Does Your Small Business Need Network Security?

Cyberattacks can be devastating for small businesses. There are some things they can do to increase their network security.

Two Factor Authentication

For each sign-in, two factor authentication or multifactor authentication is required. This applies to all back accounts and all insurance accounts. If possible, it should be defector. The second factor authentication refers to using a different password or a four-digit code to authenticate the login after the username and password are entered. Many consumers know this is similar to post login SMS messaging. However, many banks and government agencies use multifactor authentication or depend on non-sms delivery.

Network Security: Firewalls

There are many types of firewalls available, some even made for mobile devices. The firewall acts as the first or second line defense for income traffic, including information that is personal or business-related. The firewall is responsible for protecting the network, a specific device or both against different types of cyberattacks.

This could include malicious code insertion, denial of service, data stuffing and malicious payload on specific documents. A firewall works well when it is tailored to the specific needs of the situation. A firewall can be a security risk that could lead to network compromises.

CyberHacks Common to Small Businesses

Half of all cybersecurity attacks involve social engineering. These include voice phishing and email phishing as well as link bait, SMS Phishing, social media, search results, voice-phishing and email phishing. There’s also reverse social engineering. This is where someone discovers enough information about you company to convince you they are real and help with your hacking problem.

There are many occasions where social engineering attacks can occur. It could be directed at the CEO or CFO. This is known as the Business Email Compromise scam. Other scammers could also target corporate websites using fake vendors and fake comments. This is done to flood a company’s website with negative comments and give it a negative vibe.

As cybersecurity is a critical issue for businesses, the brand’s reputation security, key employees, and the owner are all crucial. Even though a small business may have updated protocols and security rules, it may still be susceptible to reputational attacks. Google alerts should be set up in your company name, the names of your key employees, and your own name. You should monitor for changes in search results that could indicate an attack on one’s reputation. A social media strategy should be developed that encourages workers to not share work-related information and teaches employees how to spot fake accounts.

Call SpartanTec, Inc. now if you need to improve your company’s network security.

SpartanTec, Inc.
Fayetteville, NC 28304
(910) 745-7776
http://manageditservicesfayetteville.com

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

How managed firewall protects your business

Firewall monitoring and management are two of the many solutions included in managed IT services. Monitoring your company’s firewalls will ensure that they use the correct definitions and that there are no conflicts that could affect network performance.

Managed IT service providers will review and remove any unnecessary rules from the firewall rules. This will ensure that the firewall is operational and running efficiently. A report detailing the change and the reasons for it will be filed. This will allow you to know what has been done and how it impacts your business.

Flexible and adaptable Firewall Management

SpartanTec, Inc. is able to work with all industries and sizes of businesses. Our IT professionals have a wealth of experience and deep knowledge that allows them to provide high-quality service. Our team is likely to have worked with a similar firewall solution to what you are currently using. Our IT support specialists can help you learn more about the vendor’s solution and integrate it into our process. This will address one of the biggest challenges in firewall management.

Firewall Management and Monitoring Reports Reliable managed IT services providers will provide firewall Fayetteville NC monitoring, analytics, and reporting on a weekly basis, monthly, quarterly and yearly bases. This report will provide information about your firewall’s status and emerging trends regarding how your network is being accessed. This report will provide key analytics such as how many access requests were submitted, which data packets were rejected and the IP addresses that attempted to enter your network. These data can help you improve your firewall settings to protect your network more effectively.

Reduce Firewall Effects and Get the Most From Security Results

SpartanTec, Inc. will do everything possible to minimize the impact on business operations. We understand the technology and business processes of our clients to find the most effective protection. This allows us to identify the solutions that provide the best protection, without disrupting the user experience.

This is why it is so important to actively seek out technology vendors for our clients. This allows us to see how these solutions fit together so that we don’t disrupt the client’s business when we suggest enhancements to their cybersecurity tools and practices.

You, as a customer, should receive the best protection possible without compromising user experience for customers and your team.

SpartanTec, Inc. is available to answer any questions about firewall management or monitoring services.

SpartanTec, Inc.
Fayetteville, NC 28304
(910) 745-7776
http://manageditservicesfayetteville.com

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

A Guide To Software Support Services

Software support services are IT support that is focused on the technical aspects of the software. These services can also be provided as break/fix solutions for certain software products. These services include but are not limited to, revenue from long-term technical support contracts or incident-based pay-as-you-go support.

 

Software support offers a variety of services, including installation and troubleshooting. Remote support can be offered via internet communication, telephone, or in-person. Instead, automated methods are used as available on the customer’s device or the internet.

