What is Cybersecurity and Why Do You Need It?

 

Manufacturing firms are becoming more interconnected and the risks to the production systems, supply chain, and confidential data are rising significantly. Cybersecurity must be an important concern or for all manufacturers.

Small and medium sized firms face greater risks to being attacked by cybercriminals because they have more digital assets to choose from compared to other individual consumers. But they also have less security compared to a bigger company that has a lot of resources.

However, what kind of cyberattacks should you be on the lookout for and how can you prevent them? In nearly all cases, the objective of cyberattack is to steal and use the sensitive data for their own gain. Hackers search for financial information, proprietary designs, employee records, and client data. Hackers may also target your company to use your systems for purposes of cyberblackmailing. Once they’re hacked, they would ask for big sums of money if you want your network to be released unharmed.

If you want to fight the threat from cybercriminals, the first thing you have to know is the kind of cyberthreats that are out there.

Common Cyberattacks against Manufacturers

Advance persistent threats – APT are cyberattacks that are long term. They break into your network in several phases so they could avoid detection.

Distributed Denial of Service – DdoS attacks happen when a server is overloaded intentionally with several requests, with the objective of shutting down the network system or website of their target.

Inside Attack – When somebody that has administrative privileges misuses their credentials intentionally to get access to a confidential information from the company.

Malware – A malicious software covers any kind of program that is introduced into the computer of their victims with the intention to gain unauthorized access or cause damage.

Password Attacks – Brute force, dictionary, and keylogging attacks are the three types of password attacks.

Phishing – It is the most common type of cyberattack, which involves gathering confidential information such as credit card information and login credentials through a real looking website, generally sent to unsuspecting people through an email.

How To Lessen The Odds of Getting Hacked

Protect your network against spyware, viruses, and other cyberthreats - Install antivirus and antispyware software on your computers and update them regularly.

Secure your networks – protect your internet connection by installing and setting up a firewall. All information must be encrypted, too. In case you have a Wi-Fi network, it must be hidden and secure. To conceal it, you have to set up the router or wireless access point so that it doesn’t broadcast the name of the network or the SSID. You should also password protect the router.

Set in place security policies and practices to safeguard sensitive information - Create policies on how your staff needs to deal with and protect PII or personally identifiable information as well as other confidential data. You have to outline what will happen if they violate the cybersecurity Wilmington NC policies of your company.

Educate your staff about cyberthreats – teach your employees about cyberthreats and how they can protect your business data.

Use strong passwords – implement multifactor authentication that needs more information than just a single password to gain access. Consult your vendors that deal with sensitive data like financial institutions to check if they can provide multifactor authentication for your account.

 

Call SpartanTec, Inc. now and let our team of IT experts set up the most effective cybersecurity strategies to protect your business from online threats.

 

SpartanTec, Inc.
Myrtle Beach, SC 29577
(843) 420-9760
https://www.spartantec.com/

SpartanTec, Inc.
Wilmington, NC 28412
(910) 218-9255
http://manageditserviceswilmington.com

Serving: Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach, Columbia, Wilmington, Fayetteville, Florence

How Secure Are Your Company’s Applications?

Organizations of all types today face an ever evolving threatscape and growing pressure to rethink security strategies for long-term sustainability. Today’s enterprises operate in a complex technological environment, with a variety of devices, applications, and users accessing the network. Fortinet’s Mark Byers discusses the issues and trends affecting the security of enterprise applications.

What do companies need to know about security as it relates to their application infrastructure?

When most companies think about cyber security, they think of their network. This is a great place to start—but it’s not the whole picture. The question we need to ask is, what exactly needs to be secured, and why? At the end of the day, we’re really talking about the need to secure data—whether it’s customers’ credit card data, health information, corporate financial data, employee information, proprietary information, etc. And that means we need to consider all the different access points that need to be secured. One of the weakest links is applications. You can have multiple layers of network security, but once you expose an application to the Internet, your network security is not enough. When a company provides users access to an online application with a user ID and password, that user and attackers now have access to the data that can potentially bypass many layers of carefully crafted security protections.

So where do companies need to focus to ensure their applications are secure?

