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5 Signs Your Business Needs Cybersecurity Training

by EstesCloud | Oct 20, 2021 | Backup, Cloud, Disaster Recovery, Hosting, Managed IT Services, Network Security, Security

Cybersecurity Education Begins With Ownership

Small and medium sized business owners beware! 65% of attacks that originate in cyberspace are aimed at companies that think they’re too small to be of interest to cybercriminals. If you think you’re at low risk, read on and see why our IT security consultants recommend cybersecurity training for everyone.

Cybersecurity Training Hacker in Network Security Lock

Are you a small business owner? Or are you a once-small company now grown into the medium range of corporate presence? When it comes to cybersecurity solutions for businesses, you always have to structure your services and behavior to prepare as if you’re bigger than you are. This involves a comprehensive security solution that covers your entire company network, from suppliers to employees. Do you have an enterprise-level cybersecurity strategy that protects every connection and end user from digital harm?

If you own a business, you know how precious your data is to daily operations. Profitability depends on good data management behaviors. Because all companies are vulnerable to hackers, your data should be presumed insecure. Cybersecurity should be a proactive approach to cybercrime, rather than a reactive (disaster recovery) move.

Are you on a cybercrime watchlist?

Breaches happen, even to the most prepared companies. Therefore, your risk management policies should be revisited frequently. Business owners should be part of this process. A board of advisors might be beneficial, and it can be cost-effective to outsource this high-level cybersecurity work to a virtual CIO or to a firm with the technology skills that guarantee security for your data.

What happens when a hacker is watching your business?

It takes about a half of a year for business owners to become aware that a hacker has breached the network. It also takes about two months to react to a cyber attack.

Here are five signs your business is at risk and in need of cybersecurity training:

1. You are a small or medium size business.

Far less likely to report cybercrime to the authorities, small and midsized companies are viewed by hackers as a low-risk target. Manufacturers and distributors are often looking to scale, and maintaining a good reputation is key to a successful future. As a growing business, you wouldn’t want your reputation to include a history of victimization by way of ransomware.

2. You think it’s a small problem or that someone else is addressing the issue of cyber safety.

Fear of expense often prevents small and midsize manufacturers and distributors from securing the technology solutions and services they need to protect their data. A good backup solution isn’t enough, even though this is what many company owners depend on for risk management. When planning your IT department budget, price out outsourced help, especially when it comes to cybersecurity. Often, the experts at an IT managed services provider (MSP) will be more friendly to the budget than on-site technology staff.

3. You think you need to cut the IT budget… but IT costs are actually decreasing.

Firewalls and phishing filters are a necessity these days. Due to a mix of popularity and availability, technology cost trends show that business owners can get enterprise-level technology services with affordable pricing. Cloud-based IT services, such as SECaaS (Security as a Service) look at the unique needs of your business and adjust pricing accordingly. Only pay for what you need.

4. Your employees don’t know what they don’t know.

Cybersecurity training might be the most important activity you schedule for the end of 2021 or the beginning of 2022. The time is now. Hackers take advantage of poorly trained employees on a daily basis. 95% of security breaches are successful because of human error. Train, train, and train again. Technology is an ever-evolving field, and this ripples into the dark web as cutting-edge malware. Protecting your talented staff from the dark web is key to employee retention in today’s culture.

Fortunately, cyber education is often free online. Formal training is easy on the budget. If you have a million customers relying on your manufacturing operations to maintain uptime, your cyber security plan needs to defend more than credit card numbers and social security numbers. You need an IT solution that comprehensively protects the countless connections along your supply chain, right down to the home offices of your remote workers.

Sign up for a ransomware simulation attack today to see if your employees are ready for disaster. Employees are eager to learn security breach mitigation strategies because their personal information is at risk in the event of a data leak. Information security begins with security training.

5. You’re likely to pay the ransom if you are attacked.

More than half of small businesses pay a ransom. Reasons revolve around damage control: you definitely don’t want your data or your reputation harmed by a ransomware attack, so in the moment you are likely to pay the attacker. If you think you’d be likely to pay a ransomer to get your data back, then you stand unprepared. Once you have a solid cybersecurity plan in place with a crew of talented IT staff to support your solutions, you’ll know that you’ll never pay a hacker a dime of your earnings. In the event that you experience a breach, you’ll know that you have an incident response plan that won’t involve a ransom payment.

