Managed IT Services Blog

A recent Dell EMC study showed that participants saw 58 percent of their IT infrastructure transformation as having reached a higher level of maturation, which points to a glaring problem in terms of the remaining 42 percent. Consequently, businesses are increasingly finding that an evolving digital landscape requires an IT infrastructure that is adaptable, flexible, and agile.

According to the recently released 2016 H2 Global Threat Intelligence Trends report from global network cybersecurity vendor Check Point, ransomware attacks almost doubled in the second half of 2016 alone, with thousands of new ransomware variants. Clearly, the rapid and constant evolution of ransomware requires that businesses and enterprises move away from asking, “How does ransomware work today?” to “How will ransomware work tomorrow?”

Just about everyone wishes they could get more done during their time spent at work. Of course, not many people willingly want to extend their workday to tackle the never-ending to-do list. So if working late or working on the weekends aren’t acceptable alternatives, then your only other option is to find ways to be more productive during the work day. Some people have spent thousands of dollars on productivity seminars and intricate systems to help them achieve more; however, not every business has that luxury. For those who need to make do without spending a lot of money, some relatively inexpensive and easy productivity hacks can help your Boston Business and your employees get more done.

In many ways, businesses have moved beyond the “either/or” debate of Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) as evidenced by Microsoft’s fiscal Q3 2017 earnings report, which shows Azure revenue growth of 93 percent year over year. For an increasing number of businesses today, Azure plays an equal or even greater role in the cloud strategy of organizations that are also using AWS.

Last year, government agencies and businesses in the United States suffered losses from 1,093 reported data breaches. That number is likely higher due to the fact that these attacks are rarely spotted for months after the initial attack takes place. As Eva Casey Velasquez, chief executive officer of the Identity Theft Resource Center puts it, “this [number] is the best-case scenario.”

When you add up the total amount of money paid in extortion and lost productivity, ransomware costs organizations an estimated $75 billion a year. Seemingly no one is safe from these types of attacks. Hospitals, universities, large corporations, government agencies, and small- to medium-sized businesses have all been targeted by criminals looking to extort  money quickly and easily. Yet while most people are aware of ransomware, not many quite know how these attacks work, which makes it difficult for them to protect their organizations against this type of cyberthreat.

For New England businesses, the confluence of process, innovation, technology, communication, and social mores is constantly shifting. While each area changes on an individual level, interconnections always exist between them, which further influences broader changes on a macro level. Understanding those interactions in ways that inspire and enable you to improve your business and your business dealings is at the heart of these 5 TED Talks.

It goes by names like WannaCry, Locky, and CryptoLocker, and if the computers in your workplace were infected with one of these, or the many other variants of ransomware, you would know almost immediately. It generally starts with an email that asks you to download and open an attachment or enable macros on a document. Once you comply, the malware starts running in the background and encrypting all of your files using asymmetric encryption so that you cannot open and view them without the decryption key. Of course, that key is only made available to you once you pay the hacker the ransom; details for payment are made available to you via the new background the malware has set up on your computer.

While most everyone in the digital era is aware of malware, this term covers a number of different threats, but the one attack method that is leading the pack today is ransomware. Ransomware attacks quadrupled in 2016 and will double again in 2017, according to a report issued by Beazley, a provider of data breach response insurance. It’s now the most profitable type of malware attack in history.

According to the Salesforce 2016 Connected Small Business Report, more than 80 percent of small businesses do not have an IT staff, and 72 percent of small business owners are responsible for purchasing technology for their businesses. It is the combination of these two statistics that are of concern to Boston SMBs. To develop a sound IT strategy, Boston SMBs should consider these essential questions.