Since the early days of the computer virus, cybersecurity professionals have developed new ways to address the threat landscape. However, just as the good guys find new ways to defend against these attacks, the threat actors responsible are also evolving their methods to bypass these security controls.
When you are vetting a new vendor, there are certain questions that you need answered before you do business with them. Although these questions differ based on the service or product you are purchasing, the vetting process itself is no different whether you are looking for IT services in Boston, the northeast, or anywhere else in the country. There are specific questions that you should ask to make sure that whoever you choose as a managed services provider for your business’s IT is a match for your individual needs. At a very minimum, any IT services provider should be able to answer the following questions for you.
Recently, one of our clients expressed concern because they noticed that personal information was showing on users’ profile cards in Office 365. This information included users’ home addresses and personal phone numbers, among other information.
No one should be surprised that when systems go down, businesses lose money. What might be surprising is just how much money is lost because of downtime. According to Forbes, businesses averaged a loss of $100,000 for one hour of downtime in 2017. A small business in the Boston area may not lose numbers like that, but any amount of loss could have devastating effects. For this reason alone, many small to medium-sized businesses turn to managed IT services. Managed service providers (MSPs) provide your business with a talented and experienced team of IT professionals who offer around-the-clock coverage to help prevent system outages from causing your business to lose money.
In 2017, The Economist made the statement that data had surpassed oil as the world’s most valuable resource. This statement came 11 years after mathematician Clive Humbly said, “Data is the new oil,” and echoed others who have also made comparisons to show just how important and valuable a company’s data is.
Data loss can cost a business operational downtime, lost sales, and unexpected expenses to get the data back. Many data loss incidents are the result of cyberattacks, which can expose your business to other vulnerabilities.
According to Spiceworks’ 2019 State of IT Report, 58 percent of companies that were surveyed expect to increase their IT budget from last year. An additional 27 percent expect no change in their budget, and only 7 percent expect the amount they have to spend this year to decrease.
More organizations are realizing the benefits of using cloud storage services for their data. The embrace of cloud storage for data is so dramatic that in the most recent Cisco Global Cloud Index, it was predicted that by 2021, cloud data centers will process 94 percent of all workloads.
In the past, a small or midsize business (SMB) typically relied on a small IT staff to handle all of their company’s technology needs. This team, sometimes comprised of only one person, would manage servers, install software, manage desktops, handle security, ensure peripherals were all working, and make sure that any other technology was working properly.
There was a time when it took small businesses a great deal of convincing that they needed to take network security seriously. Today, thinking about security is critical for all Boston businesses, regardless of size. The data behind this speaks for itself—Small Business Trends reports that:
When it comes to F5 BIG-IP and specifically F5 LTM products it can be easy to think of them as a mechanism for load balancing traffic and nothing more. What can be overlooked is that these devices are highly intelligent and offer a diverse range of ways with which you can optimize your traffic and further protect your network.
