An IT Support Blog from London

If you're like most remote workers, your VPN is an essential tool that keeps you connected to your organisation’s network resources and IT solutions. When the VPN works, it's practically invisible and it’s all business as usual. But when issues arise, these can put a huge dent on your productivity.

Remote working continues to be a work approach that many businesses embrace, and Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) play a crucial role in this arrangement. VPNs secur remote work environments by encrypting internet traffic and ensuring secure access to corporate resources. However, despite their benefits, VPNs can sometimes present challenges that disrupt workflows.

VPN management by your remote IT support team or a third-party provider is often necessary to minimise downtime and maintain seamless connectivity. However, being a remote worker means you could be halfway across the globe or in a different time zone from your London-based main office, for instance. In this case, being able to do some core troubleshooting can help you get back to work quickly or provide valuable information to your helpdesk.

In today's fast-paced business environment, enterprises of all sizes depend heavily on their IT systems to maintain operations. When these systems fail, the impact is immediately felt—and costly to boot. Recent studies show that the cost of IT downtime is currently estimated at about $9,000 per minute for large enterprises. While smaller companies may face lower direct costs, the relative impact on operations is still something that your business may not be able to handle.

The reality is that organisations can't afford IT disruptions, and this has highlighted the need for efficient and reliable IT support services. Recognising the challenge, many companies are turning to Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a transformative solution. AI is revolutionising IT support services by automating repetitive tasks, accelerating problem resolution, and delivering personalised support.

It’s an interconnected online world so cyberattacks are no longer a matter of "if" but "when." It’s an escalating threat landscape which is becoming a huge challenge for B2B enterprises.

Targets are broad too: from sensitive data. to the IT systems of a company, and through to the interconnected networks companies rely on. These are all lucrative targets for cybercriminals. 

In this article we explore the critical role of cybersecurity training for employees in the enterprise environment. We demonstrate how you should not see cybersecurity training as a cost but instead, as a crucial investment.

The sweeping adoption of technology has paved the way for the rapid escalation of cyber threats. From small businesses to large corporations, no organisation is immune to the dangers of IT security attacks. In the UK alone, there have been 9,478 publicly disclosed data breach incidents involving almost thirty-six million records from January to April of this year. Cybercrimes like these could result in devastating financial losses and reputational damage. They could even target critical infrastructure and endanger a country’s key utility systems.

And make no mistake; cyber criminals are continuing to refine their tactics in order to gain larger financial rewards. This is why all aspects of a company’s operations should be equipped with the right defences to combat against evolving threats. Traditional IT support, for one, is not enough to prevent attacks, especially given threat actors’ advanced methods of exploiting vulnerabilities. Instead, a more holistic approach—integrating IT support with cybersecurity—is essential to create a robust first line of defence.

According to Gartner predictions, 45% of organisations will fall victim to a software supply chain attack by 2025—three times as many as that of 2021. And that’s not even counting other types of cyber threats such as levelled-up social engineering/phishing schemes, ransomware, and even nation-state attacks for certain industries. Truly, the value of reliable cyber security in every enterprise can not be emphasised enough.

Most companies are well aware of which aspects of their business operations they should fortify. The key areas most susceptible to malware and other cyber attacks in an organisation are:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has transformed the dynamics of many organisations across almost every industry. Companies and the leaders at the helm of these businesses have long realised the benefits of harnessing AI algorithms in their daily operations. From automating and streamlining various business processes to preventing fraud to enhancing data analytics for targeted marketing and better decision making, the impact of AI on enterprises has been nothing short of groundbreaking.

Now while AI development and technological advancement in general has paved the way for various innovations, it has also opened many opportunities for malicious actors to exploit. This is why artificial intelligence has been a major boon but somewhat a bane as well to the IT security industry. Let’s start with the negative ways that AI has affected online security.

There’s been a lot of technological advancement going on in the past decade or so, and it’s all organisations could do to keep pace. But it’s essential that they do. After all, leveraging new technologies and tools while ensuring that their IT infrastructure is equipped for such demand is key to having enterprises operate efficiently, maximising profits, and remaining competitive in their field.

Managing all these however, can easily get overwhelming for small and mid-sized businesses who don’t have a full-time IT staff on board. This is where IT managed services providers have proven to be invaluable. Managed services providers (MSPs) take on the crucial tasks of monitoring and maintaining IT systems—networks, servers, workstations, etc.; installing and updating software; hardware maintenance, security and compliance management, managed IT support, and more. And just as technology is evolving, so are the services of MSPs.

In this post, we'll explore some of the latest trends in IT managed services, including how emerging technologies like AI and automation are being utilised, the growing importance of cybersecurity, and the rise of cloud-based services.

With cybersecurity, you really don’t know what to prepare for. Organisations think they’ve got everything covered, then something comes completely out of left field. No wonder the ongoing battle in the online security field is sometimes referred to as a cat and mouse game—the black hat malicious actors are busy discovering vulnerabilities in IT systems, and the white hat defenders are scrambling to counter the threats.

For years now, firewalls have been considered as one of the critical pieces of an organisation’s IT security infrastructure. The importance of firewall security has become even more apparent as the world further advances into digital technologies, and this is why firewalls are evolving in features and functionality and its market is growing at a fast pace.

In this blog post, we discuss the important considerations to keep in mind when choosing a firewall for your enterprise. But to start with, it’s best to refresh our basic knowledge.

As we go further into the technological age, cybersecurity has become an integral part of the discussion in every boardroom, data centre, office, and just about any place where digital assets reside. One of the latest (and perhaps the most effective as well) strategies to be added to the IT security arsenal of cyber experts is Zero Trust.