Today’s cyber landscape is riddled with massive corporations hitting the news for million-dollar ransomware attacks. When was your last security audit? It’s better to act as a big little company in a technology culture in which the hackers are frequently more skilled than even the best IT staff.

Empower your workers with the best solutions so that they can use their talents to their full extent.
Prevent identity theft of employees by securing personal data and corporate data.
Bring in a white hat hacker to test both onsite and remote cybersecurity solutions and services.

Can your staff respond properly to a data breach? Do you have an incident response plan clearly delineated so that all employees understand your disaster recovery process? Have employees been thoroughly trained to recognize cyber threats lurking in their email accounts as phishing attempts?

Cybersecurity training involves both on-premise and cloud-based breach mitigation techniques. EstesGroup offers coast-to-coast onsite and cloud IT services, including everything from project and budget planning to education and monitoring.

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month

by EstesCloud | Oct 12, 2021 | Disaster Recovery, Managed IT Services, Network Security, Security

EstesGroup is a Cybersecurity Awareness Month Champion

Are you mitigating both old and new cybersecurity threats? Are you navigating the vulnerabilities at both on-site and remote office locations? Are you communicating current best practices for cybersecurity across your employee pool? Cybersecurity Awareness Month, held every year in October, helps even the most informed business owners further secure their operations.

This year’s Cybersecurity Awareness Month initiative highlights the growing importance of cybersecurity by encouraging individuals and organizations to take necessary measures to stay safe and secure in an increasingly connected world.

EstesGroup is committed to Cybersecurity Awareness Month and is a 2021 Champion. We join a growing global effort to promote the awareness of online safety and privacy. The Cybersecurity Awareness Month Champions Program is a collaborative effort among businesses, government agencies, colleges and universities, associations, nonprofit organizations and individuals committed to the Cybersecurity Awareness Month theme of ‘Do Your Part. #BeCyberSmart.’

Mitigate Threats, Navigate Shortfalls, and Communicate Cybersecurity Policies

More than ever before, technology plays a part in almost everything we do. Connected devices have been woven into society as an integral part of how people communicate and access services essential to their well-being. Despite these great advances in technology and the conveniences this provides, recent events have shown us how quickly our lives and businesses can be disrupted when cyber criminals and adversaries use technology to do harm. We find these security vulnerabilities, while offering actionable guidance surrounding behaviors anyone can take to protect themselves and their organizations.

Secure By Design

What if social engineering attacks, dark web disturbances, and malicious malvertising intrusions into your life simply couldn’t exist? This month, make it a goal to stop them from existing in your business. Here are a few focus points to take into consideration when developing your cybersecurity policies:

Understanding and implementing basic cyber hygiene, including the importance of strong passphrases, using multi-factor authentication, performing software updates and backing up data. Creating a disaster recovery plan before a disaster necessitates such actions.
Recognizing and reporting phishing attempts whether it’s through email, text messages, or chat boxes.
Empowering individuals to not only practice safe online behavior, but consider joining the mission of securing our online world by considering a career in cybersecurity!
Making cybersecurity a priority in business by making products and processes “secure by design” and considering cybersecurity when purchasing new internet-connected devices.

If everyone does their part – implementing stronger security practices, raising community awareness, educating vulnerable audiences or training employees – our interconnected world will be safer and more resilient for everyone.

I’m Secure, You’re Secure, We’re Secure

Now in its 18th year, Cybersecurity Awareness Month continues to build momentum and impact with the ultimate goal of providing everyone with the information they need to stay safer and more secure online. EstesGroup is proud to support this far-reaching online safety awareness and education initiative which is co-led by the National Cyber Security Alliance and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Is Your Organization Secure?

Find out now by signing up for a network assessment. Chat with us now to schedule a free consultation with our technology experts!

