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Macro Systems Blog

Macro Systems has been serving the Metro Washington, DC area since 1997, providing IT Support such as technical helpdesk support, computer support and consulting to small and medium-sized businesses.

Macro Systems has been serving the Metro Washington, DC area since 1997, providing IT Support such as technical helpdesk support, computer support and consulting to small and medium-sized businesses

Colleges Begin to Implement Two-Factor Authentication to Improve Network Security

Colleges Begin to Implement Two-Factor Authentication to Improve Network Security

Has your business dealt with a phishing attack? If not, consider yourself lucky. There has been a massive spike in phishing attacks as hackers are aggressively going after organizations and the personal identifiable information they hold. These attacks are just not focused on typical businesses either, they are going after organizations that provide public goods. One place that has become a major target for hackers (and phishing attacks) are schools.

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Don’t Be the Last to Learn of this LastPass Vulnerability

Don’t Be the Last to Learn of this LastPass Vulnerability

One of the major password managers out there, LastPass, has become the victim of a major vulnerability. Google researchers from the Zero Day Project discovered this, along with other flaws within LastPass.

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9 Types of Hackers You Need to Know About

9 Types of Hackers You Need to Know About

When you hear the term “hacker,” what do you imagine? You likely see what many see, a lone user hunched over a computer, creating chaos for chaos’ sake. However, this is a dangerously narrow view of those who qualify as “hackers.”

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Tip of the Week: How To Troubleshoot a Faulty Internet Connection

Tip of the Week: How To Troubleshoot a Faulty Internet Connection

An Internet connection is one of the most crucial parts of running a modern business. However, this type of reliance can be crippling in the event that the Internet goes down. What can you do to make sure that downtime is limited to a minimum?

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3 Reasons Why Businesses are Flocking to VoIP Phone Systems

3 Reasons Why Businesses are Flocking to VoIP Phone Systems

Telephone solutions have long been a part of the business environment, but it’s not always a simple process to implement, as no two organizations are the same. How many users do you have? How many telephone units do you need? How many wires will you need to run through your office? These questions, and more, make it much more appealing to consider a digital voice telephony system for your business’s needs.

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Expiration Dates are for Technology Too

Expiration Dates are for Technology Too

Everyone knows that everything in the break room fridge needs to be replaced after a certain amount of time, but that’s not all that’s at your business that needs regular updates. The solutions you use every day will also need maintenance, for quite a few reasons.

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Tip of the Week: 2 Easy Ways You Can Minimize Network Security Issues

Tip of the Week: 2 Easy Ways You Can Minimize Network Security Issues

Security issues can have any number of causes, meaning that every business needs to have a comprehensive security solution. This doesn’t mean, however, that there aren’t additional, small measures to implement that can give your organization’s security an added boost. Here, we’ll talk about two: keeping your software patched, and identifying social engineering attempts.

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Hackers Beware: IBM Unleashes Supercomputer Watson to Tackle Cybercrime

Hackers Beware: IBM Unleashes Supercomputer Watson to Tackle Cybercrime

Sherlock Holmes is one of the most famous detectives in fiction, but without his dear Dr. Watson, he would have been stumped on occasion. There’s a good reason why IBM named its super-intelligent computer, Watson, after the famous character. True to its namesake, Watson is now being used to safeguard 40 organizations from cyber security threats.

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This World Backup Day, Don’t Get Caught Without a Plan

This World Backup Day, Don’t Get Caught Without a Plan

Having access to your company’s data is absolutely crucial to your success. After all, in today’s day and age, it is an extraordinarily important aspect of your business’ sustainability. Everything you do is influenced in some way by the data you have generated and/or collected--so what would you do if it was suddenly gone?

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3 Ways to Boost Security for Your Hosted VoIP System

3 Ways to Boost Security for Your Hosted VoIP System

In the course of doing business your organization needs to lean on its communications investments. Efficient discourse between vendors, clients, and employees allows for productive action to be made quickly. If you have recently decided to deploy a feature-rich hosted VoIP business phone platform because of its ubiquity, you have to be cognizant of how to best secure your solution. Here are three variables that help you get the most out of your hosted VoIP solution.

