10 Cyber Security Myths for Small and Medium Size Businesses Debunked

a hand touching the word cyber security

By 2021, the annual global cybercrime damage is expected to reach $6 trillion. The average cost of a cyber security breach for SMBs is $117,000. That’s why many companies all over the world are struggling to maintain high levels of cybersecurity.

Due to the increase in activity related to this issue, false information is starting to appear. Let’s debunk the 10 most common SMB cybersecurity myths.

Myth #1: Cybersecurity is solely a technological issue

Truth: Besides beefing up antivirus software, cybersecurity involves many other actions, including employee training and high-quality IT support as well as clear procedures and guidelines. Without proper awareness, cybersecurity technologies are mostly useless.

Myth #2: Cybersecurity requires a formidable investment

Truth: The majority of the effort required to protect your data needs a reasonable investment. They include:

  • Training employees
  • Using a VPN to work from remote locations
  • Installing software updates in a timely manner
  • Consulting IT experts
  • Planning for disaster recovery
  • Creating proper authentication steps
  • Identifying security information
  • Setting up remote work guidelines.

Any investment you make in cybersecurity is many times smaller than the costs of data breach recovery.

Myth #3: SMBs are less likely to be hit by a cyberattack

Truth: According to Microsoft, about 43% of cyberattacks are aimed at small businesses.

With only a small percentage of SMBs being ready to defend themselves against an attack, cybercriminals target them consistently. Large enterprises tend to invest more time, money, and effort in cybersecurity, thus suffering fewer consequences.

Cyber Security Myth #4: My company doesn’t have anything cybercriminals may want

Truth: Even if you don’t deal with sensitive information, your company can still become a target of ransomware or DDoS attack.

It’s important to know that some cybercriminals assault small companies for fun or to train before a larger attack. Meanwhile, personal information about you and your employees may be a sufficient catch for some hackers.  

Myth#5: Cybercrimes only need attention when they occur

Truth: When a cybercrime occurs, it may be too late to fix the problem without substantial losses. It’s often hard to detect the crime before it causes irreversible damage. About 60% of small businesses stopped functioning 6 months after a cyberattack.  

The key to fighting the majority of cybercrimes is preventive measures.

Myth #6: If you have a firewall, you are safe against cyberattacks

Truth: Firewall and antivirus software are small parts of the big picture. Without a solid cybersecurity plan, you can’t prevent cyberattacks or react to them in a timely and efficient manner.

Cyber Security Myth#7: It’s an IT issue

Truth: Many SMBs believe that the IT department is responsible for cybersecurity. While your IT team players are likely to have an understanding of cybersecurity issues, they may not have sufficient knowledge and training. If you want to set up proper preventive measures and implement security controls, you need an expert’s assistance.

Myth#8: SMBs and enterprises face different cybersecurity threats

Truth: According to Cisco, the types of attacks that SMBs and large enterprises experience are similar. Companies of all sizes face the same amount of downtime related to cyberattacks. However, larger enterprises often have higher recovery potential due to better resources.

Myth #9: SMB leaders don’t take cybersecurity seriously

Truth: Cisco survey shows that 90% of IT decision-makers have knowledge of the company’s data privacy programs.

Cyber Security Myth #10: By taking the right approach, SMBs can be 100% protected

Truth: No matter how excellent cybersecurity preventive measures are or how much money you invest in them, the possibility of an attack exists. That’s why it’s imperative to have a disaster recovery plan.

Implementing security measures and preparing for cyberattacks is essential to SMBs’ stability. To learn more about strengthening your cybersecurity, please contact us today.

#WorkingFromHome Solutions with Microsoft Teams

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Staying home together can be a challenge when it comes to staying connected and apart. Many small to mid-sized businesses are feeling the anxiety of the #WorkFromHome life, just as many employees struggle to maintain a sense of normalcy and minimal disruption to their departmental teams. Business owners can use technology to ensure processes continue to run smoothly during COVID-19.

