To understand and peel back the layers of the IT security onion, we must start with education. The more you know, the more you can protect your network and business.
Understanding the Password Vault
Let’s look inside the “Password Vault.” Like the vault we envision in a bank, the password vault protects the goods. The difference is that you can’t physically walk into a password vault on foot, but you can digitally access it. While there aren’t loads of cash and gold bars like in the movies, the data stored in a password vault is worth a lot.
The Cost of a Data Breach
A data breach can cost your business a pretty penny. The U.S. has the highest data breach cost for the 12th year. It’s not something to brag about, especially with numbers like 5.09 million more than the global average, according to the report, “Cost of a data breach 2022:A million-dollar race to detect and respond,” commissioned by IBM. That is terrifying.
Why Use a Password Vault
Do we have your attention? The software program of your choice that creates your password vault will store and protect all the passwords your employees use while encrypting the data. There is one single master password to then access multiple passwords, which means no one else knows that password, not even the company hosting you.
The Danger of Weak Passwords
We’ve all been taught not to use the same passwords across various websites or create something too simple like 12345, but people continue to do so. The reasoning may be the ease of remembering one password across multiple platforms, but that’s what’s helpful about password vaults. Weak passwords, or those not well thought out, allow hackers to enter your system.
The Benefits of Using a Password Vault
Password vaults, (which some call password managers), are the best method of protecting your passwords. There is no method that is 100% foolproof. That’s different from what you want to hear, but using a password vault paired with added security steps significantly decreases your risk of a data breach.
Look out for our next article, naming some added security steps, coming your way soon.
The evolution of technology has changed the face of business management. Establishing a business and the process of making it into a revenue-generating machine is no brewing tea. Thankfully technology today has morphed the major chunk of business operations for optimal and smooth high-end performance. A minor lag in your network’s functionality can put your organizations security, connectivity, and employee’s ability to work at risk.
It is no longer a question of feasibility for organizations to keep their IT infrastructure up to date technologically, it is imperative if you expect your company to stay ahead of your competitors. Otherwise, your company may find your business lags far behind your competition.
Network Management services share the bulk of your load by extending 24*7 support for secure, high-speed, and efficient networking.
You no longer require a huge in-house staff to keep your IT operating at peak performance. This is what Managed IT services can do or your business. Managed IT services can provide the necessary assistance you need to keep your key IT technologies – development, networks, servers, security, and quality assurance working at peak performance. Best of all, it saves you the cost and trouble of having a dedicated IT employee in-house.
When not tended to professionally, network issues can clock-block not just the client base but also hamper the pace of integral internal business operations.
Managed Network services provide you with the assistance you need for your critical IT technologies – development, networks, servers, security, quality assurance, and so on — without the cost and trouble of doing so in-house.
#1. Eliminate the High Cost of Maintaining an in-house Network Management team
Managed IT services are inarguably more cost-effective than having your own IT department. Simply add up the total expenses of employing an IT specialist, which include recruiting, salary, taxes, employee benefits, office space, equipment, insurance, overtime compensation, training, and retention.
Isn’t that an unnecessary substantial expense for your business when you can get the expertise from us?
Managed It service providers like us, known in the industry as MSPs, will provide you with rapid access to a pool of skilled experts with relevant experience allowing your employees to focus on your customers and give them the expertise they require for and their projects.
You get more than simply expertise; you get a cohesive team that is employed by the MSP. So, you get two benefits in one, increased productivity for your team and streamlinedoperations.
Yay! You Win-Your Clients Win-Your MSPs win!
Everyone Wins!
#2. Quick to Adapt to Innovations
The most expensive investments in the IT business are innovative technology and developments.
In-house teams must continually keep up with new technological breakthroughs, diverting significant resources away from growing your company.
In-house teams must continually keep up with new technological breakthroughs. This can divert important resources away from other areas that can help you grow your company.
If you cannot adapt to recent technology, you will find your rivals getting ahead while your business lags behind theirs. In-house IT staff may find it difficult to adapt but that is exactly what an MSP does; provide businesses access to cutting-edge technology right from the start.
Recent technology breakthroughs may be deployed into your environment very quickly due to lightning-fast adaptation combined with access to greater resources, a solid working strategy, and expertise learned from previous projects.
#3. Scalable Resources at Your Service
Maintaining the company’s growth requires scalability.
Maintaining a company’s growth requires scalability. In today’s fast-paced business world, your organization must be able to scale up or down resources as needed. While it might be difficult to respond rapidly to scalability demands in-house, managed IT services can offer the necessary assistance to manage rapid expansion. Whether you require an in-house team expansion or a (fully remote) committed staff to achieve your objectives, Sandra Network can help.