Preventing Ransomware in the Automotive Aftermarket

by Brad Feakes | Sep 27, 2021 | Disaster Recovery, Distribution, Hosting, Managed IT Services, Manufacturing Innovation, Network Security, Security

How to Secure the Automotive Aftermarket

To help develop awareness of cybersecurity needs in the manufacturing and distribution industries, EstesGroup conducted a joint education session with the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA). SEMA is a trade association composed of manufacturers, distributors, retailers and specialists focused on automotive specialty parts and accessories.

The educational session,“Preventing Ransomware in the Automotive Aftermarket,” focused on the steps that SEMA members can do to mitigate cyber threats. These steps can help any business improve digital security, so I’d like to review some of the material covered concerning the landscape of cyber threats.

What is the Threat?

Threats to organizations are widespread and increasingly prolific. According to the 2021 Malware Report from Cybersecurity Insiders, 88% of a survey of 500,000 IT professionals and 76% of 30,000 small and medium-sized business owners say that cyberthreats are a significant and growing risk. The attack vectors are multifaceted, including spear phishing emails, domain spoofing, and man-in-the-middle attacks.

Cyberthreats are impacting organizations at all levels. On the business side, malware attacks caused both an increase in IT security-related spending and a decrease in productivity. At the IT operations level, ransomware is forcing cybersecurity professionals to update IT security strategies to focus on mitigation, as they struggle with data loss, downtime, and business continuity.

Watch the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) of “Preventing Ransomware in the Automotive Aftermarket”

Ransomware Questions, Security Answers

One might beg the question: Why is this happening? The reasons are surprisingly straightforward—the business of cyber warfare is a low-barrier, high-reward enterprise. The “startup costs” for a hacker who already has the necessary technical acumen are comparatively low, when compared to a traditional business environment.

The Reward is a Handsome Ransom

Cybersecurity is not merely an IT problem. It’s an enterprise-wide issue. As business owners, we do things to make our enterprises more integrated and efficient, and share information across the organization. But this creates new potential opportunities for exploitation. Moreover, since March of 2020, we and our fellow employees have been accessing our work environment from an increasingly remote context, further complicating company networks and creating new vulnerabilities.

Where are the Attacks Coming From?

The threats that proliferate our contemporary cyber landscape can be described as “hidden in plain sight” — the threat is as broad as the number of connected users, connected devices, and connected programs. It is not an exaggeration to say that every touchpoint is a potential threat. Some of the most common infiltration paths include the following:

Email: Email is a constant target of schemes and scams, and the attacks are getting more nuanced and personalized.
The Internet: Online infiltration dressed as information continues to be a source of attacks, with increasing attempts from hackers to disguise malicious domains to appear like the familiar sites that you know and love.
Programs & Applications: Within daily business operations, a company uses a surprising number of discrete applications. Whether online or installed on your devices, every program that we use for business purposes is a potential threat.
Integrations: The integrating of core systems with third-party applications increases the threat risk. We want the benefits of interconnectivity—for instance, we want our e-commerce system to speak to our inventory system so we know what is available to sell and ship. But in the hands of a hacker, that is a dangerous amount of information to possess.
Authentication: The credentials that users apply when accessing company resources can be a significant source of risk. Weak user credentials, simple passwords, and basic authentication policies can allow for significant system breeches.
The IOT Movement: The “internet of things” or “IOT” movement increased points of connectivity, and the number of viable targets. Who would have ever thought that you could get hacked by your refrigerator!
The BYOD Movement: The “bring your own device” or “BYOD” movement lowered the bar for device management. Increasingly, smartphones and other devices are accessing social media social media to access system resources. The risk here should be self-evident.
Remote Access: VPNs (or virtual private networks) provide extensive access to company networks. VPNs often provide more access than a user actually needs—it’s like providing access to the entire gymnasium just so you can reach the janitor’s closet.
COVID: The pandemic expanded the threat landscape, by increasing the number of remote users connected from a broader array of devices, many of them being inadequately-connected. On a broad scale, shared family devices were suddenly connecting to company headquarters.

The Future of Preventing Ransomware in the Automotive Aftermarket

As you can see, the threats are abundant, and the targets are many. The future of security in the automotive aftermarket depends on you and on your cybersecurity strategy. There are some simple steps that companies can take to mitigate the challenges of our current cyber landscape. To see what companies are doing to secure their organizations from threats, and what you can do to secure your future, please watch the recording of the SEMA educational session and come to our managed IT experts with any questions you have about current best practices for threat mitigation for businesses.

