An IT Support Blog from London

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.

While every business has its own unique operational requirements, it’s common for finance managers to try to save on costs and slash budgets in whichever area they can. This should not be the case for an organisation’s cybersecurity budget, though. If anything, companies should be spending for security based on an in-depth assessment of needs, rather than simply throwing in cyber security solutions to fit into a fixed budget.

In this post, we look at three key points that companies should take into account when building the framework for IT security spending.

To the uninitiated, the term dark data may evoke images of mysterious stores of data tucked away in an obscure location—hopefully, distant enough from your company’s hard drives so that they are no threat to online security. The reality however, is that there’s nothing ominous at all about dark data, it’s closer to you than you think, and more importantly, it can even bring value to your business when used right.

In this article, we define what dark data is and where it comes from, discuss ways to harness the value that it holds, and understand the challenges that may come with its management.

Another year is ahead of us and yet IT security threats are in no way letting up. Instead, the next months will continue to be challenging as data protection remains a major concern for enterprises. The rapid adoption of all things digital has also exponentially increased the threat surface through which cyber criminals can attack.

But which present the biggest cyber security dangers for this year? Will there be new threats or will the old ones simply evolve to pose greater difficulties? In this blog post, we take a closer look at the top 5 challenges that security experts believe could put business organisations at biggest risk this year.

Ransomware attacks are incredibly prevalent – and can also be very damaging. Successful attacks occur all the time – this year alone, a major infrastructure company in the US was hit with an attack that came with a US$ 4.4m demand for ransom. Closer to home, Doncaster-based One Call Insurance found itself unable to service customer requests after a computer system blackout due to ransomware.

As a business, you need to invest in internet security to protect your systems against ransomware – but at the same time, also assume the worst-case scenario: that a successful attack can occur. Responding rapidly and effectively is critical – the better your response, the lower the cumulative cost of the ransomware attack – and the less disruption your clients or customers will experience.