Furthermore, bringing on an IT service partner to supplement your normal team is a terrific way to leverage or reallocate personnel. Your team can now engage in strategic goals, such as establishing desired objectives as your company develops and evolves.
Sandra Networks has been providing Managed Network Services to their valued clientele. Their innovative IT services monitor your business network so they can act fast and fix it before you begin worrying.
Sandra Network Delivers Peace of Mind with Dark Web Monitoring
What is Dark Web?
The Dark Web is the part of the internet that is not visible to search engines. It requires users to use a special browser called Tor. This browser allows users to browse anonymously creating an environment where it’s easy for the unsavoury to lurk but also unsafe for those who aren’t aware of its dangers.
A lot of information found on the Dark Web is hidden and although some of it is safe, much of it is not. If you don’t understand the Dark Web or how it works you may not be aware of how harmful it can be to you and your business. Precautions must be taken to protect your confidential information from being found on the Dark Web.
How is Dark Web different from the Web?
The Web is a vast network of interconnected computers all around the world. Through the Web, people can share information and communicate with other people across the globe using the internet. Information on the web is indexed by search engines making it easily accessible to anyone with an internet connection irrespective of geography. On the other hand, Information on the Dark Web is not indexed and stays hidden requiring special privileges to see and access. This part of the web, the Dark Web is the unchartered part of the web that’s existed since March of 2000.
The Dark Web is a hotbed of dark things!
As you can imagine, many cybercriminals love to prowl this space, looking for easy prey.
How can this parallel space exist? It exists because online content can be encrypted and hidden online. Because the information is hidden, it never gets indexed and therefore does not appear on search engine result pages like Google or Bing. And cyber criminals love the Dark Web because they can be anonymous while using it!
You do not want your business or employees associated with this unsafe environment. If they are, there is the potential for your company’s (or client’s) information to find its way into any of the many “darknets.” Once it is found on the Dark Web, there is no telling how much damage you, your employees, or your clients may experience. Fortunately, we can find if your information is on the dark web, and work with you to remediate it.
On the dark web, anything and everything can be found. This includes illegal drugs, bank account and Social Security numbers, passwords and all sorts of your PII: sensitive and confidential information. Hackers are out there trolling for any vulnerabilities they can find and are constantly collecting this data off unsecured websites and using the information for their own financial and illegal gains.
Cybercriminals go there because they know breached data eventually finds its way to the Dark Web. It comes from compromised credentials, third party leaks or ransomware dump listings. Once this breached data is discovered, it becomes an invaluable source of revenue. All kinds of illegal activity and discussions happen here including threat intelligence to pre-plan attacks and look for other vulnerabilities and ways to exploit information.
Sandra Network will work with you and your organization to give you unparalleled visibility into dark web risks within your organization. We will help you become aware of threats to your organization and enable your team to take actions on these threats before they become incidents.
What are the risks?
Those who dive into the Dark Web will find a veritable eCommerce market for things that are not available via regular methods. For instance, you can’t buy a database filled with usable credit card or debit card numbers on Amazon; you can’t head to Etsy and purchase thousands or even millions of user’s credentials for bank accounts; you can’t point your browser to Walmart.com and click to add a list of valid social security numbers into your shopping cart. Unfortunately, you can buy these things on the Dark Web. And because you can buy this type of information on the Dark Web, including your sensitive information, precautions must be taken. We can help train your employees on how to securely navigate websites to mitigate the following types of threats found on the Dark Web such as:
Malicious software
Cyberattacks
Ransomware
Phishing malware
Trolling
You need to ensure your employees’ credentials are not on the dark web, exposing your company data.
End-user protection against exploitation in the dark web
Regardless of being a business, parent, or any other user of the web, you will want to take precautions to keep your information and private life off the dark web.
Identity theft monitoring is critical if you want to keep your confidential information from being misused. All types of personal data can be distributed online for a profit. Passwords, physical addresses, bank account numbers, and social security numbers circulate on the dark web all the time.
The dark web is home not only to hackers looking to steal our info but also to criminals who sell-off this illegally obtained data that includes sensitive personal records. Ensure your employees do not fall victim to phishing schemes where passwords, credit card numbers, social security numbers, etc. are acquired and sold. Malicious actors will use this type of information to engage in financial theft, breach your online accounts and even to harm your credit. Plus, leaks of personal data may damage your business’s reputation once discovered or be used for “social” fraud.