Let’s talk about cybersecurity and compliance regulations specific to your industry. Chat with us now to schedule a free technology assessment.

Manufacturing in America, Made in Colorado

by Brad Feakes | Sep 15, 2021 | Business Direction, Disaster Recovery, ERP Consulting, Manufacturing Innovation

Made by Colorado Manufacturers

Like many areas in the US, the Colorado manufacturing scene has been scrambling to adjust to the ongoing movement of the pandemic and its aftershocks. Changes in demand, fluctuations in labor, and radical shifts in supply and availability have resulted in new and unexpected challenges, and manufacturers across the state have, out of necessity, worked to devise clever solutions to a shifting array of problems.

Made at the NOCOM Manufacturing & Trades Show

The NOCOM Manufacturing and Trades Show 2021 conference, coming soon to the Larimer County Fairgrounds in Loveland, exemplifies one such clever strategy, which is actually an old methodology that we sometimes forget we have — in-person, mind-to-mind, heart-to-heart collaboration. It’s this type of energy that has not only kept the manufacturing industry afloat during the pandemic, but also allowed many of us to survive the seemingly endless virtual office hours.

At the recent P21 CONNECT conference, an in-person Epicor Prophet 21 user event, I realized how much I missed the benefits that come from being able to gather under the guise of a common association. There is a surprising amount of value that can be gained by the act of simple collaboration.

There are great benefits to sharing challenges facing one company (or an entire industry), and it often takes a community to surface the steps needed to prevail. Together, companies can work to delineate the quick and effective measures that can be taken and perform the actions required for mitigating risks. In the distribution industry, with community knowledge at the core, Prophet 21 consulting is largely revolving around supply chain issues, cybersecurity threats, and the shift from on-premise servers to cloud-based technology.

As we’ve seen in our preparation for NOCOM 2021, the manufacturing industry is facing similar challenges: supply and demand shifts, ransomware and malware threats, and cloud availability amid outdated technology trends.

So, what is your manufacturing strategy, and how has the pandemic changed community involvement in your business culture?

The sharing of the intellectual property of daily problem solving is something that just didn’t translate into online forums and Zoom calls. As we stagger back into some semblance of “normal” life, we look once again to share the value of in-person business meetings and socialization.

As we’ve faced together more than a year of volatility, we’ve learn that the solutions to problems in one industry might have applicability in another. We’ve learned that our problems may not be things that we have to bear on our own. In manufacturing and distribution, the ability to adapt quickly results in success.

There’s an old saying that goes “you are your friends” or “you are only as good as your friends.” In enterprise resource planning (ERP) consulting, we learn from our friends, so that we can adapt and succeed in our projects.

What can we learn from our friends as the Colorado manufacturing industry reopens?

The “Made in America” movement continues to find new applicability, as companies struggle to supply products locally, products that have been historically outsourced. The reactions are inconsistent — in some commodities, I hear of manufacturers and supply chain companies switch back to offshore supply as soon as it becomes available.

In other cases, I discover commodities that may remain in North America after the dust has settled. Increasingly, I stumble across products that have been crafted in Colorado, products new to the state. Colorado, like the rest of the nation, is learning to make things again, and this is one adaptation that you’ll see in the NOCOM community, whether you’re still following along from your virtual office or attending the in-person event this year.

Next week, EstesGroup will once again be returning to NOCOM in person. While we had fun at the virtual conference last year, we’re looking forward to the friend-to-friend interactions that can only be present while walking together, sharing dinner together, exchanging stories together. Providing cloud and IT services for manufacturers and distributors throughout the pandemic has taught us much about the resolve of the nation as we work with the companies as they reshape themselves to take on the needs of a reopening world.

If you are a manufacturer facing the challenges of reopening in 2021, 2022, and beyond, EstesGroup’s ERP and IT consultants would love to help you understand industry trends. Our team will be at NOCOM 2021 BOOTH 62 on September 23rd, and we’re hoping to see you there!

