We hear a lot of companies, especially in the technology space, talk about proactivity. Yes, it’s a buzzword, but there is value to be had in the core concept of proactivity.

These days, you don’t want to be reacting to everything that could impact your technology. A purely reactive approach leads to system failure, data breaches, and challenging technology upgrades.

But what does it mean to be proactive when it comes to IT? Are there specific things that every organization should be doing? And by extension are there certain proactive measures that are more suitable for special cases? How can you tell when a technology provider is being effectively proactive instead of just giving lip service?

• Technology has broadened as services and products require expertise that can’t be mastered by one person.

• There is a good chance that even if you have technology specialists on your staff, outsourcing for certain expertise or IT Management may be necessary.

• Learn what outsourcing looks like in 2021, how much you should outsource, and if you need an internal IT department.

• If you do have an IT department, learn how they can work with outsourced providers.

• A Disaster Recovery (DR) Plan is the strategy an organization uses to recover business operations quickly in the event of a disaster.

• To successfully recover from a disaster, businesses need to identify the types of disasters that could most impact the organization, and then build a DR plan around response to those events.

• The 3 main types of disasters are: Natural Disasters, Physical Disasters & Technology-Based Disasters.

Coming up with a proper Disaster Recovery (DR) plan requires thought and creativity. Your team needs to be able to respond quickly to incidents, because the impact of any event is directly related to how decisively you act in the moment.

But how do you create a plan that is both reasonable to develop and maintain, while also dynamic enough to be effective under a variety of circumstances? One big step is to outline the types of disasters you could potentially face.

So, let’s review the different types of disasters that you should plan for to ensure your Disaster Recovery Plan is as effective as it can be.

Listen in as DP Solutions' Director of Strategic Operations Ben Schmerler talks cybersecurity basics on Defiant Enterprise's Business Security Podcast, hosted by Tom Freedman & Victoria Yassem.

Ben is able to give informative answers to the cyber questions that you NEED to know. What is phishing? How does it work? What types are there? What does this mean for you? How do you protect your business? What are signs?

Tune in now to listen!

As more and more organizations begin using cloud-based tools, mobile devices, and an anytime/anywhere approach to work, the likelihood of falling victim to an incident that impacts your technology, and as a result your business operations surges. This is where Disaster Recovery planning, policy and tools come in. In order to create a plan that will help you successfully mitigate and manage disasters, you need to justify the investments of money and energy that will go into it.

So, here are some of the key reasons why you need a Disaster Recovery Plan.

It would be an understatement to say that 2020 was a year of transformation. Many trends that were already well underway were accelerated by the pandemic and the shift to Work From Home. Sadly, cybercriminals follow the opportunities and look for the low hanging fruit when it comes to finding their next victims, and were savvy enough to quickly shift their attacks on personal vulnerabilities to this new Work From Home paradigm.

This is very significant to the average person, as most people who are victims of a cyberattack usually find themselves on the wrong end of credential theft or ransomware, and both of these types of incidents often start with Phishing and Social Engineering. So let’s go over a few areas where Phishing and Social Engineering have evolved in 2021.

Choosing a Managed IT Services Provider (MSP) to support your organization’s technology operations is a serious decision. In the managed services model, the service provider partners with a business to help strategize, support, and manage their IT operations on an ongoing and long-term basis.

Picking an MSP can be a difficult and confusing process, so in this blog you will get answers to some common questions about working with DP Solutions, and MSP’s in general.

2020 is almost over, which is probably a relief for many of you. To say it’s been a unique year is an understatement. But as we try to move forward with optimism for 2021, we have to start thinking about what might be changing and how we need to adjust our plans. So let’s go over a few emerging trends that could be meaningful to you or your colleagues in 2021 and beyond, and how they may impact your life.

Just before Thanksgiving this year, as students were entrenched in virtual learning, a major ransomware attack took down Baltimore County Public School’s (BCPS) computer systems. As a result, schools closed for several days, many devices were unusable, and like any other major IT security incident, significant costs were incurred to remediate the damage. BCPS will most likely undergo an assessment to determine exactly how the incident happened and they will have to invest significantly to harden their systems and change how they operate.

Shortly after the BCPS attack, a few miles up the road, Greater Baltimore Medical Center (GBMC) experienced its own ransomware attack, which took down many of their systems. Fortunately, patient care was still mostly maintained, aside from some postponed elective care. It appears that data and operations will be back to normal in fairly short order, but there will still be costs associated with this, and certainly nobody at GBMC wants to be associated with a ransomware incident.

As we continue to see attacks on this scale and frequency it’s important to not just shake our heads at another incident and wonder what needs to change in order to stop seeing these headlines. Instead, let’s uncover what we can learn from these incidents to minimize our own risks, both personally and in our businesses.

It is fascinating to look back over the last decade or so to see how cellular networks have evolved. As smartphones like the iPhone and Android became the norm as opposed to a luxury consumer technology good, demand for fast and stable wireless Internet connections grew exponentially. Now we expect to be able to watch a YouTube video on demand with minimal buffering time no matter where we are. When cellular carriers moved to 4G networks several years ago, this became the standard.

But the rise of 5G networks create the potential for new ways of working as well as benefits to the daily lives of many people that they probably haven’t considered yet. We often think about devices bringing us faster and more powerful technology, but the rise of 5G really represents a new option of services that could be available to us regardless of our devices. I’d like to look at a few ways that 5G networks will change the way we work and live with technology over the next several years.