This sounds daunting but the truth is, they need to consider everywhere. You need to protect all access points to data – where it sits in a repository or server, where and when the data is accessed through an application, and when it’s shared with other applications or users. This is why a security fabric is critically important. You need policies to ensure enterprise users have different passwords for certain systems, two-factor authentication to verify they are who they say they are and that they’re authorized to access particular systems or information. Companies need increased intelligence of network services that allow users to identify threats in emails and machine learning that helps detect threat signatures. Administrators need a system strategy that correlates data and helps identify threats spanning multiple systems. They need security systems that are deeply integrated so that they can share threat intelligence and events to close the gap between devices and applications.

Talk about some of the well-known application security issues we have heard in the media. What’s happening?  

From an enterprise perspective, the UK telecommunications company TalkTalk was in the news in October 2015 when nearly 157,000 customer data records were compromised. At fault was a breach in an application code; a simple SQL command opened up a back door to their data. This event resulted in the loss of more than 200,000 customers and significant dip in their revenues.

In general, though, some of the most well-known security issues involve Adobe Flash. In fact, Google recently announced that their Chrome browser will no longer support Flash. Flash is so pervasive; it’s used by the majority of devices. And the challenge is that when a critical vulnerability is  uncovered, it’s then only a matter of days before an attack occurs. That means one vulnerability in this one platform can have a widespread effect. What’s also concerning is that users do not regularly update to the latest version of Flash as it’s available. According to the Verizon 2016 Data Breech Investigations Report (DBIR) in one year’s time 45 percent of devices still had not updated to the latest version of flash and so still have no patch to address security issues.

It seems like there are patches pushed every day. We are constantly being asked to update our applications. Are they really that insecure?

The short answer is yes. The common vulnerability and exposures section of DBIR is important to review to understand the variety of issues. As soon as vulnerabilities are exposed, malicious attackers will instantly act on and exploit these vulnerabilities. Using Flash again as an example, should users update Flash as soon as a new version is pushed out? Yes. Do they? No. And the consequence is that one infected computer can affect the rest of the system.

If you’re running an enterprise system and the SSL protocol is compromised, this must be updated as soon as possible. There are tools available to help patch security holes, to scan for problems and malware, and to help mitigate those situations when updates don’t occur regularly.

There are lots of different types of applications: cloud apps, enterprise apps, consumer apps, database apps. Are there different security concerns that customers need to address?

Cloud-based applications are generally fairly good in terms of their security. But if an end user doesn’t change his/her password regularly, then your data could be compromised. In most instances, breaches occur because users are sharing credentials, or they’re not changing their passwords regularly. So it’s really a user issue and not an application issue.

On the enterprise side, an organization may have great e-commerce system all based on code that needs to be kept up to date. As long as you’re patching regularly and staying up to date, you’re fine. Companies need to employ application firewalls to help with zero day attacks. And they need to isolate their systems so that they’re not sitting directly on the Internet, which makes them more vulnerable. If applications and data are on the same server, you need to ensure that all information is channeled through a secure access point. Often within a company there’s a need to bring up a web-based application quickly for many users to access, and simple steps are overlooked that are the security equivalent to forgetting to lock the door behind them.

Data is growing exponentially, and our use of applications to run our businesses and our lives is never ending. What lies ahead for security and applications?

It’s becoming more and more important to have a deeply integrated security fabric that can help close the gaps, share intelligence across systems, and sift through vast amounts of data rapidly. Companies and security administrators don’t have the ability to review thousands of pages of data only to realize that a breach occurred the prior week. Every minute counts.

Technology is trying to stay ahead of the bad guys, to better identify threats and determine behavior abnormalities. Advanced persistent threats are many times customized to an organization and can employ multiple attack types until the target is compromised. Behavioral tools with advanced heuristics can help diagnose attacks as they’re happening, even if they’re different from previously identified attacks. Companies can run a baseline behavioral view in as little as an hour, and then this information helps the system identify abnormal behaviors. It could be as overt as a user attempting to access unauthorized systems or as unique as a user who is logging into applications from an unknown device at an atypical time of day.

Companies need to enforce a robust security policy that includes passwords, two-factor authentication, and regularly updated training.

If all of this seems daunting, SpartanTec Inc. can help. We provide complete IT Support for companies with no support staff or we can supplement you in-house staff. As mentioned in this article, employee training is imperative and we can provide employee training in-house or remotely.

