MSPNetworks Blog

All businesses use email to communicate, but too many organizations haven’t jumped on the encrypted email bandwagon yet. Encryption is incredibly helpful to keep networks and infrastructure secure, and it can do the same for your email solution. In fact, it is likely required to ensure the secure transfer of critical and sensitive information.

Encryption is a powerful weapon against hackers that can prevent them from stealing your data and leveraging it against you. Encryption, in its most basic textbook definition, converts your readable data into an indecipherable jumble that can only be reassembled through the use of an encryption key. Small businesses absolutely must utilize encryption to protect customer information, financial records, and other important or sensitive business data. This ensures that it is as protected as possible against those that might do you harm.

Scammers look to take advantage of someone else for their own gain, but there are some scammers out there who are trying to scam the scammers to teach them a lesson. One such individual is “Kitboga,” a content creator who calls themselves a “scam baiter.”

All it takes is one oversight to potentially undo any benefits your cybersecurity protections and other best practices may deliver. For instance, even if you have things like multifactor authentication in place, a phishing scam or even some malware varieties could potentially give an attacker access to your email… and all the data your messages contain, just sitting in your inbox.

SMBs tend to rely on their longstanding clients to bring in the majority of their revenue, so what happens when clients suddenly cannot trust your business’ reputation? Look no further than if you were to suffer from a cyberattack for an answer. It turns out that being careless with your clients’ data is one of the best ways to sink your reputation.

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.

Cybersecurity is crucial for everyone to focus on, both in the professional environment and in their personal lives. That’s why I wanted to put together a list of cybersecurity practices you should encourage your team to follow when they aren’t in the office or working remotely, when their time is theirs. 

Believe it or not, if you were to rank your business’ greatest threats, risk factors, and vulnerabilities, your users would most likely belong somewhere toward the top. Human error is a big challenge to your security simply because cybercriminals understand that your employees are, in fact, human and will, in fact, make mistakes.

Let’s explore how cyberattacks exploit this tendency and how you can better protect your business from the ramifications.

One of the best things about the move towards streaming in media is that since people love watching real-life stories, studios have committed to creating documentary content that provides interesting perspectives. Many people don’t have a comprehensive understanding of technology, especially as it relates to real-world situations, so dramatized documentaries can be a good source of information. Today, we’re going to go through three riveting technology documentaries that are available on streaming services.

When it comes to running a successful business, customer confidence is everything. It can make or break your business’ reputation. If you’re too reckless with your customers, why would anyone else be willing to sign on with you? Thankfully, there are plenty of ways you can build customer confidence, and technology plays a pivotal role in many of them. Today, we want to explore how you can build customer confidence through the use of business technology solutions.

Like many of the past few years, this year has witnessed a significant surge in high-profile ransomware attacks. If you haven't already strategized how to safeguard your business from these threats, now is the time to act. Fortunately, you can take several proactive measures to mitigate the impact of ransomware attacks, and it all starts with preparation.

While the word “audit” can easily be a scary thought for businesses, there are certain cases where an audit serves an organization’s direct benefit. Take, for instance, the ones that occur internally to identify and correct security issues and vulnerabilities. These audits are not only a positive endeavor for businesses; they’re extremely important to carry out.

Let’s talk about why this is and review a few standard practices you should prioritize as you go about this process.

Phishing is a pervasive threat nowadays, with businesses of any size or industry serving as prime targets. Understanding phishing and implementing effective prevention strategies is crucial for your entire team.

Let's explore how to reduce the effectiveness of phishing schemes against your business—in other words, how to prevent phishing from having an impact.

Today, cybersecurity is everyone's business. It's not just the IT department's job anymore. When a hack happens, it can feel like a personal violation. It's scary, confusing, and you might not know what to do next.

Safeguarding your online accounts is an important part of maintaining network security. With the increasing number of cyber threats, relying on strong, unique passwords is no longer optional—it's a necessity. Remembering complex passwords for numerous accounts can be challenging, however. This is where password managers come in handy, offering a secure and convenient solution to managing your credentials.

Hackers are always on the lookout for personally identifiable information, or PII, as it’s an immensely lucrative resource. You’ll need to protect it if you want your business to continue operating safely and efficiently. Let’s go over what PII entails and what kinds of data you might find under this term.

