These numbers reflect just how important it is to take precautions, particularly as remote work becomes the norm. They also mean that IT budgets will need to be restructured all over the world. We’ll look at the details behind the cybersecurity spending trends and how you can better allocate your cybersecurity budget to help maximize your spending.

Expectations in 2023

Gartner, a tech research and advisory firm, estimated that spending on information security will total $172 billion in 2022. This spike is putting pressure on security teams to deliver more for every dollar invested.

The problem is that between the infinite ways to attack a network (including social engineering) and the number of hackers, there is no such thing as infallible security. For organizations to truly prepare, there needs to be a real collaboration between IT leaders and CEOs. This includes an honest conversation about what security spending will look like but also a breakdown of what exactly the security will provide.

Looking Ahead in 2023 for Cybersecurity

The reliance on the cloud continues to grow, which means that AI and machine learning is likely to become the best way to secure your systems. Standardized threat detection is non-negotiable for companies that want to keep their names clean.

Leaders will also need robust disaster recovery planning if they hope to make it through anything from a cybercriminal attack to a literal force majeure. Today’s experts say that rehearsing is the best possible way to stay on your toes. If all the incident response steps are nothing more than theory, it’s all too likely for them to go up in smoke when the chips are down.

It’s also likely that more teams will begin to outsource their security, so they can free up resources for more important matters. In fact, one survey of 500 IT leaders found that 83% were planning to switch to managed IT support services, allowing their in-house teams to devote more time and attention to company-specific matters.

Cybersecurity Spending in 2023

The right Managed Service Providers (MSPs) can design better cybersecurity solutions for an organization and establish protocols that drastically reduce the odds of an attack in the first place.

Now that CEOs are finally taking notice of their vulnerabilities, there’s never been a better time to talk to the C-suite about how outsourcing can optimize your cybersecurity budget.

A good MSP can also keep you in the loop about the state of your systems and the evolving regulations that govern them. If you’re nervous about your compliance (or unsure of which rules even apply), you should use a portion of your security spending to remain up-to-date.

Trust and Cybersecurity

Trusting a third party isn’t always easy, particularly for leaders who want to keep everything under their personal umbrella, but the truth is that most in-house security teams don’t have the time or expertise to guard against the non-stop evolution of cybercriminals today. The right MSP can evaluate your current systems, adjust them as necessary, and then maintain them from there.

Cybersecurity Spending Trends: The Bottom Line

The bottom line is that when it comes to cybersecurity spending trends in 2022, outsourcing is more efficient. They take care of the help desk tickets, the license renewals, and all the other routine tasks that are drawing attention away from growing your revenue. If you want to learn more about what a combination of excellent customer service and a talented team can do for you, Dataprise is here to help.

Dataprise for Your Outsourced Managed IT Service Needs

As cyber threats continue to advance and become more common, it is vital that you evaluate the current cybersecurity spending trends of your industry and allocate a higher budget to protecting your business and its data.

As one of the leading managed IT support service providers, Dataprise helps you establish and retain competitive advantages by managing the technology that Is critical to your company’s success. Our managed solutions include IT management and support, cloud services, information security, and robust IT strategies. Contact us today to get the most out of your IT.

The post 2023 Cybersecurity Spending Trends appeared first on Dataprise.

Outages of any kind can result in the loss of data such as emails, financial data, client data, or company records. Not only can this lead to financial loss, but outages also present other threats such as reputational loss. Let’s dive into some steps your organization should implement to ensure a speedy recovery after a cyber incident occurs.

Build a Comprehensive BCDR Plan

What is a BCDR plan? Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR) involves a set of plans implemented to minimize the downtime and overall risk that your organization may experience due to a cyber incident. Business Continuity plans focus on keeping your organization functioning during and after any incident, while Disaster Recovery plans mitigate the damage that can be caused by an incident. Time is of the essence when identifying a cyber incident, as the quicker your organization can eradicate it, the better it can do staving off bad actors.

In 2021, the Health Service Executive of Ireland suffered a major ransomware cyber incident, causing all its IT systems nationwide to be shut down. It took four months to complete recovery from the attack and during that time, several hospitals could not access electronic systems and records and had to rely on paper records. At the time of this incident, the HSE did not have:

• A single responsible owner for cybersecurity at the senior executive or management level
• A dedicated committee that provided direction and oversight of cybersecurity and the activities required to reduce the HSE’s cyber risk exposure
• A centralized cybersecurity function that managed cybersecurity risk and controls
• Or a documented cyber incident response plan

No matter the industry, your IT team should be establishing a comprehensive BCDR plan to minimize downtime and effectively recover from a cyber incident. You never know when you could be targeted.

