Author Page

About Red Level

As a comprehensive technology services company, Red Level delivers customized scalable technology solutions designed precisely to our client's unique needs – solutions that accelerate growth, reduce costs and enable collaboration. As a preferred partner to technology leaders such as Microsoft, DellEMC, and VMWare, we deploy the most advanced business technology solutions, ensuring optimal reliability, productivity and value.

Migrating to Azure with Confidence

You’ve already envisioned the benefits: you know migrating to a cloud-based hosting platform can boost the performance of your organization’s computing infrastructure. You can see how it’ll improve efficiency, save time, and reduce costs. And you’re prepared to join the hundreds of thousands of other businesses, large and small, that have already chosen Microsoft Azure for its service quality, security, reliability, and global reach. But there’s no getting around it: migrating to the cloud entails significant organizational change. To make the best possible use of the Azure platform, you need to understand its unique attributes and keep them front of mind throughout the migration process, and beyond. Fortunately, Microsoft offers an extensive set of tools and services that can help ease and simplify migration. And as a Microsoft partner with extensive experience helping our clients shift existing applications to the Azure platform, Red Level can ensure that you’ll take advantage ...

2023-02-16T16:01:15+00:00

Legacy Authentication is ending soon. Are you prepared?

Microsoft has announced an official end of its Basic Authentication for Exchange Online in all Microsoft Office 365 Tenants beginning October 1st. What does that mean for your company’s security? What’s replacing it? How do I prepare? We’ll answer all of these questions for you and keep it non-techie. How will it affect us if we don’t update? Well, for starters, you won’t be able to log in. At all. That sounds drastic! Why end Basic Authentication? Don’t we need that? Of course, we do. But Basic Authentication is showing its age and is vulnerable to some well-known but effective attacks. Here are two of the attacks you should know about. More than 99% of password spray attacks use legacy authentication. In a spray attack, an attacker will brute-force logins from a list of usernames that still use the default passwords to log into a certain app or website. Most ...

2023-03-28T14:01:31+00:00

6 Cybersecurity Habits You Need to Break Today

What you do on autopilot can hurt you – especially online. Here are the habits you should track from month to month until cybersecurity becomes automatic. Is your computer locked?  Bad Habit 1: Leaving your computer unlocked and unattended. With the slip of a USB stick, bad actors can corrupt files or steal information. This applies at coffee shops and even the office. Anytime you leave it, lock it! Avoid unknown USB charging ports, too. They’re easy for hackers to compromise and can physically damage your device. Are you actually creating strong passwords? Bad Habit 2: Using weak passwords Short, common, old, default, and guessable passwords can have serious consequences. Consider utilizing a password manager to help you create, change out, and remember your unique logins. And don’t forget to turn on multi-factor authentication (MFA) options! Are your systems up-to-date? Bad Habit 3: Letting security updates slide Every device, app, ...

2023-10-17T14:36:28+00:00

10 Things to Look for in a Managed Services Provider

10 things to look for in a Managed Services Provider Availability Fast Service and Response Time Annual IT Budget Planning Disaster Recovery Planning Third-Party Vendor Partnerships Local On-Site Maintenance and Support Daily Backups and Cloud Services Security Testing & Monitoring Employee Support Proactive Maintenance As businesses start to grow, so do their technology needs. Growing businesses often find that they save time and money by contracting with the right Managed Services partner. Managed Services allow you to augment your existing IT staff and infrastructure by partnering with a dedicated IT firm to take care of your network, servers, computers, and all your technology needs. This is the perfect solution for companies who need to operate at peak efficiency but do not have the resources to manage a large on-site IT staff. Choosing the right partner for your Managed Services needs is important. Here are 10 Things to look for as you ...

2023-02-16T16:01:17+00:00

What is IT Change Management?

What is IT Change Management? Definition: Change management is a process for controlling the lifecycle of changes while minimizing disruption to an organization’s employees and IT services. Things do fall apart. Printers jam, Wifi goes down, laptops die, and networks lag. That’s why we hire IT consultants. Repair and maintenance come with a cost, not the cost of hiring an IT vendor, but rather the cost of downtime, work disruption, and getting employee acceptance and buy-in. When not carefully planned out, repairs and even standard upgrades can often cost more in lost productivity than the cost of repairs. Change management focuses not only on maintenance and repair but on how a company and its employees are affected when changes take place. Change is hard on people, especially when it means learning a new process or when it affects someone’s job in unexpected ways. There are multiple methods on how ...

