Category: Business & Technology Blog

Can a single misconfiguration lock your entire Microsoft 365 organisation out?

The short answer is yes.

An IT admin recently shared a nightmare scenario: their entire Microsoft 365 tenant became inaccessible overnight. No Teams. No SharePoint. No email. Even the Global Admin was locked out and stuck in an MFA loop with no way in.

What caused it?

A well-intentioned security policy. A Conditional Access rule was enabled requiring Microsoft Authenticator for MFA. But none of the users, including admins, had it configured. The result? Every account got caught in an MFA loop, with no escape and no admin access to undo the change. And without admin access, there’s no rolling the policy back.

So how do you fix it?

The bad news is you can’t – not by yourself. The only option is contacting Microsoft Support, verifying your identity, and requesting a temporary bypass. In this case, it took a 24-hour admin access reset window and hours of back-and-forth with support to get back in.

Avoid this disaster with emergency access accounts.

Microsoft recommends every tenant has at least two emergency (or “break-glass”) Global Admin accounts. These should:

• Be excluded from all Conditional Access and MFA policies
• Not be used for everyday tasks
• Be protected with strong, offline-stored credentials
• Be closely monitored for any sign-in activity
• Regularly test the accounts and regenerate the password quarterly

They’re your last resort – use them only in emergencies.

Ensure you’re ready

We take the stress away. In just a few hours, the expert team at Complete IT Systems can set this up for you and provide a YubiKey. Contact us today to get started, or read more about our professional services here.

Unlocking the full potential of your organisation’s cyber security strategy begins with a clear understanding of its current state.

We’ve worked with Bitdefender to create a quick and accurate self-assessment framework provides an instant snapshot of your security capabilities, highlighting strengths and qualifying gaps or weaknesses in your threat detection, response and operational integration.

We’re all busy – what’s involved?

Within minutes, you’ll receive a comprehensive dashboard and executive report, detailing actionable insights and tailored recommendations to address vulnerabilities.

By taking this assessment, you empower your team to make informed, strategic decisions that strengthen resilience, enhance compliance, and proactively mitigate risks – all while optimising resources for maximum business impact.

Want to find out more?

As Bitdefender Partners, Complete IT Systems can offer you expert advice on the solutions and how they could be effectively deployed in your business.

To find out more please call us on 01274 396 213 or use our contact form and we’ll arrange a good time to call you back.

As businesses grow increasingly reliant on resource-intensive environments, choosing the right storage solution has become more critical than ever.

Traditional storage systems, while robust, often struggle to meet the demands of demanding workloads. Enter Tintri’s workload-aware storage, a modern solution designed to optimise resources for virtual machines, databases and containers. This article introduces the advantages of workload-aware storage, and how to find out more about the solutions to evaluate whether they are a good fit for your business.

Traditional vs. workload-aware storage

One of the primary reasons Tintri excels for storage workloads is its ability to provide visibility and control at a granular level. Traditional storage systems often require manual intervention for performance management, capacity planning, and troubleshooting, which can be both time-consuming and error-prone. Tintri, however, eliminates these challenges by offering automated, AI-driven analytics that provide real-time insights into how storage resources are being utilised. This enables organisations to understand exactly how their storage is performing, which applications are consuming the most resources, and where inefficiencies might exist.

Harnessing the power of AI

Tintri’s use of AI plays a crucial role in its optimisation capabilities. The platform utilises machine learning algorithms to monitor and analyse storage behaviour continuously, learning from the data patterns that emerge over time. By doing so, Tintri can predict and prevent potential issues before they impact performance. This proactive approach to storage management reduces the need for manual interventions, ensuring that IT teams can focus on more strategic tasks rather than reacting to issues as they arise.