Implement Extra Layers of Protection

Ransomware continues to be a significant threat across all industries. These attacks have become more sophisticated to the point where they will lie undetected in your network and corrupt your backup data to force ransom payment.

Technologies such as Dataprise’s proprietary Enhanced Data Protection essentially create a copy of your data that lives outside of your repository that your organization does not have access to. The reason that organizations do not have access to this set of data is that if you can access it, so can the malware, viruses, or ransomware that you are defending from.

EDP provides an extra layer of protection, and more importantly, can ensure a speedy recovery occurs from a cyber incident. If you would like to learn more about Enhanced Data Protection and Dataprise DRaaS, feel free to download our datasheet.

Test, Test, Test!

Lastly, one of the most under-discussed actions to ensure a speedy backup recovery is to make sure your team is constantly testing your backups. One analogy that our team uses is, in the wake of a fire, would you be satisfied if firefighters showed up to your house fire, never having practiced how to put out a fire? Or would you be more comfortable knowing that the firefighters practice different scenarios so that when they show up, they know what they are doing, and how to put out a fire quickly and effectively?

There are parallels here for your cyber team, as constantly practicing and running your company’s Incident Response Plan through tabletop exercises, can shed light on any security gaps you may have. When the time comes, your organization needs to be able to act quickly and decisively to mitigate risk.

One of the major themes of cybersecurity awareness month is that it is not if, it’s when your organization will be exposed to a cyber incident, no matter the industry. Being prepared and intentional can help your organization recover quickly and effectively. If you notice that you have any gaps when it comes to a speedy recovery, contact us to learn more about our DRaaS offerings.

The post 3 Proactive Measures to Expedite Cybersecurity Incident Recovery appeared first on Dataprise.

What determines how extensive the damage of a cyber attack is, can highly depend on how your organization responds to it.

Here are the top 3 things you should do in the event of a cybersecurity incident:

Refer to your Incident Response Plan (IRP)

The first step your organization should take in any cybersecurity event is to review your Incident Response Plan (IRP), which should be accurate and up to date. IRPs should help your cyber team detect, respond to, and recover from a security incident. An IRP includes specific response actions based on the type of security incident (such as ransomware to account compromise) and provides a playbook for how to respond and who to notify.

If you have a solid IRP in place, the next actions your organization should follow what’s outlined in the IRP.

If you do not have an IRP or your IRP is out of date, read on to learn more about ideal first steps.

Prepare To Respond

Aligned with NIST’s Incident Handling Guide, if you don’t have an IRP in place, the next step is preparation. Preparation steps include:

• Identify communication and coordination mechanisms and involved parties
• Determine and access hardware, software, and resources needed for incident analysis and mitigation
• Ensure you have visibility into the necessary systems

With these steps in place, your organization can more easily proceed to our next step.

Detect and Analyze

With preparation in place, your organization should begin the process of analyzing the impact of the incident and detecting the damage caused. Time is of the essence, once the plan is in place, moving quickly gives your organization the best chance to mitigate a disaster as the quicker your organization Steps include:

• Perform initial analysis and validation for the incident and its indicators to determine incident’s scope. This includes – what systems are affected, who or what originated the incident, and how the incident is occurring. For this to be an in-depth analysis, your organization needs tools in place that provide the monitoring, data collection and visibility to determine what has happened in your environment and what data the intruder may have had access to
• Document every step taken from the time the incident was detected to its final resolution
• Prioritize the handling of the incident by relevant factors such as functional and information impact

After the above steps have been taken, your organization should now go down the path of containment, eradication, and recovery to ensure the impact to your organization is as minimal as possible.

With cybersecurity, it’s not a matter of if you get attacked. It’s a matter of when. To effectively protect your organization, you need a cybersecurity program in place that provides real-time detection, validation, reporting, and response capabilities to protect your IT environment from end to end.

