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Blockchain is an immutable and distributed ledger-stores and records the transactional details across many nodes in a network form so that the data is not modified. In other words, a chain of blocks that contain information or data is called a blockchain.

Blockchain was introduced to timestamp digital documents and prevent the changing of records. The blockchain network is not under the control of a single authority so, it is more secured and bounded using cryptographical ideologies.

Being a distributed ledger, the data stored in it is visible to anyone and at any time. So, the building blocks of the chain are transparent and liable for their activities.

Do you know how blockchain technology is different from bitcoins?

Bitcoin is the cryptocurrency, blockchain technology that found many uses beyond bitcoin. Bitcoin is implemented using blockchain technology, but blockchains in contexts refer to the combination of several technologies, including its data structure, public key encryption, ledgers, and consent mechanisms.

Importance of Blockchain 

Due to COVID-19, the field of Blockchain technology is developing very fast in the IT sector. The demand for blockchain developers increased as one-third of the organization requires blockchain technology to be introduced in their businesses. This technology is too secure while doing online transactions that have made all the industries adopt this. Blockchain provides benefits to companies with new opportunities through greater transparency, advanced-security, and easier trackability.

A blockchain network technology can help in tracking orders, transactions, profiles, and production.

Top 5 ways how Blockchain technology benefits businesses

Global supply chains, industries like healthcare, financial services, commercial sites, and much more are exploring the advantages of blockchain technology to dislocate and transform traditional business methodology.

1. Better Transparency 

With the use of blockchain technology, transaction-records are becoming more transparent.  Organizations have tried to impose more rules and procedures to enhance transparency. But due to centralization, a system cannot be fully transparent.

2. High-level Security

Blockchain utilizes high-level security compared to other record-keeping systems due to its digital signature and end-to-end encryption. This technology is to be highly secure, appropriate, with tamper-proof recording. Transactions are more secure than other record-keeping systems and to be agreed upon before recorded. After approval of each transaction, it is encrypted and has a proper link to the previous transaction using a hashing method.

3. Lower investments

At present, businesses require to invest a lot of money to improve and upgrade their previous running systems. With blockchain technology, they can have lower investments or reduce costs with great new opportunities and higher efficiency. They can also cut costs with the third-party vendors within less time and interaction while validating a transaction.

4. Improved Traceability

Companies can now trace the products and can focus on the workings of both vendors and suppliers. Earlier it was hard to trace items that usually lead to multiple problems like theft, forgery, and loss of goods, but with blockchain technology, the supply chain becomes more transparent than ever.

Moreover, it helps improve security and prevent fraud in exchange-related businesses. It can also help in verifying the validity of the traded assets.

5. Increased speed and efficiency

With the decentralized feature, blockchains can benefit the organization by providing increased efficiency and speed. It removes the unnecessary processes in many fields like payments and solves the time-consuming process and, systematizes them to maximize efficiency. There's no scope of man-made errors with the help of automation.

Every recorded data in a decentralized ledger makes it easy for everyone to trust each other. In short, blockchain technology develops its unique way of data storage to provide a highly efficient process with transparency, trust, and immutability.

Where Is Blockchain Being Used?

With a broad area of applications and uses, blockchain technology has been implemented in the following domains:

• Finance- Blockchain technology in the finance industry worked well due to improvements in the speed of transactions, easy accessibility, and enhanced security.
• Government- Blockchain technology helps to keep track of voting records.
• Healthcare- Blockchain technology in the healthcare industry manages a large number of patients’ confidential information or data.

  vTech Solution, Inc. provides enhanced security to the healthcare industry for the confidential data records of patients.

• Education- Nowadays, blockchain solutions have simplified the processes- document verification and universities to maintain records of students.

The COVID-19 pandemic indulged students in the digital processes of attending the lectures online.

vTech Solution, Inc. has helped several education organizations withstand the pandemic by providing the education package.

