Tag Archive for: Cybersecurity

The Supported Ascent: Cybersecurity and Data Management For The Growing Business

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A small business seeking growth has a lot to consider. Obtaining and managing data now can affect decades of market presence, and swift management can mean meeting goals in months instead of years, but as with any organism, a business is at its most vulnerable when it is in its earliest stages. Security breaches are only becoming more common, and it is easy for a single software vulnerability or user error to compromise entire systems. That’s why reliable IT support, secure data management, and strong IT training for staff are essentials for directing growth and protecting company data regardless of company size or structure.  

 

The Techno-Interpreter 

What are your hardware and software needs? What software packages work best for your budget and goals? What specially designed applications could increase productivity and enrich user experiences? How do you gather and apply user and market data to direct company growth? Where are your vulnerabilities within your desktop ecosystem and IoT (Internet of Things) devices? How do you ensure that essential company data isn’t lost? These can be daunting questions that are relatively simple ones to experienced IT personnel, and lead us into our next point: 

 

Knowing Yourself Through Client Data 

This one is no secret: In many ways, applying gathered consumer data is the only real way to keep your feet planted in a chaotic, competitive environment. But what information matters? How do you gather only the important pieces in a sea of endless data? Specialized software allows you to identify trends, demographics, and observable curves in the market and apply them to your goals. Predictive analysis is an art that, when finely honed, can make an estimated guess into a confident statement that ensures success.  

 

A Watchful Eye 

Software vulnerabilities are always a concern, but user error is almost a certainty at one point or another. While you may trust your employees, nobody is exempt from making mistakes 100% of the time. Because everything is connected, one click on a phishing e-mail or the use of a less-than-savory external application can compromise your entire infrastructure. That’s where attentive administration and software procurement is key. Augment this with IT training for staff and you significantly lower your risk of technological catastrophe.   

 

Back It Up 

So let’s say the worst case scenario happens and your data is lost. This can happen either by cyber attacks or physical destruction of on-site storage systems by something such as natural disaster. This is where data backup services such as Datto save the day. Keeping your data in the cloud allows it to flow efficiently and securely throughout your company. 

Succinctly, the companies of tomorrow are being built today, and without harnessing new standards and technologies they will likely be overshadowed by their peers who have, and also are at increasing risk of digital breaches from outdated hardware, software, and practices. At amshot, we work with businesses who are ready to grow – that means providing technology training, developing software and applications, managing IT services, and more. Questions, concerns, or big dreams for your company’s data? Schedule a free consultation by emailing consult@amshot.com or calling us at (405) 418-6282. 

Avoiding the Perils of a Bad Backup Plan

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One of the world’s largest source-code hubs, GitLab, has spent years building a business that not only caters to small and medium-sized businesses, but also marquee clients including IBM, NASA and Macy’s. In February, however, this powerhouse company almost lost its long list of clients due to a temporary, accidental data loss and a backup failure that took their services offline for several hours.

Fortunately, GitLab was able to correct the problem in a few hours, and in doing so, save many of its customer accounts. This incident could have been avoided with a robust disaster plan and a system that embraces Intelligent Business Continuity (IBC). The IBC standard – along with minimal downtime, cloud protection, redundancy for image-based backups, and minimal risk of corrupted backups or data loss  – is one of the main reasons we choose to partner with Datto when building solutions and data backup plans for our clients.

As GitLab’s experience shows, traditional backup methods, such as tape, disk or online only, are no longer sufficient for most business owners. These methods are unable to recover data quickly, have slower backup speeds, and often store files in only one location, raising the risk for potential theft as well as the consequences of losing data if those files become corrupted. An IBC solution, on the other hand, is a higher standard that ensures data protection, continuity, data security, and instant recovery, all of which help to mitigate downtime.

Here are some good questions to ask when selecting a backup solution for your data.

What risks do traditional methods present? Traditional backup systems carry a high risk of failure due to manual administration. In fact, 58% of downtime is a result of human error.

What common issues does a business face with data backup? Some of the usual backup concerns include accuracy, backup and retrieval times, encryption capability and data security.