Resolving and remediating after a cybersecurity incident can be a large undertaking. By working with an MSSP, you can reduce the burden and focus on what your organization does best. Dataprise is a leading strategic IT solution provider specializing in managed security. Download our CIO-reviewed ransomware checklist, which includes a bonus Incident Response Tabletop Exercise that you can use to have a discussion within your IT department to determine your organizational preparedness for a cyber incident.

The post What to Do First in A Cyber Incident appeared first on Dataprise.

I originally got into technology when I was younger through my grandfather. He absolutely loved computers and everything about them. We bonded about so many things, but computers were our favorite thing to talk about together. I loved the problem-solving aspect of it and the fact that I could play around with different options to solve whatever problem I had or even just to learn something new.

Did you always know that working in technology was what you wanted to do?

I had a completely different career in mind at first! I originally wanted to work in the fashion industry. But I ended up pursuing the technology path when I went to college and the rest is history.

How long have you been with Dataprise?

About 7 months

Can you share a little bit about what it is that you do and what a typical day for you is like?

I provide technical support for any incoming requests from any of our company’s clients by either phone or email. I provide first-tier support to our customers for any issues related to Windows workstations, MAC OS, printers, mobile devices, Microsoft 365, Active Directory, or basic application and hardware troubleshooting. So, a typical day consists of me answering any incoming calls or emails for needed support and working to resolve them. Along the way, I also document any troubleshooting steps taken through our ticketing system.

What advice would you give to women considering a career in the tech industry? What do you wish you had known?

Do not be intimidated to enter this as a career, there are so many different fields within IT that gives you the opportunity to carve out your own niche. Take your time to learn and find what you like best.

Why do you think it’s important for more women to join the tech industry? How can the broader community support women in tech?

We, as women, are truly needed in this field. I get so many compliments from other women who are customers who are grateful to work with me simply because I am a woman. That alone reminds me that I am where I am supposed to be. I think just continuing to provide women with more information about the community and the different fields that they could enter would be a big help.

What do you think is the best part of being a woman in the tech industry?

I enjoy being apart of an evolving field. Technology changes and evolves so often, and it is such an honor as a woman to get to experience it and have the ability to be apart of the change.

What is it that you enjoy most about your current job at Dataprise?

I enjoy that some of the tickets I work on challenge me to problem solve and that I’m continually learning new things.

What is the best professional advice you’ve ever received?  

Never stop learning; it will improve the way you think, and it will be a huge help in advancing your career.

Where do you see yourself going from here?

I would like to continue working in technology and possibly migrate into the Cyber field.

The post Women in Technology: Meet Chanel C. appeared first on Dataprise.

Here are the top attacks your organization should prepare for in 2023:

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) Attacks

As organizations have implemented MFA technologies in their environments, hackers are utilizing these technologies in their attempts to gain access to internal systems and data. A recent case of this in the news was in the Uber compromise, where the hacker was able to get in due to an abuse of their implemented MFA solution.

In these “MFA-fatigue” attacks, typically attackers will bombard users with repeated MFA approval notifications with the goal of eventually wearing them down and having the employee approve the notification out of frustration. As these attacks require stolen, valid credentials to launch, once the notification is approved, the hacker will have access.

This attack method emphasizes the need for adequate user training and other protections in place to supplement multi-factor authentication, such as a Zero-Trust Network Architecture to limit organizational access and 24×7 security monitoring to evaluate user behavior analytics and respond to potential attacks.

Hardware and Software Vulnerabilities

Cybersecurity best practice involves continuous patching of your systems and hardware to ensure your environment is receiving the latest security updates and for good reason.

Attackers continue to search for vulnerabilities in commonly used technologies and exploit where they can. Between the cybersecurity community and the technology organizations themselves, updates and workarounds to patch the known vulnerabilities can be released quickly once the vulnerability has been discovered, but it then falls on organizations to be aware of the changes and implement those updates in a timely manner.

Shadow APIs

As organizations adopt more and more technologies into their environment, the need arises to integrate those technologies and the data within them, which frequently elicits the use of APIs.

Shadow APIs are APIs that are utilized within your organization but are not documented or tracked in your environment and do not follow a defined process that include security and peer review. These can occur when development teams incorporate APIs without involving central IT or when APIs are not properly deprecated. These APIs can leave organizations open to attackers that can exploit vulnerabilities or misconfigurations in the code.

Attacks through Mobile Devices

According to Verizon’s 2022 Mobile Security Index, 45% of the organizations surveyed experienced mobile-related compromise, almost twice as many than in their 2021 survey.