Applications that are changing the world 

Do you think blockchain technology has changed your life or can give you better opportunities to work in the future? Blockchain technology serves a variety of different applications and integrated mobile applications in the following ways:

1. Integrating a Payment Service Provider

To have access to a mobile app, you can select a payment service provider for integrating the network. A service can be added to the network using a few lines of code. Cryptocurrency is Bitcoin that can later be converted or transferred to a bank account.

2. Safer financial transactions

Once blockchain technology is integrated further into current financial systems, count on most of your financial transactions being safer and secure. Blockchain protects other manipulators from spying on your data and simultaneously prevents the potentials of duplicitous tampering.

3. Improved file storage

Beyond financial transactions, there is a lot more in which many companies are experimenting with different potential uses for these mutually accessible, digital records, including file storage.

Conclusion

COVID-19 pandemic has increased the use of this technology and in the future can set up to operate in many ways, using a different methodology to secure a consensus on transactions, visible only by authorized users. As an example, Bitcoin is the most well-known proof that shows how huge Blockchain Technology has developed.

We have helped our clients in the construction industry to transform business operations using the tools in the Office 365 platform.

On a construction site, you’d hardly find any employees working on their desks. They would be seen mobile on the sites. Be it a supervisor or a foreman, each employee requires accurate information from the office. To make quick decisions, they need the ability to refer to files and data associated with their projects.

vTech Solution, Inc. is committed to helping our clients with their digital transformation journey. The construction industry needs to buckle up in implementing advanced technologies. It could help in enhancing productivity and operational efficiency through collaboration, business process automation, and project management.

Empower your employees with optimized operations and minimal inefficiency. Ready for Office 365?

As companies hire younger staff, they would expect advanced digital tools and capabilities.

How Office 365 tools can transform construction operations:

1. Allow accessibility of critical information from anywhere –

In the presence of a well-thought approach, on-site and remote employees can easily access information from a phone or a laptop/tablet. All project-related data such as CAD files, design specifications, contract details, and construction schedules can be viewed via Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, or OneDrive installed on your phone or laptop.

Also, when it becomes tedious to track the latest versions of documents and track the progress of on-site and remote operations, online access to files on OneDrive and SharePoint becomes handy!

Avail of all the documents and get your job done!

2. Optimize business processes with automation –

To curb the burning issue of job delays, technology can transform operations and save time by optimizing business processes via automation. A shift from manual processes usually involving paperwork to effective digital document management in a secured environment can up the game of the construction operations!

It is not just limited to project operations; even other departments can reap the fruits. HR can automate employee expenses, reviews, leave tracking. The legal department can secure documentation for faster claims response. Automation from Microsoft Flow Workflows and PowerApps forms are available to the desktop, laptops, or mobile phones.

In order to reduce manual processes and errors, checks can be automated on the data such as timesheets. Automating checks help reduce time and labor to manage and also identify inaccuracies. Even the monitoring of the worksite can be automated. Workflows can be set up to notify management about on-site issues.

3. Streamline internal communications

During the age of remote work, it is critical to have a proper flow of communication to share important information and strengthen your company culture by bringing the team together virtually. Especially when you have a younger workforce, this type of communication is a must.

Through SharePoint intranet, it is easy to access and share information and documents, irrespective of the location of the employee.

And, guess what? As all Office 356 applications sync, if an employee is editing a document on any of the applications, the edits are made in real-time, and colleagues can collaborate via chat within the document directly. With Microsoft Teams, you can –

• With SharePoint, you can access files, meeting notes, dashboards, and progress reports
• Search chat activities to verify shared information
• Watch video channels via Stream for safety training

4. Facilitate efficient and secure collaboration –

Microsoft Teams and Project enable effective project management and collaboration. These tools help your internal team to work in synergy in a secured environment. The Office 365 tools also allow to effectively resource projects, manage timelines, and track progress.

