Every business’s path to good cybersecurity starts somewhere. To know what you need, you need to know what you already have. A good way to begin that process is with a cybersecurity risk assessment. While that might sound daunting, a simple assessment can help start the conversation and bring general awareness to your current situation.

You probably hear many names or terms when working with your IT company. You may have heard the acronyms SOC and NOC. These sound pretty similar, but what do the acronyms stand for? What is the function of each? And, most importantly, if you have services provided by a NOC or SOC, what do those services include, or not include?

Software updates are something that we all have to deal with. Taking time out of your day to restart an app or restart your device entirely is just part of living in the world of technology.

If you’re in a situation where your key business operations are down and need to get back up and running, you can’t afford to fix everything on the fly. Doing so would result in huge losses and a massive headache.

This ever-evolving world of technology can be hard to keep up with. You’re always facing new choices when it comes to this stuff. It can be difficult to tell if you’re making the right decisions.

You use email, I use email, we all use email. But are those emails being protected? How does that all work? So, you might have heard of this thing called email encryption. Your business may have some form of this implemented. Maybe you have a limited idea of what it is or what it does- or maybe you don’t know anything about it. That’s okay. I’m new to this whole IT solutions thing and wasn’t quite sure myself. Email encryption was next up on my list of things to learn. I’m here to pass along some of that knowledge to you. We’re not going to get too into the weeds today. This stuff can become very complicated very quickly. Let’s just talk about what email encryption is and why it matters to you.

Our day-to-day work lives can be pretty busy. The last thing we want is for it to be more difficult to log into our computers. While some might view multi-factor authentication as necessary evil, its implementation can be made easier by working with your managed service provider.

It’s another week at Innovative, and I’m continuing to learn the ins and outs of a managed service provider. That feeling of being on a different planet is slowly starting to fade away. Am I an expert yet? Absolutely not. But hey, it’s progress. My most recent learning experience came in the form of a training session on cybersecurity packages. This stuff can be pretty daunting when you first dive into it. EDR, SOC/SIEM, MFA – what does any of this mean?

It has never been more critical to create a secure password. Cyber attackers are always looking to steal passwords so they can access our information and harm our business. According to the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, 81% of hacking-related breaches occur due to compromised passwords. Don’t become a statistic. It’s on us to make it difficult for them. A strong password is a simple yet essential way to protect your accounts and your business. You can take several steps to create the most secure password possible. It can be tricky dealing with character counts, punctuation and password length. The list of requirements seems to go on and on. Let’s walk through it and explain how you can protect yourself.

When it comes to cybersecurity, it's easy to feel like solution vendors are constantly exploiting your worst fears to sell you the latest and greatest solution you need to keep your business safe.