Mobile endpoints extend your attack surface in your environment and in turn, your potential for security gaps. Yet too often mobile device security isn’t fully integrated within a business and is overlooked as a part of an organization’s cybersecurity program.

Mobile device specific attacks can range anywhere from phishing text messages to juice jacking in airports where a public USB charging station is infected with malware. There may

The best protection against attacks on mobile devices is to utilize a mobile device management solution to protect your organization against attacks made on your end-users’ devices.

Supply-Chain Attacks

Supply-chain attacks continue to threaten organizations across all industries. In a supply chain attack, hackers will target vulnerabilities of third-party vendors who offer services or software and utilize their access to infiltrate their customers.

Ensuring your organization has best-practice cybersecurity measures in place an a solid approach to vendor risk management can help defend these types of attacks.

Ransomware

Last but not least on our top attacks list is ransomware. Ransomware continues to be a good revenue stream for threat actors, as the average cost of a ransomware attack is currently $4.54 million according to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach report.  

Unfortunately, ransomware isn’t going anywhere in 2023 and organizations need to be actively putting measures in place to prevent ransomware attacks.

Protecting Against These Attacks

As your organization plans for 2023 initiatives, cybersecurity needs to be at the forefront of your priority list to protect against these types of attacks.

The best way to protect your organization is to ensure that you have a comprehensive cybersecurity program in place that includes multiple layers of protection and full visibility into your environment’s network, endpoint, and cloud activity.

The post Top Attacks Your Organization Should Watch Out for in 2023 appeared first on Dataprise.

To help you get started, here are 10 cybersecurity tips every employee should know:

1. Utilize a strong password

We have all heard that having a strong password is important, but what classifies as a strong password?

Strong passwords:

• Should be at least 16 characters long
• Contain and mix letters, symbols, and numbers
• Avoid utilizing words, especially proper nouns
• Never include Personally Identifiable Information (PII)
• Are not re-used

If you are creating secure passwords, it can be difficult to keep track of them all. Using a password management app to store and manage your different passwords can help you keep organized in a secure fashion.

2. Use the SLAM method to help spot suspicious emails

Phishing attacks are a huge part of modern-day cyberattacks – some are highly personalized and may contain references to your coworkers, family members, your hobbies, and more.

The best way to mitigate this is awareness, use the SLAM method to help identify phishing attacks:

• Sender: Check the sender’s email address
• Links: Hover and check any links before clicking
• Attachments: Don’t open attachments from someone you don’t know or attachments that you weren’t expecting
• Message: Check the content of the message and keep an eye out for bad grammar or misspellings

3. Secure Your Web Browser

Web browsers are used frequently on corporate and home devices, and attackers will try to exploit vulnerabilities in them to take control of your computer (for example, this year’s Google Chrome Zero-Day vulnerability). The best way to secure your web browser is to configure automatic updates, avoid saving passwords in your browser, use trusted web browser plug-ins from web browser app stores, and limit security settings and what data is being transmitted to web browser providers.

4. Maintain the Latest Software on Your Smart Devices

To help prevent attackers taking advantage of vulnerabilities on your smart devices, update phones, tablets, TVs, speakers, thermostats, etc. with the latest software available. If an Auto-Update feature is available, enable it. These devices can potentially be a source of infection just like any other computer.

To further secure your devices, ensure your utilizing screen unlock password capabilities where available. Organizations should also consider mobile device management solutions to help increase the security of their mobile device environment to help ensure device and app compliance and control data flow outside trusted mobile apps and devices.

5. Utilize Multi-factor Authentication (MFA)

For both corporate applications and personal applications, it’s imperative to enable MFA to validate that the person logging is who they claim to be, and to prevent malicious hackers from authenticating into your network.

6. Secure Your Home Network

If left unsecured, your home network can pose a risk to both your personal and corporate data if you are working remotely.

Here are a few tips to help secure your home network:

• Plug computers into your router, not your modem
• Change the default password on your router
• Ensure firmware is updated, choosing automatic updates if available
• Disable remote router administration – you should not need to make changes when you are away and this increases security by removing an easy path to your device

7. Use a VPN

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) provide a great way for employees to securely access remote resources from multiple locations by connecting two private networks securely over the internet. Utilizing public Wi-Fi in airports, hotels, and coffee shops without a VPN can inadvertently give away a lot of details about what devices you have and what you’re doing on the internet. In the hands of a hacker, this information can be used to formulate an attack.