5. Empower better, data-driven decisions –

A reporting tool, Power BI, helps to build dashboards that reflect the KPIs and then improve operations. Dashboards can present gross revenue, profit, and present financials in real-time.

This tool has helped construction companies to configure and retrieve valuable data insights which the management team can use to make business decisions.

6. Save time –

In a construction company, you can see a lot of paper-based documentation is produced. With Office 365 tools, you can create a well-organized document repository, employees are able to access the documents based on their categories, related to the project, supply chain, vendors, etc. With defined search capabilities, a lot of time is saved in looking for documents.

vTech has successfully implemented the Microsoft 365 tools for several construction companies. And let’s talk if you’d like to have a quick chat to see how we can help you as well!

7. Organize training for employees –

The dashboard enables the managers to easily train on-site and remote employees on one application interface where they can access every information required for the job. The interface can be customized to suit your business needs. Microsoft Office 365 provides several resources to help support the transition.

Office 365 enables construction employees to train employees who usually make efforts to learn new technology. Office 365 is also accessed online, enhancing the productivity of mobile employees.

With Microsoft Stream, you can review recorded meetings, reference videos, and channels. You can also share safety training videos.

Is your team ready to adopt Office 365?

Yes, vTech Solution, Inc can customize Office 365 according to your business needs and the construction industry’s demands for easy-to-use and mobile technology. Gauging the right time for your firm to take the first step can be difficult. Our experts can tell you more about the Office 365 implementation.

Today, technology is associated with every sector of the economy. The finance sector is no different. From financial transactions to customer experience, technology has taken up a big chunk in the financial services sector. It is necessary for companies, especially in the finance sector, to invest in new technologies for fraud prevention in banking.

vTech Solution, Inc. helps you to avail top industry tech to identify and protect your organization from a potential threat. Want to know more?

When COVID-19 wrecked down the world economy, new opportunities surfaced for many businesses. It also applies to hackers. The dollar amount of attempted fraudulent transactions rose 35% in April 2020 — in the midst of the global pandemic — according to the Fidelity National Information Services Inc., a banking fraud detection company.

Shift to online platforms has been speeding up the digitalization of business and commerce worldwide. People who were earlier skeptical about e-commerce and preferred to stay away from it are now feeling safer to conduct digital transactions. It has caused a lot of inexperienced users to be a victim of fraud. It is becoming difficult for companies to deal with the increasing rate of digital fraud in banking.

Therefore, companies in the financial payments services sector should invest in AI as their ultimate weapon.

Read more about the benefits of AI.

The question arises as to why AI is perfect for fighting digital frauds in banking. AI provides the scale and speed needed to take on challenges such as reducing false positives, preventing fraud attempts, and reducing manual reviews of potential payment fraud events.

Here are some of the reasons why AI is perfect for fighting technology frauds in banks: -

1. Payments fraud-based attacks and AI:- 
   The payments fraud-based attacks are complex and change their unique structure, pattern, or sequence, which makes them undetectable. Well, this is not the case today! AI and machine learning make it easy to detect fraud accurately. The model can be trained to detect more than one fraud within more than one type of transaction or application. As the technology frauds in banks increases and evolve, AI is needed to confront these challenges.
   
2. AI brings scale and speed to the fight against fraud:- AI provides digital businesses with the advantage in battling the various risks and forms of fraud. AI also helps in payment fraud detection along with bank fraud prevention and detection. Due to the higher efficiency and speed of information processing, machine learning (a subset of AI) algorithms can find sophisticated fraud traits that humans cannot detect.
   
3. AI’s various predictive analytics and machine learning techniques: - These techniques are perfect for finding anomalies among large-scale data sets in seconds.  A cool feature of machine learning is that the more data it has to train on, the more accurate its predictive value. It is especially true in the case of payments fraud detection, where AI learns what legitimate and fraudulent transactions look like from a contextual intelligence perspective.

