Services

This summer, with support and guidance from our partners at Cisco, coworkers from CDW came together for a friendly Meraki hackathon. Over the course of two days, each of the four teams worked on designing and implementing applications based on Cisco Meraki wireless technology.

As with any hackathon, part of the challenge was quickly brainstorming ideas, communication among team members (especially while meeting virtually), and working with people you may not have interacted with before. Despite these challenges, all four teams were able to overcome and adapt, resulting in the production of interesting and potentially viable projects that would enhance our services to benefit our customers the most.

It’s hard to talk about Microsoft 365 and not mention the elephant in the room: Microsoft Teams. As remote work and the “new normal” continue to drive business decisions and the way we work, Microsoft Teams continues to be at the center of these collaboration conversations.

With all the attention on Teams, it’s easy to forget about the rest of Microsoft’s massive suite of tools that also contribute to making work life — and in some cases personal life — a little bit easier. To help you start, I’ve put together a list of four of the most effective Microsoft 365 tools I use on a daily or weekly basis that help me keep a handle on my day. There are many tools in the product suite that can help here, and even some new ones (Microsoft Lists).

Unlike any other disease in recent times, COVID-19 has changed the way hospitals and other healthcare organizations use technology. Healthcare organizations are, of course, accustomed to handling patients with serious and highly contagious illnesses, but the nature of this pandemic has forced clinicians to adopt many of the same social distancing measures as professionals in other organizations. Mobile technology is helping these clinicians do their jobs as they follow social distancing guidelines.

While mobile devices and applications have made significant inroads in healthcare in recent years, clinical mobility is now more important than ever. Here are six ways that healthcare organizations are relying on clinical mobility to help them navigate the coronavirus crisis.

Recently, I had the opportunity to help a CDW client in the legal industry assess the current state of its cybersecurity program. The firm had a good grasp on cybersecurity issues and, in fact, had many effective cybersecurity controls in place. I’d definitely consider the firm far along the cybersecurity maturity model.

Like many organizations with mature cybersecurity programs, the firm wanted to get an outside assessment of its controls to uncover any gaps its security personnel might have overlooked internally. We spent a few days conducting a penetration test to provide the firm with an attacker’s view of its network.

CDW is excited to be able to offer a RingCentral-focused Managed Collaboration Anywhere service as part of our extensive services catalog. Customers can select from any of our basic, essential or premium tiers as well as including add-on options such as help desk support or managing the network that the RingCentral services utilize.

Earlier this year, I broke into the network of a large teaching hospital located in a major U.S. city. It wasn’t difficult, and I did so without using any sophisticated technical skills. My weapon of choice? A dress shirt and a pair of khakis.

Dressed like your typical IT professional, I walked the hallways of the hospital carrying a laptop, looking for a target. I found a maintenance technician repairing a section of the floor and approached him, saying, “Hi there, I’m Mike from IT, and I’m trying to fix the network. I left my badge downstairs, and I really don’t want to walk back there. Is there any chance you could let me into this network closet?”

“Sure, buddy, no problem,” he replied. He stood up, walked over to the door and swiped his ID card, letting me into the network closet. Once I was in, I quickly attached a small device to the network switch that opened a reverse connection, giving my entire team remote access to the hospital’s internal network. Now, let me explain myself. I’m not a criminal — I’m a penetration tester with CDW’s Amplified Security services team, and organizations around the country hire me to perform tests just like this one. I work to help business and technology leaders understand the risks facing their organizations and develop strategies to better secure their networks, systems and people from attack.