Doing these 10 things before your break will give you peace of mind.
Well, it’s that time of year. Your team have worked hard all year, you have put in lots of hours. You have had your company Christmas party and now it’s time to close up shop for the year and have some holidays with friends and family.
But, before you finish up here are some things you must do to ensure your business is safe, secure and ready for a good 2025…
1. Test your backups and ensure you have offsite/offline copies
This is an absolute must. Ensuring you have several valid backups and some that are offline is the cheapest insurance you have against potential nasties.
2. Check your CCTV systems are working correctly.
Holiday periods are prime time for unscrupulous nasties to take advantage of businesses being closed.
Make sure that you log into your CCTV system and test the following:
– Check that all cameras are working.
– Ensure that the date and time are correct.
– Check that your system will retain footage for 45 days or more.
– Run a test export of camera footage from a couple of days ago. This will show you that your system is recording correctly.
3. Disable any accounts of leaving staff / contractors
When a staff member leaves there is potential for data loss, confidential information going missing and your client lists making their way into competitors hands.
After you have wished you departing staff member well and given their Christmas gift, your next action should be to disable their user accounts and change any relevant passwords.
4. Use a VPN when traveling
If you are taking a company device with you and will be using public Wi-Fi (think hotels, restaurants, airports) you must use a VPN. This helps protect you against eavesdropping and having someone try access your private information.
5. Schedule your social posts
Potential clients have a bit of down time over the holidays and may start doing some socials scrolling. You want to ensure that you are putting out timely content and not missing a chance to get your product or service in front of them. Just because you are on holidays, doesn’t mean there isn’t potential for new clients.
6. Remind your team about increased phishing and scams
Sadly, cyber criminals don’t take a break over the holidays. This is one of their favourite times of year – as the chances of an unsuspecting person falling for their phishing/scam attempts is significantly higher.
The giving season always sees an increase in emails imitating legitimate causes like Charities/NFPs (RedCross, St Vinnies, World Vision so on).
These fake emails tug at people’s heart strings for payments and charitable contributions. If you want to make donations, go directly to the charities website rather than clicking on links in emails.
7. Set up your email auto responders / auto replies and advise your team to do it too.
Having an auto responder advising your clients/contacts that you are out of the office from x date to y date helps set the expectation of when they will receive a response. A good example of an auto responder is:
Thank you for your email.
I will be out of the office from DD/MM/YYYY and will be returning on DD/MM/YYYY.
If you need immediate assistance, please email (Name) at (email address) or call (phone number).
Best Regards,
Joe Smith
8. Setup your phone systems out of hours greeting advising when your office will be closed.
For much the same reason as email auto responders, setting your phone system out of hours message sets the expectation for your customers/contacts on when they can receive a response.
9. Think Green – Power off any equipment that doesn’t need to be online.
With power prices being what they are, it is important that you power off any equipment that doesn’t need to remain online. This will help you save money and also reduce operational hours on devices. It also helps to reduce the chances of any fires/electrical hazards.
You should be looking at devices like Kitchen appliances, TVs, Check-in kiosks, printers, heaters/fans so on.
10. Advise your security company of when site will be unattended.
Most importantly, enjoy some much deserved downtime with your friends and family. From our team to yours, have a safe and happy holidays.
The team at Runtime IT have a skeleton staff working through the break, looking after our customers IT environments.
If you need technical support over the holidays, get in touch.