Support services for software may include product updates, new product installation, migrations of major software releases, and other types of reactive and proactive on-site services. They also can support infrastructure software and custom applications. A product vendor, a third-party software maintenance company or a consulting firm could provide services.

This category covers software products and technologies, including custom and commercial operating systems, infrastructure software, as well as application software. Software support services do not include software code updates and upgrades, which vendors refer to as software maintenance.

 

Software Support Services: Why Are They Important?

 

Accessing information is now easier and quicker. Companies need to pay attention to the smallest details in order to perform flawlessly in real-time.

This will ensure that you continue to receive software updates and the latest notifications without interruption. Technical IT support will be provided via chat, email, phone, and phone. You’ll also receive product updates. This is far better than one-time tech support, which can be costly and could lead to reduced productivity as well as virus attacks.

Software support services vendors will continue to work on improving and adding new features. This will all benefit you and your company. This will ensure that your company is always ahead of its competitors.

Malware attacks are getting more sophisticated every day. Hackers are constantly looking for vulnerabilities in software. Hackers could potentially hack your company’s software if it doesn’t have the most recent version. If hackers are able to hack into your system, they will steal your company information and even take your network hostage. You will need to pay a premium in order to have your network back up again.

Software support services will provide IT support professionals who can protect your software from viruses, malware, Trojans, hackers, and other malicious programs. Your managed IT services provider will keep your anti-virus software up to date, so your system remains safe.

Software support services also offer continuous access to software updates, knowledge base access, and the ability to concentrate on your core business while your IT consulting firms take care of any technology-related issues.

 

SpartanTec, Inc., Fayetteville is available to answer your questions about software support services.

 

SpartanTec, Inc.
Fayetteville, NC 28304
(910) 745-7776
http://manageditservicesfayetteville.com

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

10 Tech Jobs Small Businesses Must Outsource

IT outsourcing could be an excellent method for startups and small business to deal with tedious tasks while improving productivity and cutting back on costs. Outsourcing necessities that are all tech-related allows employees and small business owners to focus on responsibilities that are far more important like customer service, sales, and more, without the need to hire more in-house employees.

But all areas of the business must be outsourced. Handing off the incorrect tasks to a third party could hurt your company much more than it could help out. Listed below are 10 tech jobs that IT experts recommend small businesses to outsource.

Hire IT Outsourcing Services For These Tech Tasks

Infrastructure as a Service or IaaS

Outsourcing equipment like servers, hardware, as well as network systems to an infrastructure provider could help you save millions of dollars in labor and costs. Building your own infrastructure isn’t easy nor cheap. It will need not just a huge budget to buy and house them, but also heavy maintenance by skilled IT support professionals. By outsourcing, small businesses and startups could cut back on their budgets, because the infrastructure service provider does not only own the equipment but is also responsible for operating and troubleshooting the units. Users just have to pay on a subscription basis.

Cloud Hosting

Cloud computing lets businesses gain access to their required information anytime, anywhere, through the use of any device of their choosing. Hosting a cloud system is expensive and it could open up a company to security risks if the tech used is outdated. Through outsourcing, small businesses could concentrate on utilizing the cloud instead of maintaining it.

E-commerce Website Design

If you are not an expert in website development, then you must think about outsourcing the design of your e-commerce website to make sure that it does not only look great but also run efficiently and smoothly. This will help keep your clients from encountering problems as they browse or purchase products or services from your online store.

Website Updates

Together with building a well-designed website in the first place, it is crucial for businesses to make sure that their websites are updated, too. This could be a difficult job for those who don’t know what they’re doing. There is a lot to monitor to make sure that the website remains updated with the latest trends and changes in technology. Therefore, outsourcing these tasks could help you keep a strong presence online without getting in the way of other essential tasks.

Cybersecurity

Providers of managed IT services will inform you that your data is safe however, businesses must also outsource other important cybersecurity solutions. It is a smart move for companies to outsource their cybersecurity professionals instead of relying on the guarantees of IT vendors since there’s no company that could provide a 100% data safety guarantee.

Two-Factor Authentication

Two-factor authentication is a kind of security that asks users to provide two forms of identification if they want to access bank accounts or other confidential information. It could be in the form of a security code or a physical identification, or two different security codes.

QA Testing

If your team is devoting all of its time to creating products and apps, it could be a struggle to test each aspect to make sure that everything is perfect. Outsourcing can help keep your products and apps the best they could be without burning out your team.