What are the advantages of using an IBC data backup solution over traditional methods? There are many advantages to adopting a system with IBC, including a higher level of encryption and data redundancy in several locations and a fully automated backup process, meaning that very little manual management is required. This method also helps businesses avoid risk of downtime from local disasters, as backups are stored in multiple locations on both the local device and the secure cloud.

Why is it important for business owners to find the best backup system? Customer data has become one of the most important assets a business can have, regardless of size. Whether it’s customer names and addresses or confidential files, it is essential that electronic information is stored securely and backed up often.

At Amshot, we realize how vital data is to our clients’ daily operations, which is why we only select the best solutions. If you would like to learn more about our partnership with Datto or are interested in discussing the best solutions for your company’s data backup systems and disaster planning, contact us at 405-418-6282 or consult@amshot.com.

IT Security

Business Leaders’ Guide to Avoiding Hacks

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It seems these days that hacker is a job title with a bright future. Take a few extra clicks through the web and you’re bound to read either a story about hacking or the actual information that has been hacked – emails, business financials, personal info, or even your grandma’s secret fruitcake recipe.

In 2017, businesses must go on the defensive to protect their intellectual property, customer data and revenue in an online world which has more and more troublemakers squeezing through the cracks.

And let’s be clear it’s not just governments and corporate giants which are the targets. Businesses on Main Street are too. Small and medium sized businesses, often with not a lot of IT or security resources are becoming juicy targets for the hacking bad guys. According to new data from Symantec’s 2016 Internet Security Threat Report: “Last year, phishing campaigns targeted small businesses (PDF) 43 percent of the time. That’s up 9 percent over 2014 and a stark contrast to the mere 18 percent of attacks that focused on small businesses in 2011 … Symantec’s report reveals a 55 percent increase from 2014 to 2015 in the amount of spear-phishing campaigns that target employees of a business of any size.” (Source) In 2014, Russian hackers (those guys are popular) grabbed customer information from more than 400,000 business websites, getting away with more than 2 billion passwords. And they haven’t slowed down. (Source)

Here are some steps that any business can take in order to make themselves a little less vulnerable against anyone prowling around the web. Remember, the best offense is a good defense.

  1. Define the boundaries for your employees: A few bad clicks on phishing emails or strange web downloads are dangerous moves which could turn your company’s online security into swiss cheese. Educating your employees and creating acceptable use policies for what they should and shouldn’t do on the internet can make a big difference in whether a company network becomes a secret home to malware. Keeping them up with the latest threats will raise everyone’s radar.
  2.  Control the admin keys: Even a small organization can create a hierarchy for who has administrative access to the company’s server, email dashboard and enterprise software. Allowing all employees admin access can create a stew of changes, which can often be traced back to employee making something work for them on their device. “Security policies and mechanisms must be put in place for company data access from personal devices,” said P.J. Gupta, a mobile security expert and the founder and CEO of iPlum to BusinessNewsDaily.com. “Tight control on who has the privileges to run which enterprise apps from which devices helps minimize the risk of data loss or corruption.” (source)
  3.  Treat email differently: Many of the most notorious hacks of the past few years came from people sharing a lot of information in the body of unsecured and non-encrypted emails. If a business is worried about what is being sent over the email transom internally, then training can come first, but an encrypted email service might be next. Services are available which will warn an employee if they are sharing sensitive information like a credit card number or an attachment of client contact information.
  4. Double-check Who’s Logging In: If you are worried someone is going to break down your door, sometimes the best solution is to just have two locks instead of one. Adding an extra step can frustrate and dissuade a bad guy just enough to make them give up and find an easier victim. On the digital side of a business, that more and more often means the addition of Two Factor Authentication. You are seeing this on everything from your bank to your favorite social media platform. Two Factor Authentication means that a password isn’t enough to get you to your data. These extra steps can include a secret piece of knowledge – i.e., “Mother’s maiden name” – or a fingerprint, voice password or PIN.
  5. Verify unusual requests with a real person: Bad guys have begun impersonating employees e-mail addresses to request that co-workers transfer funds to external accounts. This can result in losses of tens of thousands of dollars. If a request for external payment seems unusual, verify with your co-worker via phone or face-to-face.

Those are just a few simple steps a business can take to keep their cybersecurity guard up going into 2017. For more information or assistance contact Amshot at 405-896-8152 or consult@amshot.com.

Amshot Protecting Against Hackes