The password isn’t nearly as secure as it used to be. Hackers have begun to take advantage of extremely powerful solutions designed to brute force their way into accounts by using software to rapidly guessing thousands of passwords per second, making it extraordinarily difficult to prepare yourself for them.

What’s the best way to guarantee that passwords aren’t going to be the downfall of your company? A great start is by taking a close look at password best practices and two-factor authentication.

Despite what detractors say, regulations are in place for good reason. They typically protect individuals from organizational malfeasance. Many of these regulations are actual laws passed by a governing body and cover the entire spectrum of the issue, not just the data involved. The ones that have data protection regulations written into them mostly deal with the handling and protection of sensitive information. For organizations that work in industries covered by these regulations there are very visible costs that go into compliance. Today, we look at the costs incurred by these organizations as a result of these regulations, and how to ascertain how they affect your business.

2023 was definitely the year that AI became a household name. We’ve barely seen what artificial intelligence is capable of, and while industries are still coming up with more ways to use the technology, we’ve already seen countless examples of how people want to take advantage of AI for less savory purposes. 2024 is already shaping up to be the year that businesses need to protect themselves from AI-generated cybersecurity threats. Let’s take a look at everything you need to know as a business owner.

What’s the State of AI in 2024, and How Can It Be Used?

In case you haven’t been caught up, the tech world has been shifted by some new technology that uses vast amounts of information and complex algorithms to generate human-like text. In the simplest terms possible, engineers wrote a piece of software that was designed to “train” itself by reading a massive amount of text from the Internet. It read about 300 billion words from books, social media sites, news articles, and plenty of other types of content. Because it was able to absorb and index so much information, users can ask it questions and it can understand and respond to those questions in plain English (or Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and more). 

This is called a Large Language Model, or LLM, and the most popular version of this right now is called ChatGPT. Most people commonly refer to this technology and other similar types of systems as artificial intelligence (AI).

These systems can do some pretty remarkable things. They can answer questions quickly, and generate large amounts of content on a topic very fast. You can “brainstorm” ideas with it, and then ask it to give you a task list for everything discussed. AI has been a great resource for software developers, as it can be used to quickly find security vulnerabilities in vast amounts of code before cybercriminals can exploit them.

And that’s where the problem lies.

Any Great Technology Can Be Used By Bad People

Paleontologists have determined that the earliest use of the bow and arrow happened about 60,000-70,000 years ago in South Africa. It’s suspected that this groundbreaking (at the time) device was used for hunting. Obviously we will never be able to pinpoint exactly when or how this happened, but at some point, the world experienced the first prehistoric person drawing a bow and arrow on a fellow prehistoric person. 

This has been the cycle for technology ever since, and when something new emerges, someone is going to figure out how to use it to cause trouble. Over the last several years, we’ve even seen the so-called troublemakers adopt modern technology even faster than the general population in some cases.

This is happening with AI. Cybercriminals are able to use AI to become much more effective. They can use AI to find vulnerabilities in software before developers are able to provide security patches. They can use AI to write phishing emails that are even more convincing and effective. They can use AI to write malware that is more devastating and infectious. 

Cybersecurity has always been a virtual arms race, and AI kicks things into overdrive. To stick with our theme, cybercriminals from 20 years ago were using the bow and arrow, and now with AI and other modern tactics, they have supersonic fighter jets. Businesses and individuals need to be even more vigilant about protecting their data.

Something That Most People Don’t Think About When It Comes to Cybersecurity

We all always talk about cybercriminals and hackers as if they are lone wolf anarchists sitting in a dark basement, drinking store-brand Mountain Dew, wearing a dirty hoodie, and staring into a bunch of screens with green matrix code.

The reality is that most cybercriminals treat their work like a business.

They are always working on getting the most profit for the least amount of effort; they follow and repeat successful campaigns and revamp things that don’t work.

But that’s not the worst part.

Over the last few years, it’s been uncovered that a lot of scammers and cybercriminals are actually trafficked people, forced to follow scam playbooks in order to pay off their captors and regain freedom. In some cases, when you get a scam phone call or text message or phishing email, it’s coming from a victim of human trafficking. 

