Are you having issues around support & deployment during the Covid-19 crisis? If you have new users working from home or remote locations to contend with, engineers off sick or self-isolating, or are unable to access your office location, then flexible IT support is a great way of ensuring your organisation’s core IT systems remain up and running.
How can we help?
Complete IT Systems have skilled technicians available to help business of all sizes and types remotely at the end of the phone.
We can provide support with VPN, Connectivity, Remote working as well as Server configuration issues be that Virtual or Physical.
Our credentials
Complete IT Systems Ltd carry accreditations from all major vendors including VMware, Microsoft, HP, Dell, Datto, Barracuda, Sophos and Kaspersky to name just a few. We can support systems running all Windows variants and Software revisions, we have specialists covering Office 365/Teams/Exchange.
Find out more
Complete IT Systems Ltd have been providing these services to our customers for over 10 years and have many satisfied clients. For more information on how we can help, please call us on 01274 396 213 or read more about our support services here.
With the recent spate of ransomware attacks in the UK proving that the threat hasn’t subsided, it is likely a good time to re-think your company’s IT security plan. To this end, we’ll be blogging over the coming weeks about the extent of the problem, the increasing creativity of hackers, the risks and exposure businesses face if ill-prepared, and some practical measures you can adopt to asses and safeguard your business against such a scenario.
What’s the impact of ransomware?
To kick off our series, we start with 10 key stats about how ransomware affects small businesses in the UK.
Ransomware remains the most prominent malware threat to SMBs, with 83% reporting it as the most common security threat
In the first half of 2019 alone, 61% of MSPs report attacks on their clients, with 19% reporting multiple attacks in a single day.
On average, 2 in 5 SMBs report that they’ve fallen victim to a ransomware attack. SMBs with in-house IT teams are at greater risk
When it comes to the ransomware threat, there is a disconnect between service providers and SMBs. 82% of MSPs are “very concerned” about the ransomware threat and 8% report their SMB clients feel the same.
Phishing emails are the leading cause of successful ransomware attacks.
Lack of cyber security education, weak passwords, and poor user practices are among the other top causes of attacks
The aftermath of a ransomware attack can be a nightmare for any business. Almost 50% of victimised clients experienced business-threatening downtime.
The average ransom requested by hackers is increasing. The average requested ransom for SMBs is now £1,990.
And this as downtime costs are up by 300% year-over-year, and the cost of downtime is 53X greater than the average ransom requested in 2019.
81% of SMBs with backup and disaster recovery (BCDR) solutions in place are less likely to experience significant downtime during a ransomware attack. And victimised SMBs with BCDR in place recovered from the attack in 24 hours, or less.
This data is taken from a 2019 Datto study into how ransomware is affecting SMBs in the UK.
In our next article, we’ll look in more at how UK SMBs can plan for and prevent ransomware attacks.
How can I find out more?
As Datto 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.
There is often confusion between the two complementary processes of data backup and information archiving. In this article, we compare them and discuss the specific needs addressed by each one.
We also review why organisations continue to need both a backup and an archiving solution even after they have moved to Microsoft Office 365.
Comparing Backup and Archiving
Backups and archives both store copies of data from the production environment, but the use cases for each are different, which means that different solutions are appropriate for each. A backup enables recovery from a situation where data has been lost, corrupted or becomes inaccessible, so it’s primarily a safeguard to facilitate data recovery. A backup stores multiple copies that are each associated with a specific revision of data, and it provides recovery back to a known good state from a specific point of time.
An archive enables compliance with legal and business data retention policies, as well as supporting eDiscovery. An archive preserves a single copy in secure immutable storage for a finite time period and provides ongoing end user access to historical business information.
This table summarises some of the key differences between backup and archiving:
For effective data protection and preservation, organisations need both a backup and an archiving strategy. They may attempt to use a backup solution as an archive (and vice versa), but as will be discussed below, there are significant limitations and deficiencies with this approach that make it inadvisable.
Backup is for Recovery
The primary purpose of backup is to allow recovery from the situation where the original version of data is lost due to unintentional or accidental deletion, or where files have been corrupted in some way to make it unusable.
A backup system achieves this by taking copies of the data on a regular basis to create a series of revisions. Each one of these revisions reflects the data at a specified point in time and can be restored back as needed.