Antimalware and antivirus protections are equally crucial to prevent malicious actors from exploiting you. The dark web is filled with information theft from malware-infected users. Attackers can use tools like keyloggers to gather your data, and they can infiltrate your system on any part of the web.
Secure your business with Sandra Network. We uncover your compromised credentials in Dark Web markets, data dumps, and other sources. We can quickly alert you to trouble, allowing you to mitigate the problem and giving you the advantage to act before cybercriminals have a chance to act.
Contact Us today for a free, one time, Dark Web scan to see if your organization has exposed information.
Why use a managed service provider? In today’s rapidly evolving technology landscape, it’s imperative for businesses of all sizes to have reliable and efficient IT support. That’s where Managed Service Providers (MSPs) come in.
A Managed Service Provider is a valuable partner for your business, offering a wide range of IT services that keep your systems running smoothly and help you stay ahead of the competition. But why exactly should you use a Managed Service Provider?
In this blog, we’ll explore 7 compelling reasons why having a Managed Service Provider is a must-have for your business success.
1. Get the Expertise You Need
New technology means new challenges — challenges you may currently have or ones you may soon run into. Managing your systems can be an issue regardless of whether they are in the cloud or on-premise. Either way, they require a significant number of resources to support them. This poses a problem when you don’t have the right expertise even if your business has an in-house IT department.
You could solve some of your issues by recruiting new team members, but you will need to decide if it’s worth the time and expense to hire and train them. It costs over $1,886 per employee for training alone. Plus, it can be difficult to get qualified candidates due to an ongoing IT talent shortage.
Or you could hire an MSP. An MSP’s core business is keeping its customers’ technology running as smoothly and efficiently as possible. MSP’s will be able to solve your problems more quickly having hired the best IT professionals to do just that. Most MSP’s offer flat monthly fees allowing you to fit this expense into your budget. Plus, due to economies of scale, an MSP can offer you the most competitive pricing on both hardware and software.
One of the key advantages of the managed services model is that it enables you to hire an entire team of IT professionals at a flat monthly rate. Certain Managed Service Providers (MSPs) even take a shared approach to managed services, meaning you can add or remove specialists from your managed services team as needed depending on the demands of each project. These specialists include technical, functional, architectural, and training consultants who can help you keep your systems up and running, as well as unlock their full potential.
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2. Reduce Operational Costs
Maintaining infrastructure and networks in-house can result in huge cost overheads, especially if you are running a small or medium-sized business with limited resources. Essentially, you are spending money acquiring tools. You may not even need some of these tools to manage your cloud infrastructure.
Working with an MSP you will only pay for what you use. They will already have the tools necessary to set up your infrastructure in the cloud and the workforce to maintain it. Why not lower your IT expenses, reduce operational costs, and conserve your capital budget?
Managing information technology via an outsourced provider can reduce operating expenses by 80% through improved network and productivity, predictable budgeting, and local support.
According to the CompTIA study:
3. Business Continuity
As a business owner, do you ponder how you would go about restoring all your systems and data in the event of a disaster? If not, you should. Do you know what you will need to get your business back up and running if a disaster becomes a reality?
Does your enterprise have your IT infrastructure on-premises? If it is, a disaster or a critical server failure will likely adversely affect your day-to-day business operations. You also run the risk of losing data that is vital to your business processes and overall growth.
If, however, your data is stored in the cloud, even the most catastrophic situation can be just another day at the office. You will experience minimal to zero downtime! This is a huge advantage considering that an hour of downtime costs a small business about $8000 and a large business approximately$700,000.
Even in the event of a host failure, you have stand-by cloud servers to fall back on, and because everything is up on a virtual platform, hardware failure risks are almost eliminated. This is one of the biggest reasons our clients have switched to managed services in the cloud. An MSP is invaluable in helping you create an efficient disaster recovery plan. Let Sandra Network help you plan one and we guarantee you’ll sleep better at night knowing that your business has planned for and will survive a disaster should one strike.
7 Reasons Why You Need a Managed Service Provider
4. You need the Best Security
We won’t mince words: cyber-attacks are a guarantee and are now a very plausible scenario. This is one scenario you never want your business to experience. Cybersecurity issues are becoming a day-to-day struggle for many businesses. According to Accenture, 68% of business leaders feel the risks of a cybersecurity attack has increased significantly. Cyber-attacks now target 43% of small businesses, according toSymantec.
An MSP provides up-to-date security methods. These include network monitoring, software, and backup plans for cybersecurity scenarios. Your risk of being attacked by cyber criminals, or with malware and phishing attempts will be greatly reduced when you place your systems in the hands of an MSP. Firewall deployment, VPN Tunnelling and Monitoring are all services that are easily managed and kept up to date by a managed services provider.
