cybersecurity Archives

Why Your IT Guy Is Drowning (and How We Can Save Him)

Your IT Team Is Struggling, And It’s Not Their Fault Picture this: your IT team is swamped with support tickets, fighting fires all day, and barely keeping the lights on. Every time they think they have a moment to breathe, another emergency pops up. Sound familiar? Many businesses rely on a small (or solo) IT team to handle everything. Network issues, security threats, software updates, user support, and, oh yeah, those surprise “we need this fixed ASAP” requests. But here’s the hard truth: expecting one person (or even a small team) to juggle it all isn’t just unfair, it’s unsustainable. The Reality of an Overloaded IT Team Your IT team isn’t just busy. They’re drowning. And it’s not because they’re bad at their job. It’s because the job keeps getting bigger. Security threats are evolving faster than ever. Cyberattacks, ransomware, phishing scams—keeping up requires constant monitoring, tools, and expertise. Your ...

Kristy Mossoian2025-02-07T17:24:10+00:00

How Managed Services Saves Time and Money

IT leaders face constant pressure to keep things running smoothly while cutting costs and staying ahead of cybersecurity threats. For industries like manufacturing and finance, where IT resources are often stretched thin, the stakes couldn't be higher. Managed IT services step in as a game-changer, offering expert support to tackle these challenges. while saving both time and money. Freeing Up Your Team for What Matters Let’s face it—internal IT teams are often overwhelmed. Partnering with a managed service provider takes some of that weight off their shoulders. Take, for example, a mid-sized manufacturing company that handed off their network monitoring and maintenance to an MSP. That freed up their in-house IT team to focus on implementing a new ERP system, which streamlined inventory management and improved overall operations. By reallocating their team’s energy, they hit deadlines and improved their production workflow. Or consider a finance firm drowning in outdated infrastructure. ...

Kristy Mossoian2025-01-09T16:20:16+00:00

How to Protect Your Business Without a Dedicated IT Team

Cybersecurity threats are real, the stakes are high, and businesses without a dedicated IT team are often the most vulnerable. Why Cybersecurity Is Essential Cyberattacks are on the rise, targeting businesses of all sizes. From phishing scams to ransomware, the risks are everywhere. The reality is, no business is too small or too niche to be a target. Without robust cybersecurity measures in place, you could face: Data breaches that compromise sensitive customer and employee information. Downtime from attacks that lock your systems, costing you productivity and revenue. Reputation damage that takes years to repair, if ever. The Challenge: No Dedicated IT Team For businesses without a dedicated IT professional, cybersecurity often falls through the cracks. Monitoring threats, updating systems, and ensuring compliance require expertise and time—both of which are scarce for small teams juggling multiple roles. This lack of focus can leave your organization exposed to cyber threats. The ...

Kristy Mossoian2025-01-08T22:06:51+00:00

Ignoring Cybersecurity? Here’s What It Could Cost You!

Cybersecurity may seem like something only large corporations need to worry about, but the truth is, cyber incidents can wreak financial havoc on small to medium-sized businesses too. In fact, the average cost of a data breach for businesses in this size range can hit anywhere from $120,000 to well over $1 million. That’s no small change! So, how exactly do these costs add up? Let’s break it down: The True Financial Impact of Cyber Incidents When a cyber attack strikes, the damage is not just limited to stolen data—it’s your entire business that pays the price. Here's where the financial bleeding happens: Ransom Payments: Pay Up or Lose Out Imagine the panic when your data is locked up, held hostage by hackers demanding a ransom. It’s a tough spot. You either pay the ransom with fingers crossed or risk losing access forever. And here’s the kicker: even if you ...

Kristy Mossoian2024-10-01T16:09:02+00:00

Why You Need a Proactive Cybersecurity Strategy

Considering the significant financial and reputational risks involved, businesses must adopt a protective approach to safeguard their business. Here are key components to consider: 1. Risk Assessment Start by evaluating your organization's vulnerabilities and the potential impact of a cyber incident. Identify crucial assets, assess your current security measures, and understand the specific threats you face. 2. Employee Training Your employees are often your first line of defense against cyber threats. Regular training can help them recognize phishing attempts, social engineering tactics, and other common attacks. A well-informed team is less likely to fall victim to these threats. 3. Incident Response Plan Develop a comprehensive incident response plan that outlines steps to take during a breach. This should include communication strategies, roles and responsibilities, and recovery processes to minimize damage and restore operations quickly. 4. Invest in Technology Implement robust cybersecurity tools like firewalls, antivirus software, and intrusion detection systems. ...