Are you a manufacturer struggling with cyberthreats? We fully support manufacturers remotely and in person! Our coast-to-coast consultants circle out from our Loveland office, supporting Colorado manufacturing and beyond, even throughout Canada!

Don’t Avenge a Cyber Attack – Prevent It

by Brad Feakes | May 21, 2021 | Disaster Recovery, ERP Risks and Challenges, Hosting, Managed IT Services, Network Security, Security

One cyber world story that captivated me as a youth was the character of “Ultron,” as depicted in comic books and in the movie adaptation of The Avengers. The character was a breed of artificial intelligence created with the intent of protecting the earth. But he turned against his creators, and against the earth itself, becoming a cyber super villain in the process. Origin story complete. Now queue the good guys.

Cyber Attack Encrypted Files Ransomware Attack

Such is the nexus of superhero narratives. A good intention turns violently wrong, necessitating radical intervention. Movies and comic books love to prey on fears of killer robots and cyber intelligence. It’s an archetype as old as the myth of Daedalus and Icarus: technology going too far and humanity in its arrogance flying too close to the sun, then landing on those old Led Zeppelin t-shirts instead.

Companies encounter similar, albeit less explosive, narratives when deploying cybersecurity solutions, in an attempt to lock down their networks. Often such solutions are deployed in the absence of a comprehensive infrastructure threat review. As such, they fail to provide comprehensive cyber protection.

This amounts to a technical placebo. The cybersecurity plan once implemented gives the impression of the cure without any real medicine provided. And while the attempt to paint over one’s data security problems is not itself an act of malice, it can nevertheless have deleterious effects to the organization in question.

My own experience in the business world tells me that user oblivion is as dangerous as malice when it comes to cyber vulnerability. A corporate network with rudimentary cybersecurity and normal online hacking attempts, such as phishing scams or malvertising, can be more problematic than a secured network under a heavy cyber attack, such as ransomware.

A Cyber Attack from an ERP Perspective

While the tale of Ultron and the Avengers had itself a happy ending, the story of many businesses is not so optimistic. I once worked for a manufacturing organization that was on the cusp of an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) cutover. Painstaking work had been done to ensure that all steps were accomplished and that everyone was ready for a successful go-live.

Training, communication, data conversion—all of the pieces were in place. Cutover weekend went without a hitch; the steps in the go-live plan were executed without issue. The first day live went off without major problems. The normal hiccups associated with a new system surfaced, but nothing unexpected came the way of the ERP implementation team.

On the second day after the ERP go-live, users quite suddenly lost access to shared network drives. Soon after, they began receiving errors when trying to save ERP transactions to the database. Then they abruptly lost access to the application entirely. Amongst all of the communication, they hadn’t even realized yet that their email server had gone down and that they were therefore no longer sending nor receiving communication. Their network had been completely compromised. Chaos ensued.

When people think of the most common reasons for an ERP failure, they normally speak of over-customization, or a lack of management support. They rarely think of ransomware. But for the company in question, getting ransomed over cutover weekend was the first step to a cascading number of failures. In a panic, the company reached for paper-based manual processes while communicating to customers and suppliers over hotspot connections, using the employees’ own private email accounts. It was a cyber mess on all ends and resulted in late shipments, efficiency issues, unhappy customers, and months of work to resolve. Time and talents could have been spent on things other than cyber attack recovery—if only the company had been prepared through preventive measures.

Companies Running ERP Systems Can Avoid Ransomware

The moral of this story is less than heroic: there are no super powers that can save a network that is unprepared, or insufficiently prepared, for an attack. And there are no super heroes to jump in and avenge the wrongdoing.

Avoiding a cyber attack entirely is always preferable to avenging it after it’s happened. Many companies believe they’ve taken the steps necessary to mitigate a cyber attack. Enterprise risk management needs to be an ongoing activity, however, with business owners and executives involved in designing, understanding, and implementing a cybersecurity plan customized to the vulnerabilities of the industry under attack—because every industry is ALWAYS under attack.

