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Most modern companies rely on computers to at least some extent, particularly if there is some sort of delegation of services involved. Whether it’s an office filled with computers and server units, or simply a retailer with point-of-sale equipment, the companies of today need computers and data in order to function as intended. To protect this data, you need a method to preserve it--which is where data backup comes into play.
The holidays are approaching, whether we are ready for them or not. With the holidays comes time off, which means that it’s awfully easy to fall behind post-vacation. Another concern is the amount of identity theft and credit card fraud that comes about during this time of year. We’ll discuss some of the many ways that your organization can take advantage of technology this holiday season without putting yourself in harm’s way.
Do you fall into the broad term of “professional services?” If so, you might be interested in hearing how managed IT can help you improve operations and take advantage of other various benefits that they provide for organizations like yours. Let’s take a look at some of the many solutions that MSPs can offer for your business. You’ll be surprised by how much more work you can get done during the workday!
Security Must Be a Priority
Data security is absolutely critical for your business, whether it’s a small business or a large enterprise. Financial information, personally identifiable information, and other credentials could be stolen by hackers at any moment. Sensitive information fetches a great price on the black market, which means that it’s priority number one for your organization. The more valuable information is to a hacker, the more danger it’s in.
Managed service providers can help your business protect itself from cyber threats to your business, be it a firewall to keep threats out, or a monitoring solution that helps you keep security in check in real time. Managed service providers take preventative measures to keep threats from evolving into a major problem. Any threats found can be resolved before a major data breach becomes a reality.
Basically, it comes down to running your business instead of worrying about security. After all, that’s why you’re in business in the first place, right?
Ensuring the Continuity of Your Business
While you can protect your business from deliberate attempts on its continued existence, what can you do about accidents and disasters that happen seemingly out of nowhere? Floods, fires, and storms are undiscriminating and will take down your business whether you want them to or not. In the wake of such a destructive event, will your data be able to survive so that your business can continue operations as intended?
Infradapt can help your business ensure that this doesn’t happen by equipping your organization with quality data backup and disaster recovery solutions. This helps to ensure that your organization can survive dangerous events such as hardware failures, natural disasters, and even user error. We can equip your business with the tools necessary to take multiple backups a day as often as every fifteen minutes. These backups are then stored in a secure off-site location for later restoration, allowing you to stay in the game following a critical failure of your systems and infrastructure.
Reporting Keeps You Updated
Understanding your current business operations is also incredibly important for the continued success of your organization. Infradapt can equip your business with reporting tools that can help you capture key metrics and other important details. Our reporting solutions can help you track your business’s progress and keep it moving forward.
Keep Up On Compliance
Your organization might need to adhere to certain regulations and compliances that are implemented to protect the personal information of your employees and clients. The requirements can vary, so it’s best to reach out to a professional IT company like Infradapt to ensure that you get compliance right. This means that you can focus on running your business as it was meant to be without worrying about compliance.
To learn more about the various services that a managed service provider can offer for your organization, reach out to us at 800.394.2301.
You and your employees no longer have to be stuck in the traditional office setting as you accomplish your daily tasks and responsibilities. Now, you can accomplish the same things from very different locations, including the airport as you wait for your flight to board, the coffee shop as you sip on your beverage, the office of your valued client, or the hotel that’s hosting a networking event. No longer does a worker need to be tied to a desk in order to work, and in order to survive, your business would do well to adopt these changes as well.
In today’s blog, we’ll go over a couple of the ways that mobility can give your business a boost, and how to make sure that these boosts aren’t exposing your business to threats.
Mobile Devices
With powerful solutions able to fit in a briefcase--or even your pocket--your productivity is no longer trapped within your workplace’s four walls. Mobile devices can now allow your employees to work wherever and whenever is necessary, also providing a productivity boost that can put your team ahead of the game. Not to mention the fact that a mobile device permits each team member to work the way that suits them best, empowering your staff to work as they work best. This near-constant access to business assets can provide a powerful way for your business to ensure deadlines are met and productivity is through the roof.
Cloud Data Storage
You can access your mobile applications while out of the office on a smartphone, so there’s no reason you can’t use the cloud to access data that you’ve stored online. By effectively using cloud-based storage, you can stay connected to your business’ network even while out of the office. You can host more than just data in the cloud, though. If you can think it, you can use the cloud to host it. Servers, desktop infrastructures, data storage, and even applications--all can be used in conjunction with the cloud.
Security
Mobility comes at a price, though. Security is a major concern for any users of mobile devices to access sensitive data. While your in-house network is secure behind all sorts of security solutions, a public Wi-Fi connection could potentially expose your unsecured data to hackers while it’s moving to and from your devices. The best way to ensure that this doesn’t happen is to use a Virtual Private Network. With a VPN, your data is encrypted while it’s in transit, ensuring that sensitive information is protected against dangerous entities. Furthermore, a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy will help your employees remain compliant with your organization’s mobile device standards. You should be able to blacklist and whitelist apps, section off data on a per-user basis, or remotely wipe devices to ensure data doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.
Infradapt can help your business implement mobile solutions to keep your business both productive and safe. To learn more about VPNs or BYOD, call us at 800.394.2301.