Business Applications

It is expensive to develop an app. It seems like an excellent idea to develop apps that are tailored to your company operations and staff however, hiring a developer to create a business app needs a lot of time, patience, and money. Meanwhile, there’s a lot of extensive business applications that can be used for almost everything.

Projects Outside Your Expertise

IT experts are not professionals in all kinds of technologies. They might be knowledgeable in a certain area but that doesn’t automatically mean that they could handle a related project without any prior training. Given that, it’s better to outsource projects that are beyond your scope of expertise.

Tasks That Can’t Be Automated

In case you have a lot of cumbersome tasks to deal with, addressing them all yourself could be time consuming. If hiring another employee to get the job done for you is a waste of resources, then you should consider automating those tasks. If not, you should think about outsourcing.

Call SpartanTec, Inc. in Fayetteville if you are considering IT outsourcing any of these top 10 tech tasks.

SpartanTec, Inc.
Fayetteville, NC 28304
(910) 745-7776
http://manageditservicesfayetteville.com

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

Why Your Business Needs 24/7 Cybersecurity Monitoring

You can significantly improve your threat alerts plus spend more time creating effective cybersecurity strategies if you hire continuous monitoring with the help of a reliable security services provider. Listed below are five reasons why you should consider 24/7 cybersecurity monitoring.

The Dramatic Changes In The Cybersecurity Landscape

Companies face a threat landscape that’s never been seen before. Almost every month, there’s news about a massive data breach. Big firms are struggling to keep up with the rise of threats that hit their security teams on a daily basis.

Small and mid-size businesses are affected, too. As a matter of fact, cybercriminals are targeting SMBs since enterprise organizations have ramped up their cybersecurity Fayetteville NC defenses. Both SMBs and enterprise are facing several challenges. Plus, there’s that lack of internal resources as well as a small market for skilled IT experts who will manage everything. Having a security partner who will check your environment all day and night is what’s needed by businesses today. Experts have predicted that security outsourcing is going to be a major investment category in the coming years.

Strict Compliance and Regulatory Requirements

This year, security leaders are concentrating on dealing with the new compliance and regulatory requirements that may cost them millions in penalties and fines due to non-compliance. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is one of the first and most crucial new efforts in global regulation to have an effect on multinational businesses and organizations processing EU subject data. Aside from that, the United States is working on the Data Security and Breach Notification Act. The new bill is the first Federal regulation that will penalize firms that have been hacked.

Almost every country is now taking consumer data privacy and protection seriously thanks to the introduction of the new legislation that will hold organizations accountable. It’s crucial for your company to take steps to reduce the risk of data compromise and establish some security controls to protect the consumer data. That is why regular network and security monitoring from a reliable provider of managed IT services is a must.

Minimize Data Breaches

 

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A team of IT professionals who review security logs and events all day and night can assist you in improving your MTTD or Mean-Time-To-Detect. The 2017 Ponemon Cost of Data Breach Study said that the average MTTD for a survey of 491 firms was 191 days and had a range of 24 to 546 days. Think about a hacker within your environment in that particular time frame. What’s the extent of the damage that one hacker or more could do to your company? When a threat actor gains access to your business, they could cause a lot of problems on endpoints and systems and then steal your data or perhaps hold it at ransom.

Boost Your Mean-Time-To-Respond

The main metric for several security teams to assess their effectiveness is in terms of the Mean-Time-Detect as well as the Mean-Time-To-Respond. When your security team determines or detects threats and triggers an alert, it will then become a matter of how long is needed to contain and remediate the threat.

Some companies have invested millions in endpoint security, antivirus, and firewalls. However, these technologies can create thousands of alerts every day. This could cause your security or IT team to go through alert fatigue. But with 24/7 cybersecurity monitoring, your company can significantly improve your MTTR and MTTD with the appropriate alerts. A team of experts from a reliable IT consulting company can leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI), orchestration, and automation to boost alerts and determine the events that are significant.

Call SpartanTec, Inc. if you have finally made the decision to work with a trustworthy team of IT experts who can take care of all your cybersecurity needs.

SpartanTec, Inc.
Fayetteville, NC 28304
(910) 745-7776
http://manageditservicesfayetteville.com

Cities Served:
Fayetteville, Spring Lake, Hope Mills, Dunn, Aberdeen, Southern Pines, Pinehurst, Sanford, Clinto

Payment Forms Cause Large Amount Of Online Data Breaches

When surveying the state of your company's security, it's important to understand what your biggest risks are, including data breach.