8. Don’t Forget About Physical Security

As more and more employees travel back into the office, it’s important to remember that physical security at the office is also important.

Reminders for physical security include:

• Lock your computer when leaving your desk
• If your organization uses badge access, don’t allow tailgating – each person should scan their own badge
• Protect and lock away paper files with sensitive data

9. Be Aware of What Information You’re Sharing on Social Media

Social media may be a great way to share information with family and friends, but are you also sharing information with attackers?

Scammers and attackers can use the information you post on social media to gain PII about you that can be used against you. Review your privacy settings on a recurring basis, delete old and unused accounts, and review your photos and videos foreground and background before posting to ensure you’re not sharing anything that could reveal key pieces of personally identifiable information.  

Before you go to post on social media, ask yourself – could this information you’re about to post be used against you?

10. If you see or do something, say something!

Last but not least, if you notice something suspicious, whether it be an email, text, or unauthorized visitor in the office, or end up accidentally clicking a phishing email link, alert your supervisor, IT department, or company to help ensure that the incident is handled quickly, and damage kept to a minimum.

Employee education is a critical component of cybersecurity, and organizations should have cybersecurity awareness training as an ongoing part of their cybersecurity program in addition to other layered defense and protection measures, such as 24/7 monitoring and alerting, managed detection and response, and vulnerability assessments.

Cybersecurity impacts us all, and it’s up to both employees and employers to remain educated on cybersecurity best practices to protect ourselves and our companies from malicious attacks.

The post 10 Cybersecurity Tips Every Employee Should Know appeared first on Dataprise.

Before we get started, it’s important to note that Dataprise experts recommend that your organization have standing meetings between all department heads in your organization to ensure alignment, especially involving the IT and Finance groups. Having alignment meetings helps give visibility on projects to other departments within the organization, and spawns ideas that wouldn’t have come up otherwise.

Now, let’s explore 5 ways IT and Finance can collaborate.

IT can assist Finance with Business Reporting

With organizations pivoting to hybrid work models, efficient and effective collaboration has never been more important. One of the ways that IT can help finance grow is by implementing financial reporting software. Software like this is meant to keep everyone in the loop no matter where you are and allow finance to forecast revenue and profit, among other metrics. Providing dashboards and other reporting mechanisms helps provide internal stakeholders information on how the business is tracking its goals.

IT can assist Finance in securing sensitive financial records

Another way that IT assists Finance through collaboration is by securing sensitive records. Your organizations IT department is responsible for securing all the company’s sensitive data. All organizational data is sensitive, but it is especially critical that the IT team collaborates effectively with the finance department to make sure that all financial sensitive data is secure. Studies show that phishing cases are exponentially rising, and organizations cannot risk any downtime that could occur from this. Organizational downtime is a finance team’s worst nightmare, as there is no cash flow while you are not operating. Dataprise experts have developed a ransomware checklist designed to help your organization prepare before, during, or after an attack. Download the Checklist below.

Finance can assist IT with IT Budgeting and Forecasting

Next, let’s touch on a way that finance can assist IT. Budgeting and forecasting are of the utmost importance to organizations to maximize growth and operational efficiency. Finance departments are experts in budgeting, so they can assist in helping the IT team create a budget that fits the organization’s mission. By collaborating to budget effectively, organizations should be aiming towards putting their IT spending in a place where they can provide better service to clients and make their employees more efficient with how they provide that service.

IT can assist Finance with Automation

Additionally, IT can collaborate with Finance with automation. What automation can accomplish these days is fascinating. Whether it’s approval workflows of contracts, electronic document signing, expense reporting, etc. automation can relieve some of the day-to-day monotonous tasks that the finance department would have to deal with. This freed up time for the finance team can be spent forecasting business needs and better preparing the business for the future.

Finance can assist IT with presenting ROI to internal stakeholders

Lastly, another way that Finance can assist IT is by collaborating to come up with ROI when presenting new ideas to internal stakeholders. 2 is more powerful than 1, and having two leaders united to speak on a matter will lead to the overall point getting across more effectively. The Finance team can help provide ROI to board members that are not so technical and might not understand why the IT department would need further investment.