Kristy Mossoian2024-10-01T13:45:40+00:00

Top 5 Infrastructure Trends for 2019

We’ve bid 2018 farewell and welcomed 2019 with open arms. So what's next? What’s going to happen in 2019 from an infrastructure perspective? The answer for 2019 is similar to that of recent years. Cloud and security are still the top priorities. Let’s take a quick look at what may impact your infrastructure focus. 1. Exchange Migration Migrations from Exchange on-premises to Exchange online and upgrades from older versions of Exchange to the latest version are both projects going strong in 2019. We continue to support our clients who are going through these Exchange migration and upgrade processes and predict that Exchange migrations, upgrades, and support will continue to be a trend with our clients. 2. Multi-Factor Authentication To add additional security, Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) provides one or more additional forms of authentication for users when they log into company resources. Traditionally, users would log into their computers or other ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:29+00:00

What is spear phishing and how can my company avoid it?

The average person receives 16 malicious emails per month. A 2018 study of 500,000,000 emails found one out of every 101 emails received were malicious. Are your employees properly educated about this? Or will they click a link that could cost the company millions? Most of the time, the greatest risk to your company’s internet security are the people who work for it (including you). One click on a malicious email—even one that looks like it comes from a friend—could seriously damage your company. New employees are the most at risk for being duped. [1] What is Spear Phishing? Spear phishing is an attack in which hackers trick targeted users into sharing confidential information. It can also involve tricking the recipient into installing malware on their computer or network. Here is how it works: 1. You receive an email with an attachment from what looks like it originated from a ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:31+00:00

Azure Information Protection

How do you ensure your organization's confidential documents are accessible by approved eyes only? Fear not. Azure Active Information Protection can be your trusted friend to ensure that the sensitive data is well protected when appropriate groups or policies are set up and implemented. Specifically, Azure Information Protection, which is data loss prevention (DLP) for documents can be utilized to secure your confidential data. This blog provides a high-level overview of the DLP solution for Microsoft Azure. There are some different ways to start leveraging the platform and protecting your sensitive documents. Labels Place appropriate labels on your documents - you can have these labels applied by the users as they're editing documents Using client application and plugins into the office applications to apply labels when editing documents Customize your labels to control access to the documents by department or personnel. Create visual marking on the documents, such as header, ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:33+00:00

Azure Active Directory Identity Management

Microsoft Office 365 is widely used in many organizations. If you are an administrator for your Office 365, you are likely to be familiar with the Admin Center to look at user accounts and monitor activities. But do you know all the account activities were pulled in from Azure Active Directory in the cloud and are only displayed in the admin center? If you've got Dynamics, Exchange, SharePoint, or any of the Microsoft software that is in the Cloud, it's going to be using Azure Active Directory as its Identity Manager in the back end. There are a couple different approaches to manage identity in Azure Active Directory. Identity Sharing- As an admin, you may be familiar with creating Active Directory trust to different organizations, so you can authenticate across organizations or different servers across organizations. However, you don't have that ability with Azure Active Directory. In Azure AD, it's called ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:34+00:00

Multi-Factor Authentication Conditional Access Configuration

Multi-Factor Authentication Conditional Access and Policies Configuration Multi-factor authentication (MFA) creates an extra step to verify user identity who wants to gain access to your server or database. MFA provides greater security with that layered authentication approach. When hosting MFA on-premises, you can lock down the server or cloud applications that are tied in with Microsoft ADFS (Active Directory Federation Services) in the environment that you have deployed. In this blog, we will be discussing a couple of different ways to manage the cloud version MFA, including setting up conditional access for your MFA. MFA Management Console Go to your Groups and select MFA authentication You should see a list of your users with an indication if they have already enabled MFA Enable MFA for your administrators or selected users By enabling MFA, your users or admins will be prompted to set up their second form of authentication device when ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:34+00:00

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