Advanced Automation Blog

Nowadays, it is crucial that you make security a top priority. With the right approach, it not only saves you massive headaches, but also a considerable amount of capital—particularly if you leverage the appropriate solutions for SMBs. As a managed service provider, we can ensure that you implement the appropriate IT solutions to maximize the return on your security investment.

Cybercriminals fight dirty, whether it’s attacking small businesses, large enterprises, or individuals who just want to watch Netflix. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do for the community; you’ll always be a target for hacking attacks. To save time and effort, hackers will use low-tech attacks and social engineering attacks to target individuals. Hackers aren’t developing new threats all the time; if anything, they largely use existing exploits, purchasable software, and social engineering to take advantage of people.

As the threat landscape gets more concentrated with serious cyberthreats, new next-generation firewalls (NGFWs) have been developed to help stem the tide of negative outcomes that result from cyberattacks. An NGFW is an advanced network security device or software solution that combines traditional firewall capabilities with additional features and functionalities designed to provide enhanced protection and visibility into network traffic. NGFWs are designed to address the evolving and sophisticated nature of cyberthreats, including malware, intrusion attempts, and other malicious activities.

This past year saw a dangerous 86% increase in the most dangerous types of malware out there, so we want to ask you an important question: are you ready to protect your business from the different types of threats you might encounter? We know a technology solution that might help this mission along, and we want to share it with you today: artificial intelligence.

When we think about cybersecurity, we usually think about protecting our computers from viruses, right?

I’d imagine a few of our older readers remember a time when you would go to the store and buy antivirus software that came in a big brightly-colored box with a CD in it each year.

As you probably already know, things aren’t as simple anymore.

Your network security is of the utmost importance to your business for numerous, hopefully obvious reasons. However, there are a few errors that are easy enough to make that could easily be the proverbial monkey wrench in the works. Let’s go over what these network security faux pas look like, so you can resolve them more effectively (and don’t worry, we’ll discuss that, too).

Penetration testing is a topic that you might often hear and read about on the Internet, but you might not know exactly what it is without having it explained to you by a professional. Today, we want to clear up any misconceptions or ideas you might have about penetration testing and how it relates to your business’ network security, compliance, and regulatory requirements.

As statistics for cybercrime surge, it’s important to remember that your organization must do all that it can to protect itself. There is, however, a C-suite position that almost exclusively focuses on this task: the chief information security officer, or CISO. Many enterprises have individuals dedicated to the sole task of securing their organization, but smaller businesses might find themselves lagging behind in this regard due to no fault of their own.

Businesses sure use a lot of online accounts, and if they don’t keep track of the passwords associated with these accounts, things can get messy fast. To help with this effort, password managers, or applications that store passwords in an encrypted vault, have really taken off. Here are some of the reasons why businesses invest in password management solutions.

While cybersecurity is far from the most exciting thing a business can invest in, it’s certainly one of the most important parts of running any successful venture. Without cybersecurity, the endless number of threats on the Internet could infiltrate your network and create problems for your company.

We often discuss how your business can avoid the impact of ransomware, but what we don’t often discuss is what happens to businesses that do, in fact, suffer from such a devastating attack. We want to use today’s blog as an opportunity to share what your business should (and should not) do in the event of a ransomware attack, as well as measures you can take to avoid suffering from yet another in the future.

With countless threats out there waiting for IT professionals to slip up, it’s no small wonder that many of these professionals are opting into what is called a zero-trust policy for their security standards. But what is a zero-trust policy, and why is it so effective at curbing potentially dangerous situations for your business? Let’s investigate this in today’s blog article.

We don’t like it any more than you do, but if we have learned anything at all over the past several years, it’s that security absolutely needs to be a priority for all small businesses. In the face of high-profile ransomware attacks that can snuff companies out of existence, what are you doing to keep your own business secure? To put things in perspective, we’ve put together a list of some of the more common threats that all companies should be able to address.

What would you say if we told you that someone could buy access to your organization’s network for a measly $1,000? Well, this is the unfortunate reality that we live in, where hackers have commoditized the hard work you have invested in your organization. A study from KELA shows that the average cost to buy access to a compromised network infrastructure is insignificant at best, which is why it’s more important than ever to protect your business as best you can.

It’s easy to focus on threats that are external to your business, like viruses and malware that are just waiting to infiltrate your network, but what about threats that exist from within? While insider threats are not particularly common in the dramatic, over-the-top way that they are made out to be in movies and media, they are still a very real issue that should be addressed by your organization’s network security protocols.

Phishing attacks are some of the most common threats out there. Hackers will craft messages or web pages designed to harvest information from your employees, be it through suspicious requests for credentials via email or through false websites that look so much like the real thing that it’s no wonder they were tricked. How can you make sure that your employees don’t fall for these dirty tricks? It all starts with comprehensive phishing training.

Cybersecurity is critically important to businesses of all sizes, which means that all businesses need to put forth a concerted effort to ensure their security is locked down. This, in turn, will require someone to take point on developing a cybersecurity-focused internal culture.

Who better to do this than the boss?

There is an entire litany of stereotypes that are commonly linked to the term “hacker”… too many for us to dig into here, especially since they do little but form a caricature of just one form that today’s cybercriminal can take. Let’s go into the different varieties that are covered nowadays under the blanket term of “hacker,” and the threat that each pose to businesses today.

2020, unsurprisingly, has decided to go out with a bang, as it has been revealed that the United States was targeted in the largest cyberespionage attack to date. Let’s go over what this attack means, and how things will need to play out in the future.

For all the attention that we (and many others) give to cybercrime, people are still falling victim to hacks and scams every day. With most businesses operating more in the digital sphere than ever before, it stands to reason that they need to do more to keep from being a victim of a data breach or worse. Here are six things your business should do to keep from being a victim of a cyberattack.