety, Security, Tips, and Best Practices While some tech-savvy people might take naturally to video conferencing, many employees might be struggling with this technology. Video conferencing can really help your municipal operations during this crisis, but you want to make sure it’s safe, secure, and easy for employees to use. Let’s loo

6 Cyber Risks That Your Municipal Employees Face Working Remotely—and How to Address Those Risks: If people are not used to working remotely and you’re not used to supporting remote workers, you may not realize that various security vulnerabilities exist that don’t necessarily appear at the office. Teleworking introduces increased cybersecurity risks as employees work from home with their personal computers. Here are some areas you need to assess.

6 Cyber Risks That Your Municipal Employees Face Working Remotely—and How to Address Those Risks If people are not used to working remotely and you’re not used to supporting remote workers, you may not realize that various security vulnerabilities exist that don’t necessarily appear at the office. Teleworking introduces increased cybersecurity risks as employees work from home with their pe

Last Wednesday, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), a federal agency overseen by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), released an alert about Microsoft Exchange server vulnerabilities. While many organizations no longer use Microsoft Exchange, quite a few still do and may be vulnerable to a cyberattack. Even if you’re not using Microsoft Exchange and this specific alert doesn’t apply to you, it offers several serious lessons for organizations about software vulnerabilities and vigilance in detecting cyberthreats.

Critical Microsoft Exchange Vulnerability Illustrates Importance of Cyber Threat Detection Critical Microsoft Exchange Vulnerability Illustrates Importance of Cyber Threat Detection

During the first week of February in Oldsmar, Florida, a hacker tried to poison the city’s water supply by increasing the amount of lye to dangerous levels. While the city fended off the attack, it’s still scary to contemplate what hackers can potentially do in 2021. An attack on your water supply may not be one of your daily worries. However, if we look at some elements of the attack analyzed by a Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) alert, we will see some areas of concern that overlap with your municipality’s cybersecurity strategy—or lack thereof.

Water Supply Attack Illustrates Security Lessons for Municipalities Water Supply Attack Illustrates Security Lessons for Municipalities

Remote Work: Maintaining Team Visibility with Microsoft Planner - Maintaining team visibility is a major challenge for most organizations. Many organizations ask themselves, “How do I keep my team organized, have visibility into their progress, and work cohesively while separated?” It’s a tall order but not impossible. If your organization is already using Office 365, there is a tool you can implement today – Microsoft Planner.

Remote Work: Maintaining Team Visibility with Microsoft Planner Remote Work: Maintaining Team Visibility with Microsoft Planner

5 Common Squad Car and Body Camera Video Issues Addressed by Video Archiving: Why is the management of capturing and storing squad car and body camera video so challenging? Because video files are huge—and they need lots and lots and lots of storage space. Deciding where to store this video becomes a daily challenge—like directing an always-on firehose toward a repository where you wish to store the water. Once stored, the video keeps coming. Without an appropriate strategy, the water from the firehose will flood your police department. When we talk to municipalities for the first time about their squad car and body camera video archiving, we often note these five common issues.

5 Common Squad Car and Body Camera Video Issues Addressed by Video Archiving Why is the management of capturing and storing squad car and body camera video so challenging? Because video files are huge—and they need lots and lots and lots of storage space. When we talk to municipalities for the first time about their squad car and body camera video archiving, we often note

IT and Cybersecurity Lessons from the Coronavirus: We draw upon some of the resilience lessons we see from our federal, state, and local governments and apply them to your town or city’s IT and cybersecurity.

IT and Cybersecurity Lessons from the Coronavirus Are you able to completely prevent the coronavirus, a cyberattack, or a natural disaster from impacting your community? No. Are you able to plan in such a way that you can be resilient—bouncing back from a disturbance, learning from it, and continuing your municipal operations? Yes. We can draw up

5 Unexpected Yet Common Data Backup Obstacles: Many organizations have some type of data backup and disaster recovery solution in place—but they believe that fact alone checks this task off their list. But these organizations often run into obstacles that limit their ability to effectively back up their data and recover it after an incident or a disaster.

5 Unexpected Yet Common Data Backup Obstacles 5 Unexpected Yet Common Data Backup Obstacles

Webinar: Your Biggest Cybersecurity Threat and How to Handle It - 95% of successful cyberattacks start with phishing. That’s why it’s your biggest threat, and your traditional cybersecurity prevention measures likely aren’t preparing your organization against a phishing attack. In this webinar, Joey Howland, VC3’s Chief Information Security Officer, explains why everyone in an organization, especially leaders, needs to be aware of the threat phishing attacks present.

Webinar: Your Biggest Cybersecurity Threat and How to Handle It Webinar: Your Biggest Cybersecurity Threat and How to Handle It

IT Budgeting: Top Six Mistakes When Cutting IT Costs and Better Alternatives - Where do you start? As a leader in your organization, resist the urge to pull out your red pen and slash the IT budget. While it may be tempting to postpone projects like hardware updates, it is not that simple. Add in something less tangible like cybersecurity, and budgeting quickly becomes complicated. It is better to start with a more structured and deliberate approach.

IT Budgeting: Top Six Mistakes When Cutting IT Costs and Better Alternatives IT Budgeting: Top Six Mistakes When Cutting IT Costs and Better Alternatives

Bringing IT into Focus: Is Your IT Working for You or Against You? - What does wearing glasses and fuzzy writing on a board have to do with IT? Well, underperforming IT is similar to trying to read a board without glasses. Until it’s clearly in focus, you don’t realize how good your IT could be.

Bringing IT into Focus: Is Your IT Working for You or Against You? Bringing IT into Focus: Is Your IT Working for You or Against You?

Auburn, Georgia Improves Responsiveness and Effectiveness of IT Support Through IT in a Box—Saving Valuable Time and Money

Auburn, Georgia Improves Responsiveness and Effectiveness of IT Support Through IT in a Box—Saving Valuable Time and Money IT in a Box offered the City of Auburn a team of municipal-experienced technology professionals who were ready to respond to issues and improve the city’s IT infrastructure. Since contracting with Sophicity, the city's existing issues became nonexistent.