In conclusion, the selection of the right technology for bank fraud detection and prevention is “the first step.” AI is still scratching the surface when it comes to the financial services sector. AI incorporates several algorithms, such as supervised learning, unsupervised learning, knowledge graphic, etc. These different algorithms help in differentiating multiple fraud detection.

to learn how vTech Solution, Inc., supports you with your tech-related worries in 2021.

Also, check out 5 benefits of Fraud Detection and Prevention Solutions for your Finance Organization.

Ransomware attacks surge 40% globally in Q3 (Source)

What do you imagine when you hear the word “ransom”?

Probably, a threat-note from a criminal, like you see in the movies, right?

However, ransomware attacks are sometimes not what they seem. They are in the disguise of legitimate files, making headway to your personal computer or mobile device.

Ransomware and cyber attacks are recently making headlines with massive attacks that genuinely impacted several organizations and government agencies across the country. Around 18,000 organizations were having malicious codes in their networks, and 50 of them suffered major breaches. (source)

At vTech, we provide end-to-end solutions for all your technology needs. Our experience for more than a decade has enabled us to develop best practices and workflow procedures that are designed to relieve you from all your IT worries and focus on your business.

For more details,

What are the five important facts about ransomware?

1. Your systems can be easily infected, but not detected.

Hackers are experts in manipulating the detection programs of the organizations. They can easily infect and control targets by using by sending small payloads with little to no command.

Let’s make it simpler.

Victims either receive an email or a malicious link, which is sent to create a backdoor on their systems through susceptible software.

Cybercriminals easily target businesses or organizations with a ransom demand in exchange for the user being able to recover their data. And once the ransom is paid, you are on their hotlist. They know you’ll pay again, and the risk of them being identified is significantly lower as compared to crimes like credit card theft.

Cryptocurrencies make ransomware untraceable. Even the tech experts have fallen into the trap of ransomware attacks.

2. Question for you: Has your anti-virus software solution got you covered?

For hackers, it is just a piece of cake to evade detection from even the most advanced and know anti-virus solutions. Basically, ransomware targets stored files in your document folders.

So, even if you have an anti-virus solution, there are chances that the ransomware might sneak past the software. As the solution looks for known signatures and blocks them, but what about the ones that are in disguise?

Even your anti-virus has updates to detect the ransomware, there are fewer chances of recovering the files. However, anti-virus solutions are efficient in preventing known attacks, so they are a must for your agency’s overall security plan.

3. Backup your files as a last resort.

Now when organizations take backups of their files, they tend to not take it seriously and feel it is an add-on task, thereby, taking shortcuts, but only storing important files or not testing whether the backup files are working. Worse, backups are taken on network drives by some organizations, which can be easily encrypted by ransomware.

In absence of a proper backup strategy, the recovery process becomes tedious with multiple data types, files, and endpoints to recover. Then the companies feel it’s easier to pay the ransom and get data for immediate file recovery.

4. Adopt a well-rounded protection approach

Use multilayer protection before your data gets infected. You can prevent ransomware at various stages of infection with different protection mechanisms located at different places of your system. You can prevent known attacks with the help of anti-bots, anti-virus, anti-spam, and anti-phishing solutions.

Have protection on the endpoint. If you miss an attack on the network, you can prevent it while it reaches the object of the attack. This is the best way to prevent cyberattacks at all levels. Fill in the gaps of your security system by adding a protection layer on every defense.

While it’s a great approach, anti-ransomware comes to the rescue for unknown threats.

5. Yes, there are anti-ransomware solutions!

Any anti-ransomware solution should have the following characteristics:

• Ability to detect suspicious behavior
• Prevent attacks
• Recovery approach

Some other features that an anti-ransomware solution must have are impact modes. For example, it may be great to secure your system but cause your PC to run slowly. Now, every anti-ransomware tool might not give 100% results, as they too will protect against particular types of ransomware attacks.

However, a great anti-ransomware tool will protect your system against all types of ransomware attacks. It should monitor the encryption process and remediate the encryption based on a local copy.