Security

Mother of All Breaches: Unprecedented Data Breach Alert

Data breaches are becoming alarmingly common. The recent "Mother of All Breaches" highlights the critical need for robust data breach protection. Over 26 billion records from platforms like X, LinkedIn, and Dropbox were compromised, exposing the vulnerabilities in our digital security frameworks. This breach serves as a wake-up call for both individuals and organizations. Understanding the Breach This massive data leak affected millions worldwide. It underscores the urgent need for effective cybersecurity measures. Personal information, sensitive data, and confidential communications were exposed, putting countless users at risk of identity theft, fraud, and severe privacy violations. As a result, the importance of data breach protection has never been clearer. Immediate Steps to Take If you suspect your data was compromised, take immediate steps to protect yourself: Change your passwords now. Ensure they are strong and unique. Enable two-factor authentication on all accounts. Monitor your accounts closely for any unusual activity. These ...

2024-08-30T14:05:12+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

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 your ...

2024-09-10T14:17:45+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

Ransomware Attack at MSU: Keep your company safe

While we're all focused on working through COVID in the real world, hackers are working their nefarious scams in the virtual world. Their latest target is close to home – Michigan State University. A ransomware attack infected MSU yesterday stealing student data, files, and financial information. Red Level has solutions to protect your clients, data, and reputation, but there are also several simple things you can do to stay safe: Apply patches and updates. Ensure that systems are up to date and that all software updates are installed. Double-check email addresses. Watch for unfamiliar names and domains, as well as ‘spoofed’ accounts pretending to be trusted contacts. Think before clicking. Don’t click or download suspicious or unexpected attachments, or visit unfamiliar links. Use proactive protection. Install and use the latest antivirus and anti-malware software available. Keep regular backups. Maintain a regular offsite backup schedule and implement a disaster recovery plan. Modernize ...

2023-02-16T16:01:22+00:00

New Years Resolutions for Smart Business Leaders

https://youtu.be/UaSD-VIGNAY Everyone is busy getting ready for the holidays. It's crazy to think 2020 is just around the corner. And while a lot of people are talking about their same old New Year's Resolutions – lose weight, exercise more and save money – smart business owners should be thinking about their new year – and new decade tech resolutions. Is 2020 going to be a year of growth and success for your company? It can be if you make these three simple tech resolutions. Lose weight. It's time to trim down all that old on-prem hardware in your server room. Make a resolution to move to the cloud. Red Level is helping companies do more for less with cloud solutions from Azure and AWS. Investing in business-grade hardware is a major capital expense. Growing companies are staying up-to-date and preserving capital with pay-as-you-go services. Red Level can help you ...

2023-02-16T16:01:24+00:00

Use Exchange Online Protection to Protect Your Business Against Online Threats

Exchange Online Protection (EOP) is a service that is hosted by Microsoft as email security for your organization it's always on filtering spam, in addition to removing malware and viruses, so you don't have to. What is Exchange Online Protection Service?  Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is a cloud-based email filtering service that helps protect your business against online threats, including spam and malware. How can it be used? Exchange Online: Built-in to Office 365 email subscription Standalone Scenario: Protection for your existing on-premises email server Hybrid deployment: Protection for both on-premises and cloud mailboxes EOP provides several convenient services, and there is no software to install. It is built-in and ready to go for Office 365 subscribers. For Exchange Hybrid and Standalone environments, all that is needed is to point your MX records (records that allow the internet to know how to reach you by email) to exchange online protection ...

2023-02-16T16:01:25+00:00

Identity Challenges for Today’s Organizations

As we move into a cloud-first world, identity protection is becoming more necessary and prevalent. A cloud-first world has a lot of benefits, but it also comes with its challenges. Identity Challenges for Today’s Organizations The explosion of apps on-premise and BYOD and external users outside your corporate network are coming in, and those could be customers, vendors, partners, contractors, whoever is needing access to collaborate share data. The result of that there’s been an increase in identity attacks, and for most organizations, they lack the visibility and control. Increases in identity attacks and lack of visibility and control is leaving organizations vulnerable. Some organizations have protocols in place to watch out for suspicious activity. However, organizations may not have the time to go and proactively review every log.  The lack of visibility and control has been a big struggle we have seen for businesses of all sizes. Evolving data ...

2023-02-16T16:01:25+00:00

Protect Against Spoofing

Office 365 Exchange Online is a robust email platform, but it’s still vulnerable to cyber-attacks. One such attack is spoofing. Spoofing is when somebody with malicious intent sends an email to trick you into thinking that the email is coming from someone you know within your organization or someone you receive emails from regularly. For example, I received one last week from someone that appeared to be from Amazon for Business the email was telling me to reset my password to click to verify and asking me to put in my credentials. It looked very similar to an Amazon email. It had the Amazon logo, and the form was professionally done. However, I do not have an Amazon for Business account, so I knew it was a spoofing attempt. Here are a couple of examples of what you might see when someone has sent you a spoofed message: The display ...

2023-02-16T16:01:26+00:00