Call us today for an assessment of your vulnerability snd what it will take to be secure.

SpartanTec, Inc.
Wilmington, NC 28412
(910) 218-9255
http://manageditserviceswilmington.com

Phishing Scams During Christmas

 Email security is the last thing on your mind during the holiday season. However, cybercriminals will exploit this time of year and use it to their advantage. Just as Santa makes his way down your chimney, they use cunning ways to victimize you and it’ll be too late once you realize that you’ve become one of their preys.

What makes an organization vulnerable during this season? A lot of phishing emails look are disguised as legitimate emails from retail companies, banks, and parcel services. They contain links to real looking but fake websites that contain infected links or ask for your personal details.

 

 

When your staff gets distracted about the parcels that they’re about to receive, they have higher risks of clicking and downloading links that are infected. A lot of offices operate with a skeleton staff or relief/casual staff, so in case they are not savvy to these cyber scams or you do not have any top quality cybersecurity set in place, there’s a huge chance that these kinds of emails will cause damages to your company.

Why are there a lot of Christmas phishing Wilmington NC scams? There are advanced phishing scams that will take more than a week or even months to detect that you’ve been victimized. You may not even know that you downloaded an infected file until it’s too late and your personal or financial information was already stolen and the damage has been done.

Cybersecurity Tips You Need To Know

• Data backup is crucial. You have to do this every day.
• Make sure that the operating systems and all applications are updated.
• Set up a multi-layered defence program such as web filtering services, cloud based email, anti-spyware, anti-malware, and anti-virus systems.
• Your staff computers must have firewall installed. You should also increase the security settings on all internet browsers.
• The use of iPhones, iPads, USBs and other external devices that are not approved by the company should be limited.
• Always be vigilant especially when sharing your information online.
• Never click on unsolicited emails containing executable files such as .exe or .zip files.
• Keep in mind that a reputable business won’t send an email asking for your personal or financial information.

SpartanTec, Inc. is committed to making sure that your workplace is safe from cybersecurity threats like phishing emails. Call us now.

SpartanTec, Inc.
Myrtle Beach, SC 29577
(843) 420-9760
https://www.spartantec.com/

SpartanTec, Inc.
Wilmington, NC 28412
(910) 218-9255
http://manageditserviceswilmington.com

Serving: Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach, Columbia, Wilmington, Fayetteville, Florence

Top 7 Cybersecurity Predictions For 2021

2021 is just a few months away. What will the cybersecurity landscape look like for businesses? What will be the main considerations, risks, and focuses for the New Year for cybersecurity professionals and leaders. Here’s a list of top 7 cybersecurity predictions that may affect cybersecurity experts and enterprises.

Cybersecurity Predictions for 2021

Remote Workers Will Be The Target of Cybercriminals

Cybercriminals will follow users and attack them by exploiting their habits and behaviors. Cybercriminals made the most out of the disruption caused when employees were given stay at home orders and the changes made to how they use their devices and technology. Hackers launched various attacks including ransomware, vishing, and phishing, all of which targeted the gaps in the security postures of companies, since many of them were not prepared to have a secure remote workforce.

VPNs and other Legacy Security Architectures Are Expected to Be The Weak Link

To improve the remote operations quickly while following the stay at home orders, a lot of companies considered legacy security architectures such as VNPs as their best solution for remote work. Unfortunately, VPNs are not long term solutions since they can hinder productivity, introduce latency, hard to scale, and can provide employees with too much access to a company’s internal resources. VPNS can also be exploited by cybercriminals.

 

 

CISOs and CSOs Will Search For Convergence In Security Solutions

IT spending dropped in 2020 and this will continue next year. Despite the lack of budget, security leaders still have to close the online transformation gap in their companies. Because of that, simplicity and convergence will be important. CIO/CISO/CSOs will go for technologies that include several services into a single platform in order to have a bigger cost savings.

Data Breach In The Health Sector Will Be Deadly

The health care industry is working double time to fight the pandemic but they also faced massive financial strains. Despite everything they’re going through, cybercriminals will continue to target health care providers and hospitals through ransomware attacks so they can’t provide care to their patients.

More Attacks Coming To Financial Sector

Companies offering financial services must be careful and step up their cybersecurity Wilmington NC efforts. Cybercriminals will continue to target financial data including banking details and social security numbers. That’s why financial organizations must be proactive in protecting their data.

