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.”
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.
Like any other government agency, New England police departments are forced to face the reality of reduced budgets. As a result, many have decided to make cuts to their IT departments by reducing staff and purchases so they don’t have to decrease expenditures to line items, such as police officers and traditional police equipment.
According to the Business Continuity Institute’s 2017 Horizon Scan Report, cyber attacks and data breaches are the top two threats facing businesses. As these threats continue to evolve, becoming increasingly more complicated and sophisticated, organizations must proactively manage their IT services in order to protect their business, clients, and data. We’ve written about three innovative technologies that can help protect you against the ever-evolving threat of cyber crime.
When people receive poor customer service, they may choose to no longer do business with that company. In fact, research indicates that more than 67 percent of people switch to another business as a result of poor customer service. Indeed, the pressure is on these departments to get things right.
There are many resources that lend themselves to the success of a small business. There are the people who do the things, computers and networking infrastructure, creative marketing initiatives, and a strong sales team. However, all of these resources rely on certain tools to get their jobs done. Those tools are the IT applications that they use day in and day out. While certain industries may rely on specific solutions, there are some that every small-business IT department needs to have in place in order to stay competitive these days.
When it comes to small-business IT, more companies are moving parts of their IT infrastructure or even the whole thing to the cloud. Maximizing uptime, mobility on virtually any device, and the cost advantages are some of the more popular reasons to do so. Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) are the leading choices for cloud services, but businesses have a lot to consider when it comes to choosing the right one for their needs. This brief overview of each provider gives some insights that are important for small businesses to understand when making that decision.