Most backup copies are retained only for a few days or weeks with later copies superseding previous versions. However, it is common for one version to be retained semi-permanently on a weekly or monthly basis to allow data to be recovered from a much earlier point in time. For email data in particular, backup solutions are typically used to protect the most recent data, as this tends to be the most relevant for end users.
I have Office 365, why do I need to back it up?
Accidental deletion by users is the most frequent cause of data loss in a SaaS environment such as Microsoft Office 365; however, there are other ways where data can be lost. Application errors or mistakes in processing can cause data to be lost or overwritten, and there is always the risk of malicious deletion by employees with access to the data. A threat that has come to prominence recently is ransomware, which encrypts data and renders it inaccessible. Office 365 itself focuses primarily on ensuring that service and data availability is not disrupted, but Microsoft does provide customers two options for data recovery:
Recycle Bin: Data that has been recently deleted by users can be recovered from the Recycle Bin (for OneDrive), or the Deleted Items and Recoverable Items folders (for Exchange Online). However, these are subject to retention periods as listed below, after which data is permanently deleted and no longer available.
Document Versioning: If the Document Versioning feature is turned on, OneDrive for Business will retain a number of previous versions of each document that has been amended, and end users are then able to restore back to any of these previous versions. However, this does not provide protection against unintentional or accidental deletion, as all versions of a document are removed when the current version is deleted.
Organisations adopting Office 365 should recognise that there are serious limitations inherent in both of these options:
These options operate at an individual item level, so they are not suitable for the recovery of
larger quantities of data such as entire folders or mailboxes.
It is not feasible to do a point in time data restore using either of these options without
considerable additional processing.
In our next article, we’ll look in more detail at the problems of using backup as an archive.
How can I find out more?
As Barracuda 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.
Why is phishing spelt with a ph? What makes spear phishing different? Who’s a potential target?
Spear phishing is a huge concern to organisations around the world. It’s therefore crucial to understand that the evolution of spear phishing, key targets, and best practices to prevent these pervasive attacks.
Many people think that spear phishing is just another term for phishing, but it’s actually a very different type of attack. And while IT may well be familiar with the risks and dangers, your users may not be.
Whereas phishers send emails in bulk to large numbers of people, spear phishers do extensive research before starting their illegal campaigns. They send highly personalised messages to targeted people within an organisation, often relying on impersonation techniques.
For example, they may pretend to be the CEO, CFO, or another trusted executive from within your own organisation. Because of the economics, spear phishers are willing to invest a significant amount of time and effort in targeting a particular person, engaging in conversation through multiple emails to build trust. The aim is to get the victim to do something that benefits the spear phisher, such as wire transfer funds into the criminal’s account. Often the victim has no idea they have been tricked as they believe they have transferred funds to pay a legitimate bill—making it even harder to get the lost funds back.
How can I find out more?
Read Barracuda’s white paper on the subject, The Evolution of Spear Phishing. It’s something that all businesses must take seriously—attacks so far total almost £4Bn. In it you’ll learn all about spear phishing, and most critically, how to stay safe.
As Barracuda 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.
The bad news? A single security strategy won’t protect your business while threats are evolving, improving, and growing in sophistication. But the good news is that there are solutions.
The polymorphic nature of modern cyber threats renders traditional signature-based defence mechanisms inadequate. On the other hand, in-depth defence techniques like sandboxing are expensive and come with performance overheads.
Comprehensive, reliable protection against attacks like ransomware and advanced persistent threats require a layered approach with progressively sophisticated defence techniques that balance accurate threat detection with fast response times.
Also, the architecture should provide protection from all threats across all the threat vectors and across multiple deployment surfaces like physical and virtual infrastructures, SaaS services, and public cloud platforms.
So what’s the solution?
You need one that stays effective over time. One that’s agile and able to detect rapidly changing dangers.
Barracuda’s Advanced Threat Protection for Email Security Gateway includes it all, from link protection to security training, defending you against all known and unknown threats.
Find out more
Click here to read how Evolution Recruitment Solutions guaranteed peace of mind with email security.
As Barracuda 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.
A core objective of every business is to ensure that revenue consistently outpaces costs. Technology plays a huge role in achieving that goal. Interruptions—whether hardware or software failure, user fatigue, or vexing collaboration issues—are significant inhibitors of productivity that employers must keep to a minimum to prevent adverse impacts on revenue.
Demