Enterprise Businesses and Vulnerabilities

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It is no secret how vital cybersecurity is for all organizations today. Recent data has shown just how crucial visibility into your company’s infrastructure really is. Today, most businesses have IT solutions to assist with detecting and managing their information systems vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities can range from a bug in a code that can allow hackers to gain access to a flaw in the update that might fix one vulnerability but cause another. Enterprises face viruses, malware, spam, and phishing schemes. With the number of options available, IT professionals must learn how to manage these vulnerabilities and the types of solutions that will best fit the company. 

Enterprise Vulnerabilities are Pretty Bad

Sevco Security recently released a report, The State of the Cybersecurity Attack Surface, that gathered data from over 500,000 IT companies. This report found that many of the assets that these businesses relied on were missing critical endpoint protections or lacking critical checkpoints.

Research showed that from the businesses that were interviewed, 12% of the companies lacked endpoint protection services while 5% lacked enterprise patch management. It was also found that 19% of Windows servers were also missing endpoint protections.

These companies also demonstrated assets that were recognized by the security control console and registered as installed on a device, even though that device is not checking back in. This is an issue that many organizations deal with as 3% of IT assets showed stale endpoint protections with 1% showing stale patch management. Because of this, issues are more difficult to find and resolve before creating problems because devices are supposedly checked out and approved.

IT professionals should conduct proper research on all the available vulnerability management tools to find the appropriate ones to use. It is essential to look for a tool that allows automated scanning, alerting, and tracking of vulnerabilities over time. The tracking helps ensure that these vulnerabilities are patched as soon as possible. Vulnerability management tools should be pretty easy to set up and begin functioning as soon as possible. 

The four critical criteria of vulnerability management, also known as VM, are network discovery, scanning, reporting and correlation, and asset prioritization. It is important to ensure that you have an IT department that will always maintain your company’s infrastructure. If needed, you can also outsource vulnerability management to another IT team that will assist in protecting your organization’s infrastructure.

We Can Help Prevent Your Business from Experiencing These Issues

At AE Technology Group, our remote monitoring and maintenance are created in order to identify and solve IT problems before they can interrupt business operations. For more information or to find out how we can assist your company, contact us today at (516) 536-5006.

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Advanced Technology Cybersecurity Risks and What to Do About It

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Cybersecurity for modern businesses is always attempting to stay ahead of the increasingly more complex security threats from hackers and cybercriminals. Companies will continue to invest in technology to enhance their business. As technology evolves, so do the cyber security threats that can infiltrate a business’s network. No company is immune, where smaller enterprises or large government agencies, even with today’s securities.

The Risks of Modern Technology

Technology such as the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence, cloud services, and more allow businesses to streamline their processes and accomplish more efficiently and accurately in a shorter timeline. With more technology comes greater risk as cyber criminals consistently innovate and find new ways to steal data from businesses of any size. 

Advancements such as automation remove human error and provide a more efficient way of doing business, but it doesn’t come without increased risks. Cybercriminals have highly sophisticated tools and capabilities using the very technology that businesses use to streamline their processes. 

When your business invests in technology, it’s important to invest in robust and aggressive cyber security that protects data and your business’s networks. A comprehensive review of your cybersecurity practices should be reviewed regularly. You want to consider the following: 

  • Do your employees have enough training to be an asset rather than a vulnerability?
  • Are the security measures currently in place enough to protect your business against threats and risks? 
  • Is your business prepared and looking ahead at the developing and evolving cyber threats and risks that are likely to emerge with new technologies?

The Current Evolving Threat Landscape

If your business is going to be prepared for advanced threats, it’s important to stay up to date with the current threats that can impact your business. Here are a few ideas on how to protect your business from developing threats.

Malware – Malware is becoming increasingly harder to find. Malware is getting better at mimicking user behavior as it is better at hiding their actions. To fight this threat, you need to ensure your team is trained to be able to spot malware or use automated security solutions to help you catch malware before it becomes a major problem.

More Technology Means More Vulnerability – More technology may be beneficial for businesses, but more technology means you have more to protect from attacks. Increased risk management and streamlining technologies to make IT less complex can help protect your business. 

Increase Upper Management Awareness – Often in companies, the upper levels of the corporate hierarchy remain blissfully unaware of the security issues and threats as they believe these risks are to be handled by the IT team. Cyber attacks can impact any level of a business, and it’s important to ensure everyone, including high-level executives, have a base awareness of the threats and what to look for. 

Need Help Securing Your Business

Working with us as your managed IT service can help ensure your data is protected against any cybersecurity threat your business may encounter. You can get back to focusing on running your business while we focus on protecting your business from cyber threats. To learn more, give us a call at (516) 536-5006.

Understanding Scams: How to Protect Your Business 

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While we try our hardest to ensure there are enough security measures to make it a safe place, the internet can still be a dangerous place. People fall victims to scams every day as scams continue to evolve and become smarter. Scammers can find their way into your email, texts, and ads easily by creating realistic links that you can easily believe are legitimate. Businesses are no strangers to having to deal with costly scams. Why are some people more likely to fall for scams than others, and how do you stop your employees from inadvertently engaging in scams and costing your company?

How Do Scams Continue to Survive?

Online scams are a million-dollar industry that affects individuals and organizations worldwide. As tech advances and the world becomes more connected, scammers continue to adapt, thrive, and succeed in the business of scamming people. Plenty of companies exist with the sole purpose of scamming, and it’s becoming more common as the costs of running these scams continue to decrease and become easier.

Scammers often operate in countries with little regulation and laws that prevent them from operating, making it challenging to locate those responsible for the scams. There are a lot of techniques, methods, and types of scams that they use to bypass security and pass as legitimate in a way that tricks everyday people into clicking on their links, answering their phone calls, or responding to emails.

People will likely fall for scams because scammers often target vulnerability and familiarity. It’s a numbers game where they send thousands of emails and only receive a small handful of responses, but it’s just enough. 

When scammers target businesses, they use familiar brands or even the name of someone within your organization to request sensitive information. If an employee is not prepared or educated on the risk of scams, especially if the scammer is friendly and appears legitimate, the employee may ignore the warning signs. They usually end up fulfilling the request giving the scammer the information they need to complete their scam.

How to Protect Your Business

Thousands of scam emails, texts, and ads make their rounds every day, and it’s becoming more likely that you and your employees will come across a scam at some point in your life. One of the most efficient ways to protect your business from scams is to ensure your employees are educated and informed on what to look for and steps to take if a scam makes its way through network security. Here are some essential tips to help you avoid falling victim to scams.

  • Always remain cautious with every email and text message you receive. If you are suspicious, verify the sender’s identity through other means of communication.
  • Look for some common signs of phishing, including unreasonable demands, suspicious attachments, spelling or grammatical errors, or if you don’t recognize the contact information.
  • Ensure you have security software installed to help filter out scam emails, and always keep your systems and software up to date.
  • Always have a backup of your data if a scam does make it through. Implement a backup and disaster recovery solution utilizing on-site data storage and off-site data centers.

Get started protecting your business today with a security solution from AE Technology Group. To get started, give us a call at (516) 536-5006.

Contact Us Today!

What Might Cyberattacks Look Like in the Future?

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Cybersecurity has been a major concern since the 1970s before the internet itself was around. As technology evolves, cybersecurity grows with it. If recent current events are any indication, cyber threats aren’t going away anytime soon. So, how can you protect yourself and your business from Cyber attacks in the future? And what will these cyber attacks look like?

Let’s take a few moments to consider some of the current cyber threats, how they’ll influence cyberattacks in the future, and what you can do to protect your information.

Modern Cyberthreats

To properly predict the future of cyber attacks, we need to dive into what’s happening today. Currently, there are a few specific threat vectors that are extremely popular among cybercriminals. These are the cyberattacks you often hear about in the news or read about on social media. To properly understand how to protect your business, you’ll have to gain some knowledge about what these threats are.

Phishing & Ransomware

One of the most common methods used by cybercriminals today is phishing. This is the use of deceit and deception to fool a person into divulging personal information, such as a password or credit card number, to a scammer. The scammer is typically pretending to be a reputable company offering its services.

Phishing is also often used to spread ransomware, which places malware on the target’s device, encrypting their information until the ransom is paid. They often target businesses with sensitive information that they cannot risk losing, so they are forced to pay the ransom to remove the encryption and regain access to their files.

Identity Theft

Unfortunately, and perhaps, unsurprisingly, the recent financial assistance given to so many citizens created a spike in identity theft cases. Cybercriminals gained information through the pandemic assistance, unemployment benefits, and data that was stolen from Facebook and LinkedIn.

Hacking

Hackers access your information through cybersecurity holes like weak passwords, IoT and IIoT devices without sufficient protections, and even insider threats. These all leave your business vulnerable to attack and should be corrected immediately.

How will Cyberattacks Change in the Future?

Based on how cyberattacks have evolved in the past, we predict that they’ll actually look very similar in the future. Cybercriminals simply learn to use new advances in technology to change their method of attack.

Some major cyber threats we’re predicting are the use of deepfakes and artificially mimicked voices to bypass access controls, and hacking voice assistants (We’re looking at you, Alexa) to gain sensitive information. 

While the method of attack may be slightly different, they’ll probably look a lot like how they appear today. So, what can you do to protect your business?

How to Protect Your Business from Cyberattacks

  • Lock Down your Hardware

We mean it… lock it down. Your hardware should be protected both by cybersecurity software on your devices and network and in terms of access controls and physical security. Cybercriminals are going to intentionally go for an easy target, so make it as difficult as possible for them to access your info.

  • 2. Encrypt your Data

Even the most secure cybersecurity plan may not be able to prevent your information from getting into the wrong hands, that’s where encryption comes in. Encrypting your data will ensure that, if it is stolen, it is effectively useless to the cybercriminal. 

  • Teach your Staff about Cybersecurity

Anyone who has access to even the slightest shred of your information should be up to date on modern cybersecurity threats and how to protect themselves. Schemes like phishing and hacking are typically successful because people are not educated on cybersecurity. Incorporating a security-first mindset into your company culture will do a lot more than you might expect it to.

As we mentioned, cybersecurity will only become more important as technological advances are made. To truly protect your business, contact a professional. 

AE Technology Group is here to help put your business on the right foot moving forward. Give us a call at (516) 536-5006 to learn more about the cybersecurity tools and protections we can implement for you.

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4 Steps to Make Cybersecurity Training Effective

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Real cybersecurity preparedness is, like most things in a business, a team effort. Everyone needs to be aware of the best practices involved in cybersecurity. Naturally, this will involve training. In the interest of making sure this training is as effective as it needs to be, we’ve assembled a few best practices to keep in mind as you design a curriculum.

The Purpose of Cybersecurity Training: Awareness

That’s the really important benefit that any training needs to emphasize, but particularly any efforts you make to educate your team about cyber threats and dealing with them. They need to understand how prevalent threats really are, and how often small businesses are actually targeted (it’s often, by the way).

Of course, you want this training to be as effective as possible, so there are certain steps that you should take.

How to Effectively Train Your Team Members

Understand Where Your Employees Stand

In order to train your team members properly, you need to have an understanding of what they do, and critically what they don’t know about cybersecurity at the present. Are they aware of the risks that they face and how to spot them, and—most crucially—do they give these risks as much attention and respect as they should? You need to establish all of these benchmarks and see to it that they appreciate the severity of the risk.

Adjust Your Cybersecurity Training to Their Needs

Once you’re familiar with your team’s training requirements, you can better shape the training they undergo to better fit their existing strengths and shortcomings. Customizing the training that each of your team members receives is crucial as each of them will have a different perspective… and different weaknesses as a result. A one-size-fits-all approach simply won’t be effective amongst a team’s members.

Don’t Rely on Scaring Them

Likewise, while an approach based on fear can be effective in some situations, teaching your team about IT best practices is not one of them. While fear can occasionally help prevent a mistake from happening, it can just as (if not more) often lead to an employee trying to cover up a mistake and exposing your business to greater issues as a result. Try inspiring them by appealing to their confidence, reassuring them that they can be successful in their cybersecurity.

Train, Measure, and Repeat

Now, we reach the final part: measuring the impact that your training has had and running it again, trying to make it that much more effective each time. This will take some time, particularly as you account for different learning styles that your various employees will almost assuredly have. Once you’ve trained them up on the security precautions and processes that you expect them to follow, test them. By evaluating their preparedness on a semi-regular basis (so as not to become predictable), you will be able to more accurately identify where work needs to be done, and by whom.

We Can Assist You in Your Cybersecurity Training

Turn to AE Technology Group and our team of experts to improve—amongst other things—your team’s cybersecurity training. To enquire about this or any other of our managed IT services, give us a call at (516) 536-5006.