The Datamax Thinking Blog

Cyber resilience, a skillset bolstered by the expertise of your Managed IT Services partner, is a proactive approach designed to help businesses anticipate, endure, recover from, and adapt to cyber threats.

Cyber threats aren’t just a distant possibility — they’re an inevitable challenge for your business in today’s digital landscape. Hackers evolve, threats adapt, and even your strongest security measures can be outmaneuvered.

Consider the old adage: Not a matter of if, but when.

Collaborative tools help teams meet face to face or in another time zone to continuously make progress toward their business goals.

Robert T. Kiyosaki, an American businessman and author,  once said, "You cannot make progress without making decisions." Making quick yet informed decisions is essential for any business hoping to stay ahead of the competition.

Top-to-bottom business awareness, employee education, multi-layered security protection, and proper business continuity planning continue to be a much needed prescription for avoiding the number one malware threat to SMBs.

As one menace to business livelihood (the COVID-19 pandemic) dominates headlines, another continues to lurk in the shadows as a significant threat to businesses of all sizes — ransomware.

When supporting a remote workforce, understand that security controls shift. Therefore, firewalls, DNS, and IDS/IPS could be ineffective when employees head home.

As the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to spread, many businesses are assessing how they can prioritize their employee safety and still maintain regular business operations.

While the series of events surrounding COVID-19 may leave business owners seemingly with their hands tied, there are proactive steps that can alleviate concerns, ensure healthy practices, and sustain productivity for the days and weeks ahead.

As our nation and our world continue to deal with the coronavirus and its impact, small businesses find themselves on the front lines of this outbreak.

While the impact of the virus is yet to be determined, the COVID-19 outbreak serves as one poignant example of the need for agility, flexibility and cohesion in the way organizations communicate (via voice or data) and conduct business.

What happens when working remotely ceases to be a luxury … and starts to become a necessity?

With the series of events unfolding surrounding the Coronavirus, employers are making operational adjustments to comply with a quickly-evolving public narrative — one that may soon include a work-from-home strategy.  Given these circumstances, how do businesses maintain effective communication with customers? With their team? How do they preserve standard business operations if employees aren't at the office? 

As your business game plans for every scenario that could come your way with a Business Continuity and/or Disaster Recovery strategy, thorough planning is essential. Communication is essential. And testing your plan is of utmost importance.

Legendary Dallas Cowboys Coach (and also B-17 Pilot) Tom Landry, the author of the Doomsday Defense, was the consummate planner.

Unequivocally calm, cool and collected under even the most overwhelming of circumstances, Landry carried with him a philosophy that if his players executed the plans he laid out for them, if coaches stuck to a rigid, to-the-minute itinerary every week, the final outcome would be favorable.

One can only tip-toe over network and infrastructure insecurities for so long before the surface beneath you cracks.

For ice fishing enthusiasts embracing their favorite winter pastime, the warning from officials is abundantly clear: don’t tread on thin ice! In fact, Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources recommends ice at least 4 inches thick for foot travel.

A measurement any less than 4 inches could result in disaster.

The technology footpath that you tread across every day bears inherent risk. The cybersecurity climate is volatile, forcing organizations to be consistently mindful of the environment surrounding them. The solid technology foundation you create determines how confidently your organization can navigate with necessary tools to conduct business efficiently day to day.

While the 4Cs in education help empower students to be think-tanks of tomorrow, the 4Cs of business technology should and can liberate your on-campus technology team to apply these classroom initiatives.

As educators further pursue the ideal 21st century learning environment, one won’t dig far without uncovering the 4Cs.

The 4Cs – critical thinking, creativity, collaboration and communication - have been adopted and implemented into the curriculum of school districts and professional development programs for years. Established by the National Education Association and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, these four components are a guide post for choosing specific tools, software and curriculum for the modern day, technologically advanced environment of today’s youth.

Your business technology partner should play a key role in helping bring those 4Cs to light. 

Employees are a big weakness in any information security plan. These 6 tips will make your security stronger.

The biggest security hole in any business isn't the network or your computer assets or the various programs you operate on.

The biggest security threat to any business is the people that work there.

Because people do stupid things. And when they do stupid things with company information (like leaving a laptop in the backseat of a car with customer information), your company is at risk of a data breach.

That's why when it comes to cybersecurity, paying attention only to the IT side of things isn't good enough (though that's essential, of course).

You need to train your users.

Here are a few tips to help you get started on training employees on information security.