Microsoft Teams is the essential remote worker’s suite for empowering companies and keeping colleagues connected.

All-In-One Platform

One of the biggest fears many companies harbor is the loss of productivity during this difficult time. The idea of transitioning an entire company to working remotely on minimal notice is a daunting undertaking. With the looming uncertainty and adjustment to new operating procedures, profit loss seems inevitable. Busy companies can’t afford a day off, let alone an undefined furlough.

Now that we’ve covered the doom and gloom, it’s time to look at the vast opportunities this “new normal” presents. There’s no need for productivity to drop off due to transitioning to a remote office. Remote work has been on the rise with many of the top-growing companies over the past few years. The key to success lies in the right tools.

Microsoft Teams eliminates the learning curve by keeping new technology simple. The user-friendly, all-in-one platform centralizes software, CRM databases, spreadsheets, messaging, and more in a secured Cloud based location. 

The result? Reduced employee downtime.

According to the Forrester Study: The Total Economic Impact of Microsoft Teams, “having resources available online in Teams reduces downtime by 14.6 percent.” This allows for streamlined compliance and security while keeping your business on the upward growth curve.

Collaboration Made Simple with Microsoft Teams

The benefits of a dynamic team are often erroneously linked to a shared, brick-and-mortar office. The reality is that it’s quite common for key executive members to operate on a long-distance basis, with flexible hours and remote work quickly becoming the best way to attract high-quality talent. 

Teams makes collaboration a snap with easy documentation, screen sharing, data exchange, and personable communications. In fact, a recent Forrester Study found that “information workers were able to save 4hrs/wk through improved collaboration and information sharing.” This leaves extra hours to catch up on backlogged projects.

The fast, real-time environment of Teams allows businesses to hold morning meetings, schedule conferences with core clients and investors, and check in anytime, anywhere. If your company is growing fast, there’s no reason to pump the brakes quite yet. Interviews are simple and timely via Teams, allowing multiple executive members to be a part of the process.

Best of all, Teams keeps your company together. The sense of camaraderie between our colleagues has never been more needed. Support your staff during this difficult time by fostering a culture of positivity and teamwork.

Budget Friendly for Reduced Overhead

Maintaining fiscal responsibility is more vital now than ever. There’s no need to invest in high-tech solutions to keep your company running from home. Microsoft offers a range of affordable Office 365 and Microsoft 365 options depending on your company’s needs. Best of all, Microsoft Teams is proud to feature small business solutions. If you aren’t looking to purchase a bundled option, the basic app for Teams is free to download and can host up to 300 members.

In addition, travel costs were greatly reduced, freeing up overhead expenses. The Forrester Study found that “an average of 150 overnight trips [were] replaced with online meetings by year 3 [of implementation].”

We know the current state of #WorkingFromHome has yielded a lot of uncertainty, but in the transition to remote work, innovative, new opportunities are being discovered every day. Your friends at Bluwater Technologies are here to support our business clients now more than ever with on-demand IT services for small businesses.

Contact our experts for more COVID-19 guidance and tips on transitioning your office to a robust remote workforce.

8 Essential Tips for Working From Home During Coronavirus Outbreak

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In response to the Coronavirus pandemic, most people are only left with the option of working from home. This is because the virus is easily spread through close contact with someone who already has the virus. If you have found yourself in such a situation, however, it is still very possible to be productive and maintain a balance between work and home. Here are some tips:

1. Act like you are going to work

Changing your pajamas and dressing as if you are going to work is a very crucial thing when you are working from home. This, in a big way, draws the line between being at home and work. Take a shower, apply makeup, style your hair, iron that suit, brush your teeth, and get ready to begin work. It would have looked so unprofessional and weird if, for instance, you received a video call from work, and you were just dressed in pajamas. It is, therefore, essential to take care of your appearance every morning.

