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News and Insights from the entrust IT Group

Microsoft Ignite 2020 Key Takeaways

Last week, Microsoft hosted Ignite 2020, the tech giant’s annual conference that centres on IT professionals and the businesses and productivity workers that they support. Each year, Microsoft showcase their enterprise products and services as well as provide valuable training attendees. The event is also always jam-packed with announcements of new features to its line-up of products, with this year being no exception, despite being held 100 percent virtually for the first time ever.

The top 6 benefits of Microsoft 365

In 2011, Microsoft released the popular Office 365 subscription service known as ‘BPOS’. Since then, the service has matured into an excellent, modern business productivity suite, combining the latest business applications, with Windows 10 and the best in-class security features. Most recently, Office 365 was rebranded to Microsoft 365 – that means a new name, but same great value, same price and same Office productivity suite we all have grown to know and love.

The common myths of working from home debunked

Modern technology has slowly led to a rise in people working from home. However, many employers still focus heavily on office-based work, assuming that employees will not be as productive at home. Negative misconceptions like this are what make employers resist the trend, despite protestations from those that would prefer home working, which is growing in popularity; 74% of workers now say they would quit their job if offered more flexible options elsewhere.

How the cloud has helped businesses throughout a pandemic

For many years, the cloud has produced a shift in the way we work. We are less reliant on offices, less reliant on “the 9-5” and less reliant on face-to-face communication. Around the world, some, however, were still reluctant and comfortable with running their business in the traditional ‘onsite server-based computing’ model – a model that while convenient, is historically known as being inflexible, often with unpredictable costs.

UK Gov announce £20 Million In New Grants To Boost Recovery Of Small Businesses

The Coronavirus pandemic has had a profound impact on all of us, particularly in our professional lives. It is deeply sad to see so many redundancies and even business closures. Fortunately, after an announcement on the 30th July from Simon Clarke MP, the Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government, thousands of businesses are set to benefit from 20 million of new government funding. This is part of the Government’s strategy to help business bounce back from the crippling effects of the pandemic.

How to stay focused when working from home

As the COVID-19 outbreak became more widespread, millions of employees had to shift to working from home. Although some are now returning to the office, there are still a handful of individuals who are remaining at home to work, whether that be because they are at risk, their offices are staying closed or they simply don’t feel comfortable about returning to the office. Furthermore, with localised lockdowns and an increase in cases throughout Europe, there is always a chance that localised lockdowns will come into force at a moment’s notice.

Multi Factor Authentication: What it is, why you need it & how to use it.

These days, passwords are no longer being viewed as the most secure way to protect an account. Cyber criminals are advancing at an exponential rate as are the ways in which they can find out your credentials. By only using a password as an authentication method, the security of an account is based solely on the strength of a password, which, as years of research has proven, is not generally very strong – two-thirds of people use the same password everywhere, and many of the passwords they use are easily guessed.

Remote Desktop Service vs VPN: What is best for your business?

Since the start of the Coronavirus pandemic, we have seen a huge move towards the use of remote access technologies such as Remote Desktop Services and VPNs. The move came as many organisations were being urged to have their employees work from home in order to prevent the spread of Coronavirus – according to research, RDS use is up by 41% and enterprise VPN use is up by 33%.

The end of Privacy Shield: What does it mean?

On July 16th, The European Court of Justice (ECJ) officially declared that the EU-US Privacy Shield, a key data sharing mechanism, is invalid as they believe it fails to protect people’s rights to privacy and data protection. The historic decision will have substantial consequences and be a major headache for thousands of organisations that already exchange data with the US.

5 ways to secure remote working

2020 has been a turbulent year. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused major disruption to the global economy and has changed the way we all live our lives. However, as cases fall throughout the UK, we are seeing a gradual return to the workplace for many. Indeed, Government advice on home working changes from August 1st, and employees will now be actively encouraged to return to their place of work. That being said, the example of Leicester and the recent rise in cases in Spain, serves as a reminder that we will be living with this virus for many months to come, and localised lockdowns can come very suddenly.