Resources: Cyber Data

Cybersecurity is one of the foremost concerns of many companies today. Especially for small and medium businesses that utilize online sales. To face these unforeseeable attacks, you can prepare ahead of time by taking out a dependable cybersecurity insurance plan. This coverage gives you a chance to recoup what you might potentially lose in the face of a cyber-attack.  

The risk of cyberattacks gets higher each year as online criminals continue to improve in their craft. They work around the clock, devising new and innovative methods to supersede whatever security software IT companies create. As a business owner, you must always be on your toes and ensure your network and data are secure. Ask yourself, is your business currently protected with the latest cybersecurity technology? If you’re like most business owners, you probably don’t have the time to worry about such things, but you should. 

Boost Your Protection with Cybersecurity Insurance 

It is wise to consider investing in a comprehensive cybersecurity insurance plan. Despite having seemingly ironclad protection, there is no 100% guarantee that hackers will not be able to penetrate your virtual walls. These crooks are extremely good at what they do. Just in case the unthinkable happens, and you fall victim to a nasty cyber incident, a cybersecurity insurance plan can at least help you recover some, if not all, of the losses and damages. 

MSP Standards for Cybersecurity Insurance 

As the need for cybersecurity insurance becomes more pressing, you must also become more discriminating in choosing a managed services provider to handle your cybersecurity insurance needs. However, as the business owner, you must fill out the form yourself instead of passing on this task to your MSP. However, your MSP can help you with much of the information you’ll need to fill out the form.  

If you are working with a Managed Service Provider, it makes sense to ask them if they have the resources to connect you with a reliable cybersecurity insurance agent. They will undoubtedly have plenty of contacts, and it would be in their best interest to recommend the best agent for you. Of course, you can also find an agent on your own if you wish, but you do have to be wary of unscrupulous entities such as fly-by-night companies who will suddenly be unreachable when you want to make a claim.  

Cyber insurance is recommended for all businesses these days. However, by no means will it make your business invincible against cybercrimes. Even after taking out a trustworthy policy, the MSP should continue providing first-class security solutions to your business. The more levels of top-quality protection you employ, the safer your business will be.  

Why Choosing the Right MSP Is Important 

Taking out an insurance policy for cybersecurity is not as simple as some business owners think. More than just adding such a plan, there is the matter of making sure you get paid back any losses. 

Cybersecurity insurance can protect your business against financial loss caused by cyber-attacks. The plan may include coverage for financial losses. Such as data breaches, data theft, ransomware extortion payments, system or network takeover, and company losses. This coverage is even more important if you store your sensitive data on a local server in your office. These systems can be easily breached by hackers looking for an easy target. If this is the case and you do not wish to look into cyber insurance, you should consider storing your data in the cloud for enhanced security. 

An experienced MSP can help you handle these procedures, and we recommend that you investigate them. Experts say that in 2022 the rate of cybercrime is expected to escalate even further. If you want to protect your assets, let us know! Let’s talk about how security, protection, and cyber insurance can help with the growth and success of your business in the coming year! 

The holiday season is upon us and we have many things to look forward to — even if this year will be a little bit different than others. This time of year the things that come to mind include: family, holiday festivities, and of course cookies! As a Managed Service Provider, people often ask us, are cookies safe?

But we’re not talking about the kind of cookies your grandma bakes for you. In technological terms, cookies typically pop up on your internet browser. They track and store data in the deep corners of your hard drive. With lots of controversy surrounding cookies, many people don’t know if they’re a good or bad thing. You probably have seen notices regarding cookies on most major sites you visit asking permission to use cookies. This is in response to privacy laws in Europe and in many states to protect people’s personal information and browsing habits. We expect to see these notices pop up more and more frequently as privacy laws become more stringent.

In this article, we delve into what exactly these oddly-named, annoying items on your browser are. And we discuss whether or not you should be worried about them.

What is a Cookie Anyway?

Sweet and tasty cookies have been around since the 17th century. But the type of cookie we are talking about today has been around since the mid-90s. The official name is an “HTTP Cookie”. Designers at the time referred to this as a magic cookie of information. And ever since then, the name has stuck.

But what exactly does a cookie do? Cookies gather information when you browse the internet. They track what you are doing on a particular site or what you are doing while browsing in general. There are multiple forms of cookies so here are the more common types that you’ll run into on the Internet:

Session Cookie

This appears on your web browser when you visit a website and tracks information such as your login, products you view, how long you were on a particular page, and other browsing habits. These are called session cookies because they terminate as soon as you close your browser or move to another page. 

Persistent Cookie

Also known as tracking cookies, these cookies stay active even after you leave a site or close your browser. In general, these will track the sites you’re visiting, but usually have an expiration date in which they become inactive. This is one of the most controversial form of cookies since they track your information outside of their original range. However, there are benefits to these cookies, such as storing your login info so you don’t have to enter your information every time you visit your favorite sites.  

Third-Party Cookies

In general, the cookies on your computer are from the sites you visit. For example, if you visit Amazon.com, Amazon will create a cookie on your browser. Third-party cookies differ in that they attach themselves to your browser even if you’ve never visited their site. This may happen if there is a banner or another form of an advertisement on a site that you visit, even if you do not click on them. Many pop-up blockers disable this feature, although it’s not uncommon to have more than 10 third-party cookies attached to your browser after visiting a site without any sort of cyber protection. 

Should You Worry? Are Cookies Safe?

