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Small Business IT Foibles
Most Owners are UnawareTheir Systems are at Risk 
By Keith Coker, PresidentOrLANtech Inc.We’ve all read those almost unbelievable e-mails about people calling tech support to ask why their home computer won’t work only to be told by the tech that they have to turn it on first.But even savvy business owners are often surprised by what they find when an experiencedtechnician spends an hour or two doing a “flight check” on their sophisticatednetwork of serversand personal computersat the office.When you think about the investment the average small- to medium-sized company hasin information technology – servers, software, work stations – whether PCs or dumb terminals,cabling, etc. – it probably strikes an owner as similar to an airplane … and you can bet theywouldn’t let that plane taxi down the runway, much less take off without a flight check.Trouble is that many business owners today are virtually clueless about the flightworthiness of their investment. Consider if you will the top five things our field technicians findwhen we perform one of our system audits:
1.
Backups not implemented or working.
This is by far the most dangerous mistake a business can make because even if you don’t have a Redundant Array of IndependentDiscs (see next item) you can still recover your data.
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All too often management believes they are getting good backups becausesomeone tells them it is being done. Unfortunately, no one knows how to check  backup reports and no one is taking backups off site.
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This is the number one item on our agenda when a company asks us to be their ITteam: check and recheck backups.
2.
No RAID management software in place.
RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Discs and simply means you basically have more than one hard drive in your machine or server … allowing you time to get a failed hard drive replaced and operating.
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We typically find that the server’s hard drives are not configured correctly for redundant drives. If they are, they rarely have the management software neededto run diagnostics and check the status.
 
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Don’t just assume that you’re covered just because someone told you that a RAIDis in place. It must be implemented properly and must have the managementsoftware that automates and monitors your RAID status. What a lot of peopledon’t realize is that there are different levels of redundancy … if you’re low onthe scale you could be in trouble.3.
No documentation or licenses.
It is very important to have your network diagram anddocumentation and also keep it in an area that is secure, but easily accessible if needed.Documentation should include all of the software licenses, vendor information, deviceconfigurations, etc., because without it you either won’t be able to reinstall your softwarein a disaster … or at best it will take far longer, meaning more downtime and greater cost.
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This first becomes an issue if you have to recover from a crash and don’t have the“keys” (like serial numbers) that come with all software packages which enableyou to unlock the software for installation … but this takes us back to the start because a good backup and imaging plan and procedure can trump even this giantmistake.
4.
Invalid software.
A good sized customer retained us and we immediately found that the previous IT supplier had actually placed pirated software on the server. Not only was thecompany now facing major costs to acquire the legitimate software … it could havefound itself liable thousands of dollars in penalties. Yes: penalties, and potentially verylarge penalties.
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TheBusiness Software Allianceis the voice of the world’s commercial softwareindustry and its hardware partners” and actively pursues users of pirated software.
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Consider if you will that a disgruntled employee who found out this informationcould have turned the employer in for a violation someone else perpetrated. Youdon’t need a new IT consultant to check this out. Verify your own software now!Finally, and this one simply amazes me, but it is not fiction.
5.
Lax Network Permissions.
Without permissions configured correctly it makes it easyfor unauthorized personnel to have access to e-mail and other sensitive data that theyshould not have.
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Hard as it may seem to believe, we find “network administrator” passwords posted willy-nilly around servers … taped to the wall, on a sticky note, or evenneatly typed right next to the server.
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That’s great for the business owner to have ready access to this information, butthose things ought to be kept on a wallet card or a file drawer where the owner or  person in charge knows where to find them; not just lying around for anyone’s possible misappropriation.2
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