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Tip of the Week: How Using an Inconspicuous SSID for Your Wi-Fi Deters Hackers

Tip of the Week: How Using an Inconspicuous SSID for Your Wi-Fi Deters Hackers

When you turn on your device’s Wi-Fi capabilities, do you ever take the time to look at some of the names of your neighbors’ connections? You’ll see some rather boring names as well; some might just use the name of their organization or the family’s name, or even just the default SSID used by the router. The fact of the matter is that a wireless network name that’s easy to gloss over is a best practice for network security.

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Cops Lock Up Criminals, Ransomware Locks Up Cops

Cops Lock Up Criminals, Ransomware Locks Up Cops

Society relies on law enforcement to enforce laws in a fair and just manner, but even the police have their work cut out for them when they are targeted by a cyberattack. A recent incident in Cockrell, Texas shows that not even the police are immune to the threats of ransomware--particularly the emerging brand of ransomware, Osiris.

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How to Get "All You Can Eat” IT Support Without Overspending

How to Get "All You Can Eat” IT Support Without Overspending

Let’s say you get a bill in the mail for technology support, but you don’t necessarily know why you got it. Pretty troubling, right? Clearly someone in your organization isn’t privy about the proper method of getting help for their technology, but if you regularly work with a break-fix IT provider, this kind of correspondence (and cost) is unavoidable. Thankfully, there’s a simple solution to make sure that something like this doesn’t happen again.

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What You Should Be Mindful of Before Hosting Your Software in the Cloud

What You Should Be Mindful of Before Hosting Your Software in the Cloud

Businesses have focused on efficient utility software deployment for the better part of 30 years. Today, developers are increasingly offering software titles “as-a-service”, which gives users access to these powerful tools, via the cloud, for a consistent monthly payment. Distributing solutions through cloud technologies, be they a private cloud server or a reputable public cloud provider’s platform, can give your business considerable benefits.

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How the Proactive Approach to IT Management Saves You Time and Money

How the Proactive Approach to IT Management Saves You Time and Money

So, you’ve just finished up a huge, potentially career-altering project. Your finger is poised over the mouse, ready to click ‘save,’ when suddenly your entire project disappears. Turns out, a critical issue just killed your network, your progress, and your mood. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a way to keep this from happening?

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Tip of the Week: Find Your Lost Smartphone With Ease

Tip of the Week: Find Your Lost Smartphone With Ease

Oh no! You start slapping your pockets, already knowing what you’re about to confirm--your mobile device is missing. With the reliance we have on these devices, losing yours is enough to send you into a relative panic. However, this panic may be avoided by implementing a reliable solution specifically for locating a lost device.

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Mobile Technology Trends Present a Major Challenge for Business Owners

Mobile Technology Trends Present a Major Challenge for Business Owners

The small business is under siege. Many small business owners do what they can to compete, but it seems like there is no solution for their revenue woes, as larger organizations are able to attract a larger part of the market share. This has been the case for some time, but there are market forces at work today that make it even more difficult for businesses to contend with competitors that have more resources.

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Did My Samsung Device Just Wink? Is it Spying on Me?

Did My Samsung Device Just Wink? Is it Spying on Me?

Occasionally, some Samsung smartphone users might see something strange appear at the top of their device’s screen--an eyeball. It will show up for a brief second and then disappear. What gives Samsung? Are you spying on me? For this blog, we’ll get to the bottom of this, as well as go over the symptoms of a device that is compromised.

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How a Haphazard Approach to IT Only Creates More Problems

How a Haphazard Approach to IT Only Creates More Problems

We have been very fortunate to assist many organizations, and this experience has given us a certain perspective of how many businesses approach their technology maintenance. We often work with new businesses to audit the performance of their IT. We’ve found that small businesses tend to have more issues and are susceptible to bigger vulnerabilities. These aren’t networks that go ignored either--many of them currently pay for an “expert” to support them.

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Tip of the Week: Don’t Leave Your Chrome Extensions Behind When You Go Incognito

Tip of the Week: Don’t Leave Your Chrome Extensions Behind When You Go Incognito

With Google Chrome’s Incognito mode, you can privately browse the web, but you may have noticed that Incognito mode also disables your extensions by default. This isn’t a big deal, but it can be an annoyance that you’d prefer not to deal with. Thankfully, there’s a good way to make sure that specific extensions stay enabled, even in Incognito mode.

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Macro Systems
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Fairfax, Virginia 22030