Common Cybersecurity Attacks & How to Recognize Them
Wednesday, January 26th at 11:00AM
Learn how to identify common cyber-attacks and what you can do to help fight back against them.
Welcome New Clients!
3 Great IT Resolutions For The New Year
As the new year kicks off, many business owners and entrepreneurs are making their New Year’s resolutions. Most of these business owners will be focused on increasing profits or expanding growth, but it would be wise to focus on some IT- or tech-related resolutions as well. Making sure that you are up-to-date on the most recent tech and security measures can go a long way toward growing and protecting your business.
While many companies make goals or resolutions that they hope to achieve in the new year, plenty of businesses fail to meet these goals because they do not take the steps necessary to achieve them. It often takes time and determination to make these resolutions a reality, and business owners should not quit when the situations become stale or difficult.
Here are our three best IT and tech resolutions for business owners to make for the new year, and how to make sure you achieve them.
Employee Security Training And Creating A Security Safe Culture
If your employees have not had any security awareness training, you should make it your focus to ensure that everyone is informed about potential information security breaches. Research suggests that human error is involved in over 90% of security breaches. By providing security awareness training to your employees, you will teach them how to avoid mistakes that could leave the business at risk. Not only will this help your employees be more aware of security, but it will make your customers feel more comfortable and confident when working with your company.
There are other benefits to holding security awareness training for your team, and one of the best is that you will be taking your first steps in creating a culture based around tech security. You will be introducing your team to the importance of information security, which they will effectively use to fortify your defenses. When new employees are brought in, set aside some time for them to have security awareness training so they are enveloped in the culture from day one. By putting together a plan where every employee is introduced to information security awareness, your company will be less at risk for breaches and threats made possible by human error.
Utilize A Managed Services Provider
The MSP industry has seen immense growth over the
past five years. The market was valued at over $152
billion in 2017 and is expected to rise to $257 billion by
the end of 2022. MSPs allow for predictable monthly
costs and better security practices, but they truly have a plethora of benefits.
If your computer breaks or shuts down, MSPs have the ability to not only fix it but also go above and beyond the usual tech support. Some MSPs will work with your business to understand your goals and find better ways to achieve them. MSPs are also raising their tech game. Yes, they can help with problems related to e-mail, web and file searching, but they are also available for more advanced needs, like cloud infrastructure management. If you’re still working with a basic IT service, look into using an MSP instead. They will help with your usual tech problems while also providing you with the resources needed to achieve your goals.
Back Up Your Data
Data is an essential part of any business, and it’s imperative that every business owner makes an effort to back up their data. If important files are damaged or deleted or a disaster causes your business to lose important data, data backups can prevent business interruptions. It becomes even more important when dealing with clients’ information.
Imagine that you’re a customer who has been making transactions with a business for years. They may have your address, phone number, e-mail address and sometimes even your Social Security number, but one day, you call and they no longer have your information on file. You probably wouldn’t feel too secure giving this company that information again if they already lost it the first time. This is how your clients will feel if they have to provide their information again after data loss that could have been prevented by backing up your data.
As you plan out your goals and resolutions to incorporate in 2022, don’t forget to include IT and tech goals as well. Not only will they save you money in the long run, but they will also grant you peace of mind. Make a plan, overcome any obstacles and don’t lose hope if it looks like you need more than a year to accomplish your goals.
Reimagining Your Business
The pandemic has changed the way that many small businesses operate. They have had to pivot and adapt in order to survive in a time of immense change. Many have had to implement new strategies, while some have even had to adopt a new environment. The change has not been easy for anyone.
When the pandemic first hit, many small-business owners were faced with two choices. They could wait it out and hope that everything would return to normal before long, or they could create a better future at that moment and attempt to continue to grow. Sometimes changing your marketing isn’t enough and you need to bring your business into a new light.
I have a friend named Jacob Limmer who owns Cottonwood Coffee, and he found a way to pivot his business and succeed during the pandemic. As the owner of a coffee shop business, Jacob knew that people would not be busting down his door at the beginning of the pandemic. Jacob owned two storefronts and an online store, so he knew that he would need to make some changes to survive.
He sent out a survey to his mailing list that asked what Cottonwood Coffee could offer to best support its patrons during this unprecedented time. The results came back, and it was astounding how many people requested something for “immunity.” Jacob took this idea and ran with it by creating the Immune Booster Cold Brew. This allowed his customers to still get their coffee, but with an added bonus of a healthy supplement.
Even though Jacob had to close one of his storefronts, he is seeing success because he found a way to reimagine his business. He didn’t wait around for things to get better. He took a risk that paid off and allowed him to stay in business.
If your business has faced difficulty and you’re wondering if you should pivot and make a change to stay afloat, remember that you did not get this far only to get this far. You want to continue to grow and expand your business to its full potential. In order to get there, you may have to make some necessary changes.
Mike Michalowicz has always believed that he had the formula to success and has proved it on multiple occasions. He is the creator of Profit First, which is used by hundreds of thousands of companies across the globe to drive profit. He is the author of multiple books, including Get Different and The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. Mike is a former small business columnist for The Wall Street Journal and served as a business makeover specialist for MSNBC. Mike currently leads two new multimillion-dollar ventures as he puts his latest research to the test. He also is a highly sought-after keynote speaker on innovative entrepreneurial topics.
Not all backups are created equal. However, most decision makers tend to focus on whether a backup is needed (almost certainly it is) as opposed to finding a type of backup solution that fits the data and business needs. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, there are plenty of solutions that can suit a variety of cases.
In this blog, we'll review some general types of data backups so that as you continue to change the way you work with data, you can be comfortable that your data is protected from loss. We’ll also discuss some other considerations about each of these types of backups.
Get the Article Here:
You are your own best advocate when it comes to protecting personal information
Your personal information is an asset and a commodity. Marketers use this information to target you for advertisements and special product offerings. Other people may use your information for studies or statistics. But at the end of the day, usually it’s what they are getting out of your information that they care about, rather than you.
Your information is a product.
That’s not necessarily the worst thing, but you should understand how organizations look at your information so you can be informed and make good decisions.
While Data Privacy laws and compliance standards demand that companies do the right thing, unfortunately they still don’t always follow the rules and even if they do, sometimes they make mistakes.
At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself if you trust people with the information you share with them