5. Focus on Core Objectives
Your company’s IT needs are sure to increase as your business grows. An in-house IT team may be able to handle this increased workload but there is also a good chance your team will find themselves overwhelmed and unable to scale according to your business needs.
If you don’t have an MSP, you’ll be forced to assign additional responsibilities to employees from other teams who may not have the technical knowledge necessary to do the job while at the same time, distracting them from their work.
One benefit of managed services is that it frees up your employees to focus on their jobs while also enabling you to fill in gaps only when necessary. A truly qualified managed service partner will offer a flexible service model allowing you to determine which level of service you require, from requesting support only when needed up to having a monthly contract.
6. Enhance User Productivity
Are you tired of having IT problems constantly interrupting your employee’s workflow? Are your customers getting frustrated due to IT issues they are experiencing when dealing with your business?
Anytime your employees are unable to work, you lose money. As a business owner, you want your employees to be productive.
It’s a problem if your technology isn’t optimized well for your business needs. The right technology will improve your employee’s productivity and enhance the way your company does business.
7. Peace of Mind
With a reliable MSP like Sandra Network, you can rest easy knowing that your IT needs are in the hands of skilled IT professionals.
Nearly every business needs IT, but not every company has the resources to invest in recruiting and training an entire IT department. MSPs are designed to provide skilled IT professionals to act as your external IT department.
If you’re considering outsourcing all or some of your IT needs for your small or mid-sized business, let Sandra Network provide Peace of Mind for your business. Call (978) 535-0202 or schedule a call. We have some of the most talented IT professionals in the business ready to take care of your IT needs.
Where would we be today without technology? While the pandemic has kept us apart, cloud computing, the Internet of Things (IoT) and other types of tech have made it possible for us to stay connected with colleagues and customers, facilitated medical treatment from a distance and so much more.
Information TECHNOLOGY drives innovation and innovation is the path to business success. Innovation in business has the same impact that steam had on the industrial revolution. Subsequently, it’s no surprise that many organizations plan to invest more in IT this year despite the economic downturn caused by COVID-19. According to a press release by Gartner,
IT spending worldwide in 2021 is expected to reach $3.9 trillion. This is a 6.2% increase compared to 2020.
This increase is likely due to the continuing need to accommodate remote workers, enable virtual learning and the advancement of additional digital transformation initiatives. In a recent technology survey of 1000 companies in North America & Europe,
44% of businesses planned to increase their IT spending budget in 2020. In North America, the most common factors for this increase as reported by respondents was their need to upgrade outdated infrastructure (71%) and increased security concerns (50%) – Spiceworks
Many small and medium size businesses operate on a strict budget and do not have the luxury or resources necessary to meet all these operational IT demands. Servers and the staff to maintain them is expensive. A managed service provider maintains and manages all needs of your IT infrastructure for only a fraction of the cost of servicing and maintaining it. If you do choose an in-house IT employee they may not have the resources necessary and the outcome is often a compromise to the quality of support or a disaster resulting in downtime, security issues, limited support, and reduced productivity. Outsourcing these activities to a reputable Managed Service Provider (MSP) helps business owners avoid these and other IT related issues, some they may never even have considered.
With IT spending among small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) predicted to enjoy a significant increase, the role of managed service providers (MSPs) is becoming increasingly important as these businesses seek to adopt managed services. The answer to the question Why your business needs Managed Service Provider?, can come in the form of an explanation of work that is done by a MSP.
A managed service provider is simply your network administrator, security consultant and disaster recovery expert, all rolled into one. They are there to manage your IT infrastructure and user interface within your systems. Your savings can then be used on better revenue producing activities. Your business also benefits as you can now focus on your core competencies and business goals while your MSP manages your IT infrastructure.
Services offered by Managed Service Provider
Most MSPs offer a wide variety of IT services in multiple configurations. They work with your company to plan, implement and manage various IT functionalities such as User and Workstation Management, Web Servers, Email, Server Monitoring and more.
If you choose to work with Sandra Network, we will review every corner of your company’s current IT infrastructure. Once reviewed, we will put together a working plan of action to ensure you are always up to date, secure, and supported. Our goal is to make sure your technology infrastructure is running smoothly and efficiently in order to support your business goals. Our proposal will include the specific IT components we recommend and the steps necessary to set them up. Once our proposal is accepted, we will on-board your company, implement the steps and begin managing your IT services giving you the full support of an IT Helpdesk without the costs of a full-time IT department.