 2. Create a working from home space/ office

When working from home, it is vital to keep your home life and work separate. This can be quite hard if, for instance, you have children at home. To avoid all sorts of distractions, ensure that you set up a working space where you will give your work the attention it demands. Try to make sure that the area is comfortable for you to work from there for several hours.

3. Clearly define working hours and stick to them

Working from home can lead to shorter or longer hours of working as compared to the office. Overworking can easily make you have burnout while under-working reduces your productivity. To avoid falling victim to all this, establish working hours and keenly stick to them. 

4. Establish transitions into as well as out of work

Commuting to and from the office is not just a simple and regular thing to do. This is because it goes a long way in preparing your mind and whole self for work and home, respectively. When you are working from home, it is also very crucial to engage yourself in activities that prepare your mind that it is time to work or to stop working. For instance, you can listen to some music to relax your mind for work or clear your mind after work. 

5. Avoid distractions when working from home

One of the biggest challenges people experience from home is distractions. Do not allow your mind to be bothered by the trending news since this hinders your productivity. Try to make sure that you are also not distracted by family members. Let them know that when it is time for work, they should give you enough space to work effectively.

6. Over-communicate

Working remotely requires you to communicate frequently, mostly when it is your first time doing that. Many times you may encounter challenges that you are not sure how to handle. Get in touch with your manager as well as your collaborative workmates. Let them know what your schedule is and what you plan to achieve at the end of every day. Get to know how they are working and coping from home also. This might give you a challenge and modify how you are working. 

7. Do not fall into the working from home isolation trap

Working from home may get lonely and affect your mental health. Try to counter that as much as you can. You can do that by video chatting or calling your coworkers and having the normal talks you usually have in the office. For instance, you can check out how their night or weekend was if you are used to that. 

8. Set break schedules

During the normal working hours in the office, there are breaks that you are given at specific times. Stick to that even while at home. If, for instance, you are used to having lunch with your colleagues, you can do that with your family before getting back to work. This gives you more time to bond with your family and be effective at work at the same time. 

Working from home, therefore, can be as effective and productive as working from the office. To learn more about this, feel free to contact us today. 

5 Ways to Reduce IT Costs That You Can Act On Now

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If information technology costs are eating up a large portion of your company’s budget, then you are not alone. In fact, it is estimated that small businesses spend upwards of 7% of their revenue on IT costs. Yet, with IT playing such a critical role in ensuring a business’s productivity and security, it can be extremely difficult to find ways to control, or even lower, IT costs. However, you may be surprised to learn that there are simple, actionable steps that you can take to lower your company’s mounting IT costs.

Here is a look at 5 things that you can do now to reduce your business’s IT costs:

Virtualization

One method that can help you to see considerable IT cost savings is virtualization. Essentially, virtualization means replacing physical hardware with virtual alternatives. With virtualization, companies no longer need to depend entirely on physical servers, as they can combine many functions into a single server by switching functions to virtual environments. This can save money by reducing energy and hardware expenses.  

Optimize Infrastructure for IT Costs

It may surprise you to learn that structured cabling, wireless network layouts, and other infrastructure can cost you money if they are not configured properly. However, when infrastructure is improperly configured, this can result in decreased productivity and increased electrical costs, which can add up greatly over time. Making sure that these systems are configured with efficiency in mind is critical in order to keep costs down.  

Backup Data Regularly

Backing up data may not be something that would save you money in the short term. However, it can mean exponential savings in the long run. Proper data backup is a critical IT cost reduction strategy. It can help to protect you from substantial losses in the event of a cyber attack or natural disaster. Without proper system backups, productivity would come to a grinding halt. Then, you would have to spend money trying to retrieve lost data. However, when you properly backup data regularly, both to physical and cloud-based backups, you can rest easy knowing that your business will be able to get back up on its feet quickly after a disaster.  

Vendor Management

Hardware and software purchases can quickly eat up a huge chunk of your company’s budget. Whether it’s buying brand new computers for your office, or a company license to upgrade your company’s computers to Windows 10, IT hardware and software often isn’t a cheap investment. This is why it is recommended that you work with a company that offers IT vendor management services. These companies can help you to find the hardware and software that you need. They also do so at exclusive prices that you would not be able to find on your own. Thus, helping to save you money. 

