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Outsource Your IT and Stop Worrying About These 3 Responsibilities

Outsource Your IT and Stop Worrying About These 3 Responsibilities
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The last time you reached out to IT support, how long did it take them to respond to your request? Did they have to drive all the way to your office, only to resolve the issue far too late? Being able to take prompt action is key to alleviating IT issues, especially when mission-critical data is on the line. A remote monitoring and maintenance solution may be just the tool you need to keep your systems maintained and operating properly, and all without expensive on-site visits.


Remote monitoring and maintenance lets your business get the technology assistance it needs as swiftly as possible. It’s usually more efficient to outsource this responsibility to a third party that can keep tabs on your business’s systems through an online cloud-connected interface. This allows technicians to resolve most problems without an on-site visit, though this is far from the only benefit that remote monitoring and management solutions provide.

Resource Allocation
Your network components and applications are constantly being accessed throughout the workday, but delegating the proper amount of resources to ensure that the tools are available can be tricky business. If you have an outsourced provider monitoring your network resources, they can adjust the workload to avoid bottlenecks and downtime, ensuring maximum functionality.

Threat Management
Similar to the above point, keeping an eye on the network and its resources can signify when a threat slips through your defenses. If a virus or malware program installs on a device, it may slow down the machine and spread to other parts of your infrastructure. Identifying where a threat is and eliminating it promptly is important to keep infections from spreading, and this same tactic can be used to detect telltale signs of hardware failures so your organization can prepare for the worst.

Patching and Security Updates
One of the best things about remote monitoring and maintenance is that the outsourced provider can remotely apply patches and updates, as well as resolve other problems that might come up. By doing this, you effectively free your business from the responsibility of performing this routine maintenance, which is an invaluable opportunity for an SMB to invest in more profitable endeavors.

Of course, the biggest benefit of remote monitoring is the fact that you’ll cut down on expensive on-site visits from your IT support. Since most problems can be resolved remotely, it’s logical that you avoid on-site visits as much as possible. After all, it’s a mutually beneficial situation; you get the help you need, and we help you save money. Of course, there are always going to be issues that need an on-site visit, but we’ll try to limit these so that you can focus on keeping your business productive.

To learn more about remote monitoring and management, reach out to us at 800.394.2301.

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Hackers Scam CEOs for $3 Billion Over the Past 3 Years

Hackers Scam CEOs for $3 Billion Over the Past 3 Years

What would you do if a significant sum of money magically disappeared from your account due to a “miscommunication” between accounting and someone pretending to be you? Wire transfers have made it extraordinarily easy for scam artists to make large transactions, which are augmented by the ability to impersonate authority figures within the office; the c-suite staff, also known as management.


This type of CEO fraud is known as a “whaling” scheme. In a sense, it’s like a phishing scheme, but on a much larger scale. When it comes to whaling, rather than faking the identity of your IT department or another employee, the hacker goes for the motherload: you, the business owner, or another member of your management staff. This plays to the employee’s willingness to comply with your requests and makes it more likely that they’ll perform unreasonable tasks, like sending “you” a large wire transfer.

Wire transfers in particular are proving to be a powerful tool for hackers to exploit. ITProPortal reports: “Individuals create bogus messages seemingly from a senior leader, for example, the CEO, which asks employees to wire funds across to them. The messages ultimately trick employees into transferring large amounts of cash electronically.” The average value of a wire transfer is $67,000, and according to the FBI, CEO fraud has cost businesses over $3 billion over the past three years alone.

One of the biggest problems with wire transfers is that they are difficult, and often impossible, to challenge. Therefore, your best chance of recovering from a whaling scheme is to avoid getting scammed in the first place, unfortunately. Due to the fact that wire transfers are too fast and finite, you’ll want to ensure that your business has practices in place to handle this influx of CEO fraud. A good place to start would be to address how your business handles unsolicited requests for payments or credentials via email, telephone, or otherwise. Here are a few tips and tricks to consider for your business.

  • Implement hands-on phishing scam training: If you want someone to learn something, it’s best to have them go through the process themselves. This type of hands-on education works well against phishing scams. Engineer a system that roots out those who have subpar reactions to phishing scams, and help them learn how to improve their ability to react to threats.
  • Always check in person before sending credentials, or anything else: Emails that request suspicious or sensitive information need to be cross-referenced, either in-person or by checking the email addresses that you have on record. Although, even this might not work at all times, as hackers can potentially spoof email addresses to make their messages appear legitimate. Basically, it’s better to just ask whoever supposedly sent the message before responding rashly to a request.
  • Educate employees on best practices: We return to the hands-on phishing scam training to emphasize the importance of best practices. Make sure that your team understands how to respond to threats, and regularly quiz them to ensure that they’re not going to inadvertently sink your business or cause data loss.