Organizational collaboration is critical to ensure that the business grows. This collaboration between the IT and Finance teams cannot be understated – being on the same page directly leads to the organization being more prepared, secure, and efficient.

The post 5 Ways IT & Finance Can Collaborate to Drive Scalable and Secure Growth appeared first on Dataprise.

But what can your organization do to combat this trend? The answer involves assessing current cybersecurity posture, detecting security vulnerabilities, and responding with continuous vulnerability management.

Questions to Help Develop Your Human Firewall Protection

Here are a few questions to ask yourself to determine if the human firewall protection in your organization needs a boost: 

Are you educating and training your users?

If No…

Your employees are the most valuable asset to your business, but they are also the most vulnerable.  End users represent the largest attack surface in your organization, and ensuring they are properly trained to identify potential security threats is the easiest way to strengthen and boost your business’ security posture.

Training can be provided in-person, through interactive computer-based modules, and/or with continual education campaigns. Interactive training (e.g., malicious email identification, phishing campaigns) not only arm users with the information they need to spot malicious behavior but also test their knowledge. All employees from the summer intern to the CEO should receive regular security training. 

If Yes…

Understanding the importance of employee security education is critical to your organization and its information security efforts, but there is always more that your organization can do.

• How often are you holding security trainings?
• Are you implementing different training methods to accommodate different learning styles?

Continual education is necessary to keep up with the ever-changing cyber security landscape.

Do you have security policies and procedures in place that are shared with your employees?

If No…

Training is important but having clearly defined policies and procedures that map directly to business goals and objectives is critical to ensure employees and the organization remain accountable. Policies and procedures should include sections on such topics as bring-your-own-device (BYOD) and acceptable use, file sharing best practices, restricted site access and online activity, and remote work procedures. These policies are increasingly important to have in place as remote and hybrid work continues to be prominent for many organizations and users are accessing company data outside of the corporate network.

If Yes…

• How often do you update your policies and procedures?
• Do they follow industry-best practices from such defining organizations as National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST), International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and Payment Card Industry (PCI)?
• Do you know if employees follow the policies?

Having a security policies and procedures guide is a great first step, but your organization needs ensure compliance and update policies regularly to continually align with best practices. 

Do you know how your employees access company data?

If No…

Understanding how your employees access data can give your business the transparency it needs to create policies and procedures. Do they connect to company email on their phone? What happens if they lose their phone? If your workforce uses their own devices (e.g., phones, laptops, tablets), you should require users to set a secure password on those devices, have MFA in place, and consider utilizing a mobile device management solution.

If Yes…

If you have a full understanding of how and where employees access company data, are you actively taking measures to secure your data? Data access controls and knowledge lead to improved measures to protect data.  

Are you actively auditing controls and logging capabilities?

If No…

Does your business have a clear picture of who has administrative access to critical information? Administrators that can easily access multiple, critical components of information and infrastructure can create an unnecessary yet hidden risk. If their credentials are compromised, so is all the information they can access. Ensure that your organization is only giving administrative access to those that really need it and consider adopting a zero-trust framework. Additionally, train those that have extensive access on security procedures to keep your data safe with human firewall protection. 

If Yes… 

Auditing controls and logging capabilities give your organization insight to easily see and control data access permissions. Ensure that this auditing and logging happens across all systems and portals that store sensitive data, and ensure these logs are correlated and reviewed on a regular basis for anomalies.

Are you analyzing your security program and findings?

If No…

Your organization should continually review its employees’ online behavior. Are employees falling for the same attack? Are there new attack methods on which employees need to be trained? Analyze your employees’ behavior and use that information to improve security practices within your organization.

If Yes…

Cybersecurity is always changing, which means the threat landscape is changing, too. If you’re analyzing your security program, what are you doing with the information you find? Are you actively taking steps to improve the program? It is important to ensure you measure the controls in place for their continued effectiveness on a periodic basis.

Managed Security Service Provider

Does your IT security program need improvement? Is your business lacking adequate human firewall protection? Utilize a Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) like Dataprise can help you to create security policies, educate your employees, provide 24×7 monitoring and remediation, and help you strengthen your organization’s human firewall protection.

The post Strengthening the Human Firewall: Steps to Improve Employee Security Training appeared first on Dataprise.

I got into technology due to some influence my cousins had on me. They both loved working in IT which pushed me to try it. I love that it is always changing and there’s always so much to learn!