Cookies are an essential part of the ecosystem of the web, but are cookies safe? Massive amounts of small packets of information are passed around every second, and these packets usually play a role in marketing, sales, or captured analytical data. In general, cookies are harmless, or at most a nuisance. 

You might be surprised by how much of your daily life on the Internet is dependent on cookies. Don’t believe us? Go ahead and delete all your cookies on your web browser and then go about your daily business to see how many sites you now have to log into that were automatically accessed before. You’ll be surprised at how much information you’ll have to put in compared to before. 

Cookies are not as invasive as they used to be. They typically contain tiny kilobits of information that take up almost no space on modern computers. Older Internet users may have been in the habit of deleting their cookies to save space, back when computers had very small hard drives.  

Many browsers automatically block third-party cookies, so the only cookies on your computer are from sites that you’ve visited. Sometimes hackers can use certain cookies to gain access to your computer, and since third-party cookies are often weak entry points they become easy targets. Make sure your firewall and internet security is blocking hackers who might try to sneak in through these pathways. 

Bottom Line about Cookies Safety

So, now that we have a better understanding of cookies, can we conclude that cookies are safe? In short, cookies shouldn’t be an issue in most circumstances and you should be fine when accepting them. The amount of memory they use is a nonissue these days. 

However, few things in life are always straightforward, so there are two caveats. The first issue you should be aware of is that while cookies are mostly safe, there is always the chance that a cookie can be hacked and used nefariously. Second, certain operations do not allow cookies on their systems. For example,  government and medical organizations may require absolute security and prohibit cookies.

If you have any questions about cookies on your system, contact us and we’ll ease your mind. As a Managed Service Provider, we will consult with you on any restrictions your organization is required to have in place. We’ll offer you a solution that will work for you in the long run.   

Remember: there’s always the possibility that the wrong cookie may be bad for your computer or your diet! 

We’ve all seen movies where a couple of thugs in trench coats walk into a store, take a look around and say something like, “Nice place you got here, shame if something were to happen to it.” Many people might think the days of extortion went away with the end of mob-run New York and Chicago, but it’s still alive and well on the internet — in the form of ransomware.

To make things worse, as the world has been buckling down with the COVID-19 pandemic, hackers have been working overtime to take advantage of lax cybersecurity. But before we get into how to protect your company from ransomware threats, let’s see how we got here.

Understanding the Problem

For those unaware, ransomware is a form of computer virus that allows a hacker to enter your system and lock you out of every file and program you use. Then, out of the goodness of their hearts, the hackers give you two options: pay them a set amount of money or lose access to everything forever.

Ransomware has been around for decades (and we’ve written many blogs on the topic) but it has proliferated exponentially in recent years. The main reason for this is because it works. Merely stealing your information and then selling it can make them money, but not nearly as much as ransoming that same information to its rightful owner.

Over the course of just a few months (Q4 of 2019 to Q1 of 2020), Forbes magazine stated that overall attacks rose by 25%. Why such a rise? Well, it could have something to do with payouts also rising by 33% within that same timeframe. With that kind of increase, it’s no wonder why hacking is a growing industry.

Ransomware in the Age of Covid-19

When the pandemic started, many people began working from home. For many of us, working from home presents no problems at all, but for others, it creates a whole list of issues that won’t be resolved until their whole department can be back in the office.

This has especially been the case with IT departments. While it’s true that they can do a lot of their work remotely, sometimes they just need to be in the server room to do their job. And don’t think for a minute that hackers don’t know that.

With so many fractured IT departments out there, businesses have been getting swarmed with attacks. For example, the city of Florence, Alabama was attacked just a few weeks ago and said that paying the $300,000 demand was better than having its citizen’s information exposed and for sale.

Even more recently, Honda was attacked by a cybercriminal that actually ended up shutting down production. Ransomware is getting more dangerous by the day.

The New Frontier

The recent pandemic has taught us that we don’t need as many people in the office or even at the factory as we thought we did. Work can be done via automation or with remote workers and keep the business running. That means that our businesses can become even more efficient than ever before. It also means that if a hacker were to get into your system, the damage can be even more devastating.

With the way businesses are depending more and more on technology, your entire business can grind to a halt from a single bad decision someone took when opening the wrong email.

Lighting Can Strike Twice

Imagine your company has been a victim of a ransomware attack and the crisis passes. Perhaps you paid the hacker or were able to gain access to your system again some other way. Now imagine that life has gone back to normal until one day the unthinkable happens: you get hacked again with a ransomware demand.

Sadly, this is not a one-off situation. In fact, not only can this happen to a single business, but it can happen to multiple parts of an organization. One of the most famous examples of this is when a single school is hacked, then multiple other schools in the same district get hit with the same ransomware, one by one.

The reason this is somewhat common in the tech world is that organizations can have similar (or identical!) safety protocols across the board. It’s a lot less work for a hacker to work this way than to go search out other targets every time they want a hit. However, we all know one of the biggest reasons we’re unprepared is because we all think it can’t happen to us. The harsh reality is that’s what all the businesses who were hit thought too.

What Can You Do?

While it’s true that hackers are getting more sophisticated every day, the majority of their attacks are opportunistic. Hackers take the path of least resistance, so if they can enter your system by Carol in accounting falling for a phishing scam, or if your IT department did not update their protocols after a previous attack, they’ll take that route.

That’s where we come into play. By dealing with a company to work on your behalf, you don’t need to worry every time someone logs into your system. And why should you waste all that time? Any effort you put into protecting your system is effort that could have been spent growing your business. By having us go over your current system and helping you implement a better one, you stand a much better chance when the internet goons come for your data.