Streamline IT Costs with Managed IT Services

Of course, one of the best ways to reduce IT costs would be to outsource your IT needs to a Managed Service Provider (MSP). For small to medium-sized businesses, it often isn’t feasible to maintain an in-house IT staff. In these instances, companies often find it in their best interest to partner with an MSP. They can provide contracted IT services on an as-needed basis. This can drastically reduce IT costs as you will only be paying for the services that you need. Versus paying full-time staff. Not only can outsourcing save you money, but you will also gain access to superior IT services. This is because MSPs have greater resources to research and implement the latest IT technology.

While mounting IT costs can seem like an unfixable problem for many businesses, there are steps that you can take to greatly reduce IT expenses.

Contact us to learn more about the steps that you can take to save money on IT costs at your company.

How to Make Windows 10 Look Like Windows 7

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The old adage, “The more things change, the more they stay the same” is rarely found in the world of information technology. One of the great aspects of technology, however, is that the field is constantly coming up with exciting new innovations. While new developments may introduce features ranging from critical to some interesting new bells and whistles, it can be frustrating for employers who feel they have to constantly re-train their staff to do the same tasks in a different way, every time a new operating system or some other type of technology comes to the market.

Since change is inevitable, especially with operating systems, one of the ways to make a transition as easy as possible is to find ways to make a new operating system have at least some of the look and functionality of the previous operating system. In this post, we will outline several tips on how to help a Windows 7 user cross over to the newer Windows 10 OS.

Start at the Beginning

Of course, it helps if everything begins at the Start Menu and Windows 10 does just that. Windows 7 users will note that Microsoft attempted to blend the best of both worlds, with some of the features of the old Windows 7 Start Menu, along with new “tiles” which work very similarly to app icons found on smartphones. For those who really want their Windows 10 Start Menu to function in the same manner as Windows 7’s, the Open Shell program found here does a great job of replicating the Windows 7 Start Menu.

File Explorer

Windows 7 users will be relieved to find the Windows 10 File Explorer remains essentially unchanged from Windows 7, although there are some minor differences. Windows 7 users who want to replicate their past working environment as much as possible, might want to consider making the following change:

  1. Open File Explorer.
  2. From the File Menu in the upper left corner, click on “Options”. 
  3. On the “General” tab, change “Open File Explorer to:” dropdown option to “This PC”.
  4. Click on the “Apply” button to apply the changes, then click on “Ok” to close the window.

The Windows 10 Taskbar 

The default taskbar in Windows 10 might seem a bit cluttered to a Windows 7 user. To create a cleaner look on the taskbar, simply right-click on the taskbar and uncheck items such as “show Cortana button” or “show Task View button”. The Microsoft Store icon can also be removed by right-clicking on it, then selecting “Unpin from Taskbar”.

The Wallpaper

Some people want to feel really at home on their computer screen and don’t want to give up even their Windows 7 wallpaper. Luckily, they don’t have to. Simply select one of the familiar Windows 7 wallpapers from the official site, here, save it, then right-click on the saved file image to set it as the wallpaper background. 

Windows 10 Overall Color Scheme

Last but not least, some Windows 7 users want their Windows 10 color scheme to reflect their old Windows 7 colors. To make this happen, perform the following steps:

  1. Right-click on a blank space anywhere on the Desktop.
  2. Click “Personalize”, then select “Colors” on the left side of the menu.
  3. Scroll down to the right side of the screen that pops up and choose the colors from “Windows colors” that look familiar.
  4. Scroll even further to see options to change areas such as “the Start, taskbar, and action center” along with the “Title bars and window borders” boxes. 

Play around with all the various colors and options to find all the familiar color components. If you would like to know more about how to smooth the transition from using Windows 7 to Windows 10, please contact us.