Did you always know that working in technology was what you wanted to do?

No, I didn’t. After high school I had no clue what I wanted to do. After speaking with my cousins, I signed up for college and started working towards a degree in cyber forensics and found it so interesting. From there I knew this was the path for me.

How long have you been with Dataprise?

I started with Dataprise in April of 2022 so about 5 months now!

Can you share a little bit about what it is that you do and what a typical day for you is like?

I work as part of the Product Support team here at Dataprise. We help multiple clients troubleshoot their systems or perform work on simple things like resetting passwords. We are also most customers’ first point of contact, so we help with triaging the more complicated issues.

What advice would you give to women considering a career in the tech industry? What do you wish you had known?

My advice to women considering a career in the tech industry is to go for it! Be confident in yourself and embrace what makes you different. I wish I had known about Dataprise sooner! This company is so supportive for all people and provides so many tools for learning and success.

Why do you think it’s important for more women to join the tech industry? How can the broader community support women in tech?

I think it’s important for more women to join the tech industry so we can break the stigma around it. To support women in tech, treat us the same way you would treat anyone else, as equals.

What do you think is the best part of being a woman in the tech industry?

The best part of being a woman in the tech industry is to help show other women that they can do it too!

What is it that you enjoy most about your current job at Dataprise?

Everyone at Dataprise has been so welcoming and helpful. Team members are always lending a hand and managers are always there for support.

What is the best professional advice you’ve ever received?  

My cousin once told me: “Find something that not a lot of people like to do or are knowledgeable about and be the best at it.” This inspires me to make every customer interaction a learning experience. I often go through past tickets and take notes so I can broaden my knowledge and skills to make me more successful in my position.

Where do you see yourself going from here?

I plan on staying in technology. I would love to try out the security side of it and would love to stay and grow with Dataprise!

I plan on staying in technology. I would love to try out the security side of it and would love to stay and grow with Dataprise!

The post Women in Technology: Meet Emily appeared first on Dataprise.

Corresponding Content

• Checklist: How to Create a Disaster Recovery Plan

Run Your Organization Through a Business Impact Analysis

Recovering from data loss, ransomware, or any attack, in general, is not always possible if a company isn’t prepared. Being prepared for the inevitable could save your company from not only losing valuable data but also the capital losses caused by the downtime the organization may experience.

A Business Impact Analysis allows you to go through and examine your systems, workflows, applications, and other factors that are necessary for your business to operate. In this analysis, your organization can determine things like:

• How does an outage affect the organization’s reputation or brand?
• If your organization’s services are unavailable to your customers or your employees, how does that look financially?
• Do clients and employees feel uncertain about the ability of their employer to maintain, a reliable workplace?

Maintain Software and Hardware Best Practices and Test Your Backup Process

Another key to establishing a successful disaster recovery plan is to make sure your organization is in line with hardware and software best practices across the industry. You may be wondering, well what does that exactly mean, and what are these best practices?

• Make sure your versioning is patched
• Reboot your servers
• Make sure you have the capacity for your servers in hardware upgrades

In addition, it’s crucial to test your backups when you have them in place. We highly recommend this, as entering a DR event just to find out the server does not work will lead to massive problems. Your organization can test the issue by spinning up a real DR event and making sure that all applications are tested from a server level.

Implementing Cyber Insurance

The predicted rise in the cybersecurity insurance market between 2022 and 2027 is from $11.9 billion to $29.2 billion. This market has boomed as the demand for protection from cyberattacks has increased over the past years. Cybersecurity insurance is a crucial aspect of developing a successful BCDR plan, as when notified, your insurance can put a freeze on your internal environment. During this freeze, the damage can be inspected, assessed, and reported to the proper authorities. This is meant to serve as complementary to a cybersecurity and BCDR program to ensure your organization is fully protected and ready to mitigate any form of risk.

Corresponding Content:

• Cyber Insurance Minimums Checklist

Dataprise Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning services help your organization assess your current level of maturity and develop strategies, procedures, and documentation that enable your organization to continue essential functions and restore IT services following a disaster. If you would like to learn more about how Dataprise can be a fit for your organization in setting up a successful BCDR plan, feel free to download and refer to our latest data sheet.

The Importance of a Business Impact Analysis and How it Works in a Disaster Recovery Situation

The post Three Keys To A Successful Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan appeared first on Dataprise.