A company’s greatest vulnerabilities are often the ones that they never realized they had. The greatest risks are the ones they believe they’ve already mitigated. The company in this tale of ERP implementation security chaos thought they had done everything internally to secure their network. But their efforts were done in a vacuum, without any impartial opinions or outside analysis. They weren’t out to create a monster, but their vulnerabilities created a monstrous problem. They didn’t feel they were walking on enemy ground because the villians were hidden and undetected by current cybersecurity measures.

The lesson to be learned here is that malice often masquerades as magnanimity. The most significant threats to an organization are often clothed in good intentions.

Is Your Business at Risk of a Cyber Attack?

Could cybersecurity be the biggest problem you didn’t know you had? I’ll spoil the plot—cyber vulnerability, particularly the risk of a ransomware attack, is the biggest problem currently lurking within most businesses. Manufacturers are at risk of complete shutdown. Distributors face supply chain attacks on a daily basis. And there is no type of business that isn’t under attack. Law offices, financial institutions, hotels, medical facilities—all are under the threat of a cyber attack.

Are you feeling the cyber risk and wondering what you can do to protect your business? Don’t avenge your problems—prevent them before they’ve occurred. Get a security assessment, identify your vulnerabilities, and assemble your future. Know the problems you had yesterday and predict the ones you might face in the future of cybercrime.

Three Ways to Make Compliance Everyone’s Business

by EstesCloud | Apr 9, 2021 | Business Consulting, Disaster Recovery, ERP, HIPAA, Managed IT Services, Security

Compliance acronyms often become the “inside jokes” of an industry, a sort of alphabet soup, but the language of business governance can quickly result in confusion. Clever letter combinations echo the rules and regulations of businesses, especially for companies in manufacturing and distribution. Compliance is a company-wide issue that affects everyone from owner to customer. With that in mind, here are three ways to reduce the stress of compliance management by making the rules of the road everyone’s business:

1. Know the compliance acronyms that affect your business

2. Optimize your ERP for reporting and metrics tracking

3. Bring in experts when compliance involves advanced cybersecurity, data privacy regulation, or highly sensitive record management

Rules and regulations serve to keep your data protected. Here are a few of the most common regulations that govern business data:

GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)

Information that leaves the European Union must comply with GDPR even in countries that are not part of the EU. With comprehensive regulations for security and privacy in data handling, GDPR essentially protects your company from a security breach. If you draw any traffic from the European Union, you must follow the rules of general data protection regulation (GDPR).

HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996)

HIPAA compliance is very common, yet many medical facilities miss important steps necessary to meet the fine print of HIPAA laws. All organizations that interact with medical practices in any way must comply with HIPAA. Health and humans services organizations obviously fall within HIPAA privacy rule, but HIPAA violations are seen across industries as more companies host data subject to these health information laws. Small businesses often fail to comply because of limited in-house expertise, which is why 2021 is moving more and more owners toward partnership with a small business IT provider that offers compliance care.

Here are a few of the types of companies that must process data in ways that comply with HIPAA rules and regulations:

Here are signs that you are keeping up with HIPAA compliance:

Data is encrypted and protected by firewalls and anti-virus / anti-malware software suites
Data is managed according to a business continuity plan that involves backup and disaster recovery solutions
Risk management strategies include precise data breach response plans

Failure to comply with even a single HIPAA security rule has resulted in fines of 1.5 million for small companies and up to 16 million for large scandals. Large scale security breaches are common, and everyone handling or interacting with the medical industry needs to be ready for a cyber attack. Physical theft, such as mobile device theft, is also common, so in-house strategies must include data protection from employees and other on-site actors such as third-party consultants.

PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard)

Payment data is sensitive data, and is therefore protected by advanced compliance standards. Fortunately, these regulations demand solutions that benefit all businesses. If you collect credit card information for any reason, you must ensure PCI DSS compliance. All credit card information must be encrypted. Data access must be limited and tracked so that information stays in trusted hands.

Information transmission requires firewall protection, cybersecurity software solutions, and proactive security management. The network must be accessed for vulnerabilities, and all software must stay updated, patched, and in compliance with the PCI DSS regulations. A penetration test is the best way to see if your company is at risk of a data breach.

EstesGroup can help you create a compliance plan for your business. Compliance acronyms abound, but the right IT solution will quickly make the rules and regulations of your industry as simple as saying the alphabet.