Another significant advantage of Tintri’s AI-driven storage solution is its ability to optimise workloads for both performance and capacity. Tintri’s Intelligent Data Reduction (IDR) technology helps organisations maximise their storage efficiency by using AI to analyse data patterns and identify opportunities for compression and deduplication. This leads to significant space savings, ensuring that businesses can store more data without needing to invest in additional storage hardware. The use of AI ensures that these operations are carried out in an intelligent and non-disruptive manner, maintaining optimal performance while freeing up valuable storage capacity.

Tintri’s AI-powered analytics engine also simplifies the process of managing and scaling storage environments. With its predictive capabilities, the platform can forecast future storage needs based on usage trends, helping IT teams plan more effectively and avoid over-provisioning or under-provisioning. This not only saves money by ensuring that storage resources are used efficiently but also ensures that organisations are ready for future growth without the risk of performance degradation.

The flexibility to scale

Moreover, Tintri’s platform is designed to be highly flexible, supporting a wide range of workloads, including virtualisation, databases, cloud applications, and more. Whether an organisation is running traditional on-premise systems or hybrid cloud environments, Tintri’s storage solutions can seamlessly adapt to the changing demands of modern workloads. This versatility, combined with AI-driven management, ensures that storage resources are always aligned with the specific needs of the organisation, whether that’s high-performance computing, large-scale data processing, or cost-effective storage consolidation.

In summary

Tintri offers an innovative approach to managing storage workloads, with AI at the heart of its solution. By providing intelligent automation, predictive analytics, and optimised resource management, Tintri ensures that businesses can achieve peak performance, maximise storage efficiency, and reduce operational complexity. As data volumes continue to grow and IT environments become more complex, Tintri’s AI-driven storage solutions are a powerful tool for any organisation seeking to stay ahead in the rapidly evolving digital landscape.

📖 Read the buyers’ guide to get:

• Key evaluation criteria
• Showcases of real-world results to help you make an informed decision
• Get the guide

Want to find out more?

As a Tintri Partner, Complete IT Systems can offer you expert advice on the solutions and how they could be effectively deployed in your business.

To find out more please call us on 01274 396 213 or use our contact form and we’ll arrange a good time to call you back.

The lack of cyber awareness in UK businesses remains a significant concern, leaving many companies vulnerable to cyber attacks, data breaches, and financial losses.

Despite the increasing sophistication of cyber threats, many organisations, particularly small and medium-sized businesses, fail to prioritise cybersecurity. Last year, a UK government report found that nearly a third of businesses had experienced a cyberattack in the past year, yet many still lack adequate protection measures.

Alongside the fact that many businesses fail to implement basic security requirements, a major issue is the lack of employee training. Phishing attacks and social engineering scams are among the most common threats, yet many employees are unaware of how to recognise and respond to them. Without proper training, human error remains a leading cause of security breaches.

Enough of the bad news – what’s the solution?

Complete IT Systems have partnered with Infinigate, the UK’s leading distributor for KnowBe4, to provide you with a full managed service, designed to make deploying KnowBe4 quick, easy, & hassle-free!

Deploying KnowBe4 effectively doesn’t need to take up valuable IT or administration resource. With KnowBe4-as-a-Service helps reduce workload and management time by:

• Providing support for installation
• Activating phishing services
• Analysing data
• Regular reporting
• Developing training programmes to address identified security risks

And just in case you need them, here’s 6 reasons to give the service a try!

• 3 year track record and counting
• Over 100 customers ranging from 16 users to 20,000
• Some of the larger customers have their own time zones, languages and cultures
• Dedicated team of engineers, so while customers have a SPOC, they don’t have a SPOF
• Training can be bespoke depending on end user’s requirements
• High renewal rates, underlining the value of the training

▶️ Download the KnowBe4 solution brief

Want to find out more?

As KnowBe4 Partners, Complete IT Systems can offer you expert advice on the solutions and how they could be effectively deployed in your business. We also offer KnowBe4-as-a-Service packages, including Managed Service for Simulated Phishing and Security Awareness Training.

To find out more please call us on 01274 396 213 or use our contact form and we’ll arrange a good time to call you back.