2023-03-20T18:56:14+00:00

5 Ways to Leverage Technology to Surpass Your Competition

Looking for a leg up on your competitors? Making sure you have the right tech can set you on the fast track to success. Technology is no longer just for tech companies. Any organization can benefit from adopting technology to run operations – boosting productivity and skillfully leveraging data analytics. Here are 5 ways technology can help you gain a competitive advantage - Boost Productivity Investing in technology will provide your employees with the tools they need to complete their tasks swiftly and effectively. Use technology to improve internal communications and help employees stay organized as they manage multiple tasks at once. You can also use tech-based tools to keep projects in sync or track employee time to understand where to automate or speed up processes. You will pull ahead of the competition as your team produces higher-quality work in less time. Automate Processes Automating business processes will increase ...

2023-02-16T16:01:17+00:00

Modern Workplace Summit – Digital Transformation for Modern Workplace Evolution

At this year's Modern Workplace Summit business leaders discussed real-life scenarios where their organizations are achieving their overall business strategy and positively impacting their ability to achieve business goals when innovation and timing were crucial. Red Level invited three Michigan-based national and multi-national corporations to share their digital transformation experiences during the opening panel. Our morning panelists discussed Digital Transformation, how the pandemic changed everything from IT roadmaps to getting into the cloud as quickly as possible, and tech solutions that worked for three very different companies with unique IT challenges. VIEW THE MODERN WORKPLACE SUMMIT HERE   Real-World Case Studies of Modern Workplace Evolution: Keynote Panel Discussion During the panel discussion, several elements of Digital Transformation recurred throughout the morning: being proactive and nimble, understanding that your technologies may not mirror your customers’, security, making do with reduced IT staff, and getting internal buy-in. With Moderator David King, ...

2023-02-16T16:01:18+00:00

Cyber Security : Be Prepared and Prevent Disaster

The threat landscape is becoming more incessant, dangerous, and high stakes for businesses. The sheer quantity of attacks has been increasing at an alarming rate. The complexity and ingenuity of these attacks are frightening.   Almost all these attacks are identity-based; they start as phishing emails or password spray attacks. Once they gain access to a user account in your environment, you have officially been owned. If you are lucky, they will use the compromised account(s) to send out more phishing emails to your global address list and contacts from the owned account. This will result in a lot of embarrassment, organizational risk, potential blacklisting of your domain, and untold negative business impacts. If you are unlucky, they will encrypt your sensitive data with ransomware, exploit you for money with a socially engineered scheme, or exfiltrate sensitive data such as employee tax forms or proprietary intellectual property. This can potentially result in your company or organization ceasing to exist.  To mitigate attacks of this nature, there are several critical items you need to address:  Globally enforce multi-factor authentication  Globally block legacy authentication  Leverage device and application trust to limit your attack surface ...

2023-02-16T16:01:18+00:00

What is an IT Service Provider?

An IT Service Provider (sometimes called a Managed Service Provider, or MSP) is a proactive IT firm that anticipates the needs of its clients and delivers a wide array of technology services. The primary roles of an IT Service Provider include streamlining the day-to-day technical operations of a company and providing the cost benefits of bundled services. Services from an IT Service Provider include: Network and Cloud Security On-Demand Data Backups 24/7 IT Help Desk Support Office 365 Installation, Training, and Maintenance On-Site and Virtual Technicians Cloud Services and Storage Consultation, Strategy, and Roadmaps Disaster Recovery Services Application Development and Hosting Business Process Automation Data Analytics Digital Transformation Why do companies prefer IT Service Providers? SAVINGS. Companies save considerable amounts of money on technology, maintenance, repairs, security, and data recovery by purchasing bundled services DISASTER RECOVERY. The country has been facing more natural disasters than in past decades. Natural disasters ...

2023-02-16T16:01:18+00:00

15 ways to protect your company from Ransomware attacks

Recent ransomware attacks and security breaches are detrimental to an organization's business data, and reputation.   Ransomware attacks are not new, but the rate at which they are occurring in the United States is radically increasing. Ransomware attacks are up 365% according to TechRepublic. What are ransomware attacks? Ransomware is a type of cyberattack wherein an organization or individual threatened for money. The attacker threatens to publish the victim's personal or corporate data or permanently block access to it until a ransom is paid—usually via a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. Other recent variants include cutting off access to utilities, internet access, oil pipelines, and corporate intranets. Can you refuse to pay ransomware? The US government prefers you to refuse to pay cybercriminals. The more we see companies pay these criminals, the more they are encouraged to continue. Ransomware isn't just some guy calling you up and threatening you. The attack happens quietly ...

2023-02-16T16:01:19+00:00