To learn more about whaling schemes or CEO fraud, reach out to us at 800.394.2301.

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Shock: One-Third of Businesses Ignore Insider Threats

Shock: One-Third of Businesses Ignore Insider Threats

Regardless of your security protocol, there will always be threats. One of the most often forgotten outlets for attacks comes from insider threats. Sometimes these threats may be from angry employees wanting to sink your business, but more often than not, those behind insider threats don’t have malicious intentions. Still, it’s best to cover your bases and ensure that your organization isn’t at risk from careless or negligent employees.


Insider threats are categorized as internal threats that are either malicious or negligent in nature, like irate employees, or those who just don’t care about security best practices. Regardless of why the insider threat is a threat, you should be aware of these enlightening statistics concerning security and insider threats.

Internal and External Threats: Reality vs Expectations
A study by Accenture and HfS Research claims that 69 percent of organizations have experienced the theft or destruction of data due to internal threats. This is compared to only 57 percent experiencing the same from external threats. These numbers are much different from their expectations, however; only 55 percent expect to become a victim of an internal threat, while 80 percent expect external threats to make trouble. The lesson: be prepared for anything, or you’ll be prepared for nothing.

Exposure of Sensitive Data to the End User
The Ponemon Institute issued a study claiming that 62 percent of users felt that they had access to data that they probably didn’t need access to. To resolve this problem, employers can implement a user-access control system that restricts access to certain information on a per-user basis. For example, your average employee has no business accessing financial records, salary information, and personally identifiable information (Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, etc.).

Reaction Time to Insider Threats
According to Ponemon, the reaction time to insider threats varied. Some organizations responded quickly, while others went months, or even years before finding out:

  • Within 24 hours: 24 percent
  • Within a week: 19 percent
  • Within a month: 14 percent
  • Within 6 months: 20 percent
  • Within a year: 9 percent
  • More than a year: 14 percent

It’s a bit surprising that organizations have taken this long to find out about insider threats, but regardless, it’s proof that something needs to be done, sooner rather than later. Organizations need to have ways to keep track of who accesses what data, and how their data is handled.

The Ability to Respond to Insider Threats
SANS Institute reports that 31.9 percent of businesses have no way of fighting against insider threats, while 68.1 percent have tools to take the fight to them. It’s surprising that the numbers are so low, but perhaps it’s because administrators simply aren’t aware of the activity themselves.

How Effective Preventative Measures Are
According to SANS Institute, only 9 percent of organizations have techniques proven to prevent insider threats from becoming an issue. 42 percent have the tools, but they aren’t used. 36.4 percent are currently implementing processes to mitigate insider threats, while 2.3 percent simply aren’t concerned by them.

Potential Vulnerabilities
Mimecast suggests that 45 percent of companies claim that they’re ill-equipped to handle malicious insider threats involving email security, which is more than any of the other kind email threat. Therefore, businesses need to keep an eye on what enters and exits the infrastructure via email.

The Types of Insider Threats
According to Gartner, there are three types of insider threats. One, called a “second streamer” (someone who uses the data from one job to obtain revenue from another job) consists of 62 percent of insider threats. 29 percent of insider threats are from the “career launcher,” or someone who took information with them as they left a company, while only 9 percent of insider threats could be classified as sabotage.

If your business doesn’t know how to take the fight to insider threats, reach out to Infradapt at 800.394.2301.

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Researchers From MIT May Have Found the Holy Grail of Network Security

Researchers From MIT May Have Found the Holy Grail of Network Security

b2ap3_thumbnail_ai_human_security_400.jpgWhen it comes to cybersecurity, maintenance is key. Whether you choose human-based security or an automated security solution, running into shortcomings is still possible. Human security tends to rely on the word of experts, and anything that doesn’t fit into the guidelines is missed and may therefore get through and wreak havoc. Network security can be a touch overzealous, in a way “crying wolf,” with an excess of false positives that ultimately require human analysis, leading to human frustration.

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Alert: 7-Zip Software Can Leave Your System Vulnerable

Alert: 7-Zip Software Can Leave Your System Vulnerable

b2ap3_thumbnail_7zip_vulnerability_400.jpgSoftware vulnerabilities can cause major issues for individuals and businesses. Cisco’s Talos Security Intelligence and Research Group, which is designed as an organization to “protect consumers from known and emerging threats,” has found such a vulnerability with 7zip.

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