Generic security awareness training is no longer effective in complex work environments. Users either don’t get it, don’t think it applies to them, or thinks “it’s IT’s job”. 

As a result, your organisation may be struggling to deliver relevant, engaging content that changes user behaviour and resonates across different roles, departments, and even languages.

Enough of the bad news – what’s the solution?

KnowBe4’s AIDA (Artificial Intelligence Defense Agents) is an AI-native suite of agents that supercharges your approach to human risk management. It leverages multiple AI technologies to create personalised, adaptive, and highly effective training for all of your users that actually changes behaviour.

By automating template generation, training, and reporting, AIDA reduces the administrative burden on your security teams so they can focus on protecting your network.

▶️ Download the AIDA information sheet

Want to find out more?

As KnowBe4 Partners, Complete IT Systems can offer you expert advice on the solutions and how they could be effectively deployed in your business. We also offer KnowBe4-as-a-Service packages, including Managed Service for Simulated Phishing and Security Awareness Training.

To find out more please call us on 01274 396 213 or use our contact form and we’ll arrange a good time to call you back.

In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, cultivating a robust security culture is paramount for every organisation.

Having the right tools in place is only one part of the challenge. But ensuring your staff, partners, contractors, suppliers and any other interested parties are clued up on what to look for in cyber threats is your first line of defence.

This whitepaper offers invaluable insights from senior-level executives across various industries, providing you with proven strategies to strengthen your security posture.

Download this comprehensive report to discover:

• Proven strategies to foster security awareness at all levels.
• Tips for identifying and nurturing security champions within your organisation.
• Effective ‘nudge’ techniques to encourage secure behaviours.

By accessing this white paper, you’ll gain:

• Expert perspectives on building a security-conscious workforce.
• Actionable steps to implement immediately.
• Real-world examples of successful security culture transformations.

▶️ Download the white paper

Want to find out more?

As KnowBe4 Partners, Complete IT Systems can offer you expert advice on the solutions and how they could be effectively deployed in your business.

To find out more please call us on 01274 396 213 or use our contact form and we’ll arrange a good time to call you back.

Today’s word of the day is cyber-resilience. Read on for an overview of the concept, and view an informative webinar to get a more in-depth presentation and answers to your questions.

Cyber-resilience is the ability to bounce back quickly from a cyber incident. And the fact of the matter is that, unless your organisation is very lucky indeed, sooner or later it will suffer a successful ransomware attack.

And if your company has cultivated cyber-resilience, it will be able to recover and return to normal operations quickly and easily. But if it hasn’t, it will find its operations massively disrupted, for weeks or even months. The average time to recover from ransomware is 24 weeks. That’s nearly two quarters. Can your organisation survive a disruption that long – or longer?

➡️ Find out how Barracuda help evolve your cyber resilience

Ready to learn more?

Complete IT Systems have a team of Barracuda specialists on hand to demo the solution, discuss business benefits and help you understand how the technology works for your organisation.

To get in touch or request a demo please contact us.

Our customers often ask us for help securing their businesses in a cost efficient way.

The reality is that there’s no “one size fits all” as every organisation is different in terms of its IT infrastructure, users, locations, etc.

But extended detection and response (XDR) is a vital tool to get ahead of attackers while also making the best use of existing security controls. In other words, it helps you achieve the holy grail of doing more with less.

These new insights from Barracuda provides more detail about this cutting-edge solution and why it should be a central component in your security arsenal.

Read the new e-book to discover:

• What XDR is and how it works
• How XDR can make life easier for your IT or cybersecurity team
• The ways XDR streamlines threat detection and incident response, making it faster and more effective
• How to choose an XDR provider

➡️ Download the eBook

Ready to learn more?

Complete IT Systems have a team of Barracuda specialists on hand to demo the solution, discuss business benefits and help you understand how the technology works for your organisation.

To get in touch or request a demo please contact us.