According to the 2019 Application Report published by F5 Labs, the answer is simple.
Fully 71 percent of all web-related data breaches in 2018 specifically targeted customers' financial information.

The single biggest culprit?  Formjacking.  According to F5's Senior Threat Evangelist, Davidd Warburton, formjacking attacks in the hacking community have exploded in popularity over the last two years.

A big part of the problem arises from the fact that most businesses have outsourced their shopping cart and credit card payment systems to third party vendors.  Developers make use of imported code libraries, and in some cases, access third party scripts hosted on the web.

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This has the advantage of saving companies money, but it simultaneously puts them in an awkward, vulnerable position. The majority of the code used to handle and process sensitive customer information exists outside the purview of IT security.  Companies simply have no way of controlling the code or verifying its safety.

Worse, cybersecurity hackers know that since most companies use the same small group of payment processing options, all they have to do is compromise a single component of one of those systems and they have access to a vast pool of information that spans multiple companies.

This is exactly how and why Magecart attacks have become so devastatingly effective, and it explains their meteoric rise in popularity.

Challenges Businesses Face For Data Breach

"Adequately detecting and mitigating injection flaws now depends on adapting assessments and controls - not just fixing code.  The more code we hand over to third parties, the less visibility and less control we have over it."

Unfortunately, there's no simple fix for that.  Companies are driven by necessity to seek the lowest cost solution.  It would be ruinously expensive for each company to create, manage and maintain their own custom payment processing solutions. But businesses always have the option to seek out IT services to help them boost their company's network security.

Make sure that your payment processing solutions are free from vulnerabilities. Call SpartanTec, Inc. in Fayetteville now. Let our team help you secure your business and lower your risk of experiencing online breach.

SpartanTec, Inc.
Fayetteville, NC 28304
(910) 745-7776
http://manageditservicesfayetteville.com

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

Reasons Why Businesses Fail Cybersecurity Tests

Every industry and companies of different sizes are being targeted by cybersecurity criminals. Just turn on your TV or check your social media and you’ll see reports about cyberattacks. These attacks are increasing in sophistication and number, and this trend is expected to continue.

So now is the time to have a plan. You can come up with one with the help of an IT Services Fayetteville NC company. Create a cybersecurity strategy that can provide your company with the foundation as well as the mandate to roll out good procedures and policies for enhancing resilience. When developing the strategy, here are the five common mistakes that you need to avoid.

 

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Cybersecurity Mistakes To Avoid At All Cost

Trusting your perimeter defense too much.

During the early stages of a data breach, it’s not the question of if but when. Cyber attackers would compromise your company’s first line of defense such as your internet saving services, email accounts, and employee workstations. Although it is important to set up your defenses on the perimeter, you can’t ignore attention on what takes place when a cybercriminal gets access to your network. Can you stop the attacker from going to a more sensitive part of your network that may lead to major damage? Contemporary networks need more than a single layer of defense to sufficiently protect your information as well as your computing resources.

Focusing on prevention and neglecting detection and response.

An initial attack will take minutes. The discovery as well as the response will take weeks and even months. A study even revealed that attack can be identified in an average of 256 days, which is too long. A cyberattack may not be noticeable, so your company should also focus on detection and response.

Depending too much on compliance.

Compliance will not guarantee protection against all cybersecurity threats. It is only the baseline requirement. Regulations are made to protect client and financial information. As technology continues to advance and your company continues to grow, a compliance mindset will put your business at risk. To protect your client data, operations and reputation, as well as confidential corporate data, you should go beyond compliance and opt for an offense-oriented method.

Failing to know the difference between vulnerability scanning and penetration testing.

The offense focused cybersecurity IT Support Fayetteville NC services are usually not defined clearly by those who procure or offer them, which leads to confusion. Penetration testing involves performing humans replicating the actions of cyberattackers. Meanwhile, a vulnerability scan involves an automated test, which is referred to as penetration test.

Not considering cybersecurity as a business risk.

Many companies consider cybersecurity as an IT problem. But it’s more than just an IT issue. The more connected you are, the more at risk you are of a cyberattack. They will use sophisticated methods to steal your employee and client data, trade secrets, intellectual property, and more. Aside from that, cybercriminals can take control of your physical assets such as phone systems, HVAC systems, door locks, and more.

 

Call SpartanTec, Inc. now if you want to boost your cybersecurity so your company is more prepared against online threats.

 

SpartanTec, Inc.
Fayetteville, NC 28304
(910) 745-7776
http://manageditservicesfayetteville.com

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