Financial services companies always have been primary targets for scammers, with account takeover the ultimate prize. If successful, phishing scams reward attackers with sensitive data they can use for financial gain, identity theft, or brand damage.
Documentation is the unsung hero of IT operations. It’s not sexy, but it touches everything that an IT tech does. MSPs that have upgraded from the world of word docs and wikis are unanimous and enthusiastic about the power of MSP documentation. But not all documentation solutions are created equal. So what are the key things you need to look for in a documentation platform to help maximize the value it provides for your MSP.
The mark of a superior documentation platform is one that establishes deep integrations with other tools in your tech stack. Seamless orchestration between the functions of each tool needs to take place, and your documentation manager should be the missing link that conducts this. If your documentation platform doesn’t support this level of integration, you’ll soon find that pain points are exacerbated and new issues arise.
Time for some cold hard truth about security, folks. Around this time last year, the Department of Homeland Security issued a warning that hackers were increasingly targeting managed service providers (MSPs) to launch ransomware attacks across end-customer systems. The Australian government echoed these concerns, noting that the trend is global in nature. Since then, we’ve seen high-priced ransomware attacks executed, following the pathway of moving from the MSPs system across to their client’s, crippling end user organizations.
Ever had a vendor reach out to your client as a contract was expiring, trying to get the business for themselves, cutting you out in the process? As an MSP, you’re often the intermediary between a vendor and the end client—a necessary role that’s beneficial to all parties. You have the relationships and the capacity to implement the vendor’s product and ensure ongoing satisfaction. It’s a symbiotic relationship that benefits all, but sometimes the vendor can’t resist the temptation to sidestep your MSP and go directly to the client, thereby capturing the margin that you once claimed. There’s no value in pointing the finger at vendors that do this or sitting around venting, so what can you do?
It’s a scenario we see far too often: all of a company’s data is stored and managed on a single server. It’s protected by a backup server, sure, but even that is kept on the same domain as everything else. One day, the domain is hit by ransomware that not only shuts down the servers, but also corrupts backup data. So, what then?
An Analysis of the Market for Endpoint Security Revealing Top Players, Trail Blazers,Specialists and Mature Players.
The act of prediction, itself, is the application of probability to determine what might happen. For example, if a person takes an action once, you might expect them to do it again. However, if that action caused a poor or negative result, you’d most likely expect the person not to do it again. Now, let’s make it more complex. Say that the person has taken the action in some situations, but not in others. By analyzing the details of each situation, determining the differences and factors in each one, you could begin to predict the likelihood of the person’s actions in a given context. Thus, to make a reasonable prediction for the future, you must have clear insight into past events, complete with context.
Welcome to the new world of work—a mix of independent contractors, freelancers, and gig workers that has more than doubled in size over the past decade. As recently as 2008, only fifteen percent of the average company’s overall workforce was considered contingent. Today, over forty-one percent of the average enterprise’s total workforce is non-employee, and ninety-seven percent of organizations consider independent talent to be critical to their success.
Shift4 Payments is a leading national provider of touch-screen point of sale (POS) systems and payment processing services. As pioneers of the “as a service” model, Shift4 Payments offers an unprecedented “free” POS program that allows the company’s sales partners to offer a full-featured POS system with no up-front costs.
SherWeb has been helping businesses around the world work smarter in the cloud since 1998. Our cloud solutions help companies be more agile in today’s competitive market and trim IT costs.
Stellar Cyber’s Starlight is the world’s first open detection/response (Open-XDR) platform, connecting the dots throughout the entire security infrastructure and automatically responding to attacks wherever they occur. Starlight integrates dozens of security applications from an App Store and presents results in an intuitive dashboard to supercharge analyst productivity.
The ASCII Group is a vibrant community of independent MSPs, VARS and solution providers in North America. The organization offers members leveraged purchasing programs, education and training, knowledge sharing among peers, discounts on business services, and more. Founded in 1984 by Alan Weinberger, ASCII is the oldest and largest group of independent IT solution providers, integrators and VARS in the world.
ConnectWise empowers technology service providers and IT professionals across the world to grow personally and professionally. With our award-winning software suite, a best-in-breed platform of third-party solutions, and the world’s largest community of IT professionals, ConnectWise enables businesses and users to succeed today, and tomorrow. Over 37 years, ConnectWise has grown from a technology service provider to the longest-running market leader in technology and IT software solutions. We’ve been where our partners are and know what’s necessary to be a successful technology service provider.
CompTIA is the voice of the world's information technology (IT) industry.
VoIP is the backbone of modern voice and unified communications, and it presents a host of service sales opportunities for purveyors of the managed services model. Navigating into VoIP from general computing, however, can be a daunting journey. We’ve compiled some of our most directive content on the subject in this free collection of articles.
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Ultimately, every business wants to do what they can to best serve their clients and customers. They also want to grow successfully, increase profits, and create lasting relationships for long-term recurring revenue. But in today’s cyber- climate, if you don’t have a good security setup, the chances you’ll get breached get higher every day. That means all the customers who trust you will have their confidence shaken—no matter how good your products or services are.
Many companies diligently pursue achieving compliance and believe that their information systems are secure. Unfortunately, this isn’t usually the case. Just making certain that compliance initiatives are in place does not guarantee an optimum security posture. The face and tactics of cybercriminals evolve daily creating an environment requiring continuous monitoring. A safe assumption is… cybercriminals will breach every company, and the question is “how quickly can you stop it?”.
When you consider modern attacks, it’s pretty obvious that all businesses—managed service providers (MSPs), small- to medium- sized businesses (SMBs), etc.—need a strong lineup of cyber-defense tools, not just a barebones firewall and old-fashioned antivirus. You need to protect your business first, and to do that, you have to build out a strong cybersecurity stack that can actually withstand the onslaught of modern malware.
Every managed service provider seems to be focusing on security these days. For an MSP adding security services, or an MSSP looking to target a new market segment, here are the common questions I frequently get when I meet with service providers.
Today’s businesses succeed by selling a handful of bundled items to a large number of customers. Think about restaurants, where the trend has been away from a’ la carte menus to limited menus, because it’s easier, more efficient, and requires less skill to produce a few entrée/side dish combinations than to try to fulfill each diner’s specific requests.