COVID-19 Will Force More Companies To Enter The Digital Sphere

The global pandemic has forced industries and organizations to accelerate their efforts in digital transformation. Remote work as well as other technological transformations that were brought on by the stay at home orders will continue even when the pandemic is over. They will offer companies more cost savings, flexibility, and edge.

New Technologies Rise, More People Will Be At Risk of Data Exposure

There will be more internet users in the coming year and most of the companies will continue have their employees work remotely. These trends mean there will also be an increase in the number of people and organizations that are at risk of data exposure.

Companies are relying on their IT systems more than ever. With more than half of businesses offering some capacity for remote work, they are using virtual desktops, accessing common drives online and connecting via video conferencing to achieve this.

With 2021 fast approaching, now is a great time to assess different co-managed IT providers to find one that best meets your IT and business needs. SpartanTec is here to help and will provide you with a free consultation and assessment to get you started.

SpartanTec, Inc.
Myrtle Beach, SC 29577
(843) 420-9760
https://www.spartantec.com/

SpartanTec, Inc.
Wilmington, NC 28412
(910) 218-9255
http://manageditserviceswilmington.com

Serving: Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach, Columbia, Wilmington, Fayetteville, Florence

Understanding Managed IT Solutions and Support Services

 

Can Managed IT Solutions Help Small Businesses Function Like Large Companies?

Before, managed IT services were only used by Fortune 500 companies. Today, providers of such solutions are now supervising different kinds of enterprises from start-ups to well-established multinationals. As IT services continue to evolve and systems move transition from on-site services to cloud services, SMBs are working with managed service providers to check and organize networked services. For small businesses, IT resources could be limited, with at least one agents taking care of different IT concerns. With an MSP, firms of all sizes could benefit from the expertise that such a provider can offer.

Managed IT services Wilmington NC can do so much more than just fix what is broken. Although MSPs deal with network issues and fix software concerns, other types of managed services such as software, multicloud management, as well as IoT management are growing the managed service provider market. Additionally, the fast expansion of the usage of cloud based platform have boosted the requirement for managed security. With the high costs of the in-house management of an updated security base, MSPs can help companies with a wider scope of advanced security measures.

 

 

Why should you use managed IT services?

 

Managed IT services re saving firms money, offering top notch solutions, and letting companies to concentrate on their clients and key objectives. Managed IT services provides access to the latest technologies without the additional costs and inconvenience of on-site installation, and the IT experts who are knowledgeable in the new tech. Apart from that, managed IT services minimize the downtime since server as well as the networked capacities can expand and contract easily compared to on site servers. Managed IT services can offer proactive strategies as well as long term planning, they know the systems as well as the possible complications that may take place. For several industries that have strict security measures in place, a focused managed IT service can provide firms with improved security and management.

 

Types of Managed IT services

 

Managed support services – the most common service that involves conventional help desk solutions and tech support. With managed support services, firms can avoid the cost of having a large IT team, depending instead on trained IT experts who know the system and have dealt with it under different situations.

Managed cloud infrastructure – firms could lease cloud space that’s under the management of the host company. It offers additional backup, app management, operating system, as well as technical support for storing data in the cloud.

Managed Software as a Service – it offers initial software access, upgrades, and support services. Although the majority of SaaS services rents the software from the software provider directly, managed SaaS services will allow a firm to engage a certain application whenever it’s needed.

IT lead generation services – IT lead generation solutions work closely with sales teams however, they are unique in several ways. Lead generation solutions establish and isolate a steady flow of qualified leads.

Managed security – helps in ensuring existing security protocols for securing the applications and data on cloud based services.

Data analytics – offer data expertise to individual businesses. Experts will bring professional knowledge in order to make information intelligible.

Managed wireless and printing – assures companies of less network downtime, consistent and regular upgrades, as well as service management.

 

Call SpartanTec, Inc. now and if you are looking for reliable, trustworthy, and top quality managed IT services.

