As 2022 begins, it’s a good time to focus on the things you’ve accomplished in 2021 as well as the tasks that lay ahead. Laying out the groundwork for the year starts now; and getting a head-start on preparing your office’s IT is a great way to get ready for the new year.
There have been a significant number of new announcements over the 2021 year, from the latest release of Windows 11 to newly discovered security vulnerabilities—now is the time to close any loopholes, get your IT secured, and update any systems that have been waiting for any period.
Being Secure for the New Year
With the new year upon us, now is a great time to check and ensure everything is secure and ready for the new year. January presents a great opportunity to restart systems, patch security vulnerabilities, and update firmware when it will have a minimal impact on your overall IT operations. So, if you’ve been waiting for that chance to restart a device to complete an update, now is the time to do it.
The holiday season is one of the primary times that hackers and cyber criminals use to attempt to steal identities and commit fraud. Ensure that you and your team keep an eye out for potential phishing emails claiming to be from someone they’re not; check the headers, links, or attachments in any suspicious emails to verify the email address that it’s being sent from. You can use your mouse to hover over a link without clicking it to reveal where it may lead you to.
You can also work with a Managed Internet Security company that specializes in IT security and may offer spam filtering services. Natural Networks is a Managed IT Security company, and we can work with you and your staff to ensure that spam and phishing emails get blocked before they show up in your team’s inbox.
Tidying Up
Finally, the beginning of the year presents a great opportunity to clean up old items from your computer and overall IT infrastructure. Uninstalling any unwanted programs, archiving old emails from your Outlook, and generally clearing old computer cache files are all great ways to clean your computer.
If you utilize Outlook as your main email server, you can quickly archive old emails to make space for new messages and keep the inbox clean from emails that are no longer relevant. To archive messages in Outlook, simply go to the File Menu > Tools > Mailbox Cleanup. From the Mailbox Cleanup window, choose the Archive option and then select the date’s you wish to archive back from. Creating a mailbox archive will remove messages from the server and retain them in a separate folder on your local computer.
Another great tool that can help cleanup computer cache files as well as fix registry issues and other unforeseen problems that may be slowing down your computer is CCleaner. You can download and run the CCleaner application from the CCleaner website. This application can give you control to delete cache files, stored browser credentials, and browsing history as well; but be careful when using this as you can accidentally delete any saved information you may want to keep.
You can also work with the IT professionals at your Managed IT Services provider like Natural Networks to help clean up your computer as well. If you’re interested in learning more about how a Managed IT Services company can help your office IT all year round, give us a call today!