There are entire compounds that house thousands of people, tricked away from their homes and families and essentially imprisoned to try to scam individuals and businesses. CNN recently did an incredibly eye-opening article that is worth checking out, but be warned, there is some disturbing content.

This gets us a little off topic when it comes to how AI is being used by cybercriminals, but we feel that it’s extremely important to raise awareness about these types of operations, and just how intense they are both in scale and misery. Cybersecurity is an industry all on its own, and every time an individual or organization gets scammed, it fuels something that is causing a lot more harm than simply forcing a business to its knees or stealing thousands of dollars. 

2024 Needs to be the Year We All Take Cybersecurity Extremely Seriously

Between AI, social engineering scams, and a growing industry of reprehensible cybercriminals, doing your part in protecting your business and yourself from cyberthreats will go a long way in ensuring that you can be successful. 

MSPNetworks can help your business establish a culture of cybersecurity, and implement the tools you need to prevent threats. Get started with a cybersecurity audit—give us a call at (516) 403-9001 to get things kicked off.

We often advise people to steer clear of clicking on suspicious links, but distinguishing between a legitimate URL and a dubious one has become increasingly challenging. Not only have malicious tactics evolved to the point where everyone has to stay on top of their game to not be fooled, these threats are almost pervasive so they are coming at people from all types of directions. We thought we would focus on a single punctuation mark that can make all the difference in whether a link is legitimately safe or potentially dangerous.

Meet The Most Trusted Fictitious Online Retailer in the World

Imagine a fictional company that rises to become a global retail and multimedia giant, a household name—let's call it TallMart.

Our entirely fictional TallMart offers an extensive array of products and services. Users engage in buying and selling, managing payments, running ad campaigns, customizing personal profiles, watching exclusive movies from TallMart Studios, handling TallMart Web Hosting accounts, and now, accessing telehealthcare from licensed TallMart medical professionals.

Our motto is simple: TallMart: Why Go Anywhere Else?

Given TallMart's status as the world's most trusted online retailer, akin to giants like Facebook, Amazon, and Google, it enjoys widespread trust. However, like other major platforms, TallMart's massive success attracts cybercriminals attempting to scam its users for money and sensitive information. With so many transactions, the opportunity to separate users from money is there; and hackers are nothing if not opportunists.

When Users Feel Secure, Cybercriminals Gain an Advantage

TallMart users receive numerous emails about products, account notifications, receipts, transactions, and offers. Cybercriminals can easily mimic these emails, adopting TallMart's branding and employing technical spoofing to make them appear legitimate. They may include links that seem to lead to TallMart but redirect users to similar-looking URLs under the cybercriminals' control.

Creating a deceptive webpage is inexpensive and quick, allowing cybercriminals to register domains like Talmart.com or TallMartcustomerservice.com. It's crucial for users to stay vigilant and recognize potential warning signs to avoid falling victim to scams.

How to Verify the Destination of a Link in Emails, Chats, or Correspondence

While methods may vary across applications, hovering your mouse over a link typically reveals its destination. Most email clients and web browsers display the link destination at the bottom of the page.

The Key: Punctuation in the URL

While checking for misspellings and unofficial URLs, an effective way to identify a suspicious link is by observing periods after the domain name. For example:

Safe: https://www.tallmart.com/gp/help/customer/account-issues
Safe: https://support.tallmart.com/
Suspicious: https://support.tallmart.com.ru

The truth is that some legitimate URLs may have periods toward the end of them, indicating file types like .html, .pdf, .doc, etc. are connected to the link or attachment. It’s best to remain cautious with direct links to files in every situation, as malware could be embedded and all it takes is a simple interaction to execute the malicious code. It’s best to avoid clicking on suspicious email attachments. Ultimately, exercising caution with clickable content is the most prudent practice to keep yourself from becoming a victim.

You should always hover over links to inspect their destination. If you find that there is a period in any abnormal place, be skeptical and either avoid it altogether, or verify that it is from a legitimate source. 

If an email urges urgent action, such as logging into your account, refrain from using the provided links without first making certain that any link or attachment is completely legitimate. You can do this in several different ways, but clicking through without considering the potential consequences could turn out to be a nightmare for you and for your organization.

Please share this with others because the more people know about how to stay safe online, the safer we all are.