 

SpartanTec, Inc.
Myrtle Beach, SC 29577
(843) 420-9760
https://www.spartantec.com/

SpartanTec, Inc.
Wilmington, NC 28412
(910) 218-9255
http://manageditserviceswilmington.com

Serving: Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach, Columbia, Wilmington, Fayetteville, Florence

Secure Your Enterprise SD-WAN With SpartanTec, Inc. Solutions

 

Traditional routers can no longer match the pace if today’s cloud era. The secure enterprise SD-WAN of SpartanTec, Inc. will unity the connectivity across multicloud infrastructure, branch, and data center.

Expand the connectivity options: Boost WAN capacity with affordable LTE and Internet Broadband to replace or augment Multiprotocol Label Switching.

SD-WAN is considered a transportagnostic overlay that is able to route all kinds of traffic and that includes MPLS. The benefit of SD-WAN Wilmington NC is that a company WAN traffic architect will just sit at the main center and apply all of the policies across all of the WAN devices simply and easily.

Improve operational agility: your enterprise will use a centralized management system that’s policy based to streamline your network operations and push strategic value.

Streamline the branch infrastructure: Change traditional branch routers with a different platform that will combine security, WAN optimization, SD-WAN, and routing.

Boost site provisioning: Cut costs on branch onboarding through zero-touch provisioning.

 

 

SD-WAN Edge Infrastructure

Deploy secure, fast, and agile WAN edge infrastructure a brand that features top of the line routing, network visibility, application acceleration, as well as IT services.

Router Replacement

Update traditional routers with a nextgen platform that mixes advanced SD-WAN services with enterprise class routing, allow you to transition sites seamlessly from old to new.

Hybrid WAN

Unify the management of several WAN circuits in remote sites using SD-WAN that will dynamically steer traffic across the LTE, Internet Broadband, and MPLS according to target SLAs as well as real time network conditions.

SD-WAN Security

Strengthen remote sites with quality security services as well as extensible service chaining. Protect your threat perimeter with secure VPNs, nextgen intrusion prevention services, next gen firewall, malware protection, as well as a unified threat management.

Internet Only Wan

Control branch connectivity costs with Internet-only WANs. You should also maintain reliability and quality using dynamic link conditioning, fast failover, and link bonding according to policy based SLAs and real time monitoring.

Analytics and Visibility

Get historical analysis and real time visibility of SD-WAN activity as well as app performance. Extend the visibility into underlay network using Riverbed NPM for the unified insights and analytics.

Call SpartanTec, Inc. now for more information about SD-WAN.

SpartanTec, Inc.
Myrtle Beach, SC 29577
(843) 420-9760
https://www.spartantec.com/

SpartanTec, Inc.
Wilmington, NC 28412
(910) 218-9255
http://manageditserviceswilmington.com

Serving: Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach, Columbia, Wilmington, Fayetteville, Florence

Businesses Are Dangerously Avoiding Critical IT Security Updates

 How good is your IT staff at staying current when it comes to applying all the latest security patches? Unfortunately, the answer for most businesses is, "probably not as good as you think."

According to research conducted by Bitdefender, a staggering 64 percent of un-patched vulnerabilities discovered on corporate networks in 2020 involve bugs that date back to 2018 and before.

This mind blowing statistic has serious implications for your company, no matter what business you're in, and no matter how large or small your firm might be.

What the key finding means, in a nutshell, is that of the US businesses with one or more un-patched piece of code running on their network, there are fixes available for nearly two thirds of them. Worse, those fixes have literally been available for years. Not taking advantage of them is, from the perspective of a hacker, like leaving a neon sight above the front door of your business that reads, "we don't lock up at night - please, come in and steal from us!"

 

 

Everyone in the industry knows and understands that keeping up with all the latest patches for the software deployed across even a small network can be both frustrating and time consuming. It's certainly not one of the more glamorous aspects of the job.

Even so, it is absolutely critical, and it pays to do a periodic survey of all the software installed on your network and how long it's been since a security patch was applied. If you're looking for an inexpensive way to bolster the security of your company's network, making sure all the latest software security updates are installed should be your first stop.

Even if that's all you wind up doing, taking that one simple step will dramatically improve the overall security of your network, and that's a very good thing.

Call SpartanTec, Inc. now to know how our managed IT services Wilmington NC can help your business.

SpartanTec, Inc.
Wilmington, NC 28412
(910) 218-9255
http://manageditserviceswilmington.com

Serving: Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach, Columbia, Wilmington, Fayetteville, Florence