Do you know what a botnet is and how it works? It’s basically a network of infected computers that can be used to perform Distributed Denial of Service attacks, overloading target networks and forcing them to endure downtime. They can also be used to distribute malware and other threats. What’s worse than this, you ask? Hackers can purchase botnets on the black market to use against their targets, but a new type of botnet strain is changing the way this works.
Outsourced IT is still a relatively new concept, but outsourced services in general have been around for quite some time. Business owners and even individual users have been taking advantage of outsourced services for quite some time, and the fact that they can take advantage of managed IT services via outsourcing companies makes managing their technology much easier.
Let’s take a trip back to 1980s, where technology titans Eastman Kodak and IBM formed a contract to build a large data center specifically for Kodak’s needs. IBM was to design, build, and implement a large data center that fit Kodak’s specifications. What this showed to the world was that a large company outsourced a large project to a third party. Kodak even fostered collaboration between its own internal staff by transferring them directly to IBM. Other large organizations looked at this collaboration and thought to themselves, “Well, Eastman Kodak is doing it. Why can’t we?”
The major shift in mindset regarding IT services is that, where it was once preferable to have an in-house IT department, it is becoming more lucrative to outsource these services due to the introduction of managed service providers. IBM is one of the companies that became the earliest managed service provider for its time, introducing an all-new method of technology management that companies had never dreamed of.
Businesses started to think about which services could be outsourced. For example, application service providers called ASPs began to provide business software to organizations in need of it. For example, payroll software and timesheet keeping solutions, as well as productivity suites, are all examples of software that can be provided as a service. Some of these solutions are provided as a downloaded application, while others are accessed through the Internet. Either way, the end result is that the business acquires a solution at a flat monthly rate that they wouldn’t be able to get otherwise.
Ultimately, organizations learned from the rise of ASPs and began to offer many different kinds of solutions using the same business model. These are the managed IT services that we know and love today. Since break-fix IT was an unreliable and inconvenient way of maintaining technology solutions, small businesses sought a better way to handle their mission-critical IT. Companies can even save money in the process since they aren’t paying for salaried employees to perform the work of IT professionals. Plus, since they aren’t paying their employees to do IT work themselves, the work is more likely to be completed properly the first time.
Ultimately, managed IT presents an opportunity for a single point of contact for any and all technology needs of your business. Whether it’s cloud computing or network security, we’ve got you covered. To learn more about what we can do for your business, reach out to Infradapt at 800.394.2301.
Ransomware has grown in popularity since it first made itself known, but it wasn’t until just last year where it became a powerful presence in the cyber world. Ransomware encrypts the files of its victims and demands payment for the decryption key. In just one year, ransomware stole approximately $1 billion from its victims. Most notable, though, is that these victims were not just from large enterprises, but small companies, too.
The reasoning for this is that small and medium-sized businesses often feel like they aren’t a big enough target to get hit by ransomware. Unfortunately, all organizations that rely on data--especially sensitive personal information--will always find themselves at risk of hacking attacks, regardless of size. All that this impression does for your organization is put it at greater risk, as thinking that you’re immune means that you won’t take necessary precautions.
The way that ransomware works is by encrypting, or locking down, the data found on your device. Ransomware uses a time-sensitive threat in order to convince the user that they need to hand over the cash before their data will be deleted. If the victim pays up, they may (or may not) get a decryption key for the retrieval of their data. There’s no guarantee, though.
Ransomware for large corporations is designed to get as much money out of the victim as possible. Small businesses, on the other hand, may pay a smaller and more manageable ransom than a large business would. Compared to the costs of the fallout of such an attack, a small business may not have any other choice but to hand over the money.
Yet, this can be a problem in its own right, as there is no guarantee that you’ll get your data back. You shouldn’t expect hackers to keep their word--especially when they have just made a considerable amount of money from your organization. The fact remains that you shouldn’t rely on the goodwill of someone who actively threatens your business’s future. Plus, the more money you give to hackers, the more money you’re providing for the purpose of hacking others. You don’t want that on your conscience.
Think of it like this: selling a collector’s item for an exorbitant amount on eBay is only worth it if you can guarantee that someone is willing to pay that amount. It’s better to make a small guaranteed profit off of something multiple times, which is what these smaller ransomware payments try to accomplish.
Instead, you should avoid paying the ransom in general and focus on preventing the infection in the first place. Implement off-site data backup so that you never have to pay a ransom again, restoring your systems to the point before the infection. Furthermore, you should implement security solutions that can identify security issues before they become major problems (like ransomware infections). It also helps to teach your employees how to identify potential instances of ransomware, including the spam messages that it spreads in. Give your team someone to reach out to if they encounter an issue.
Infradapt can be that point of contact for your organization. To learn more about how you can protect your business from ransomware, reach out to us at 800.394.2301.
Have you had to make substantial technology investments in the past year? How much money do you think you will spend this year? If you have a solid technology budget in place, you'll know how much you expect to spend, but what happens if critical systems fail? Are you prepared to cover the cost of new technology, the management of that technology, and the staff that you'll need to do so? If you are even a little unsure about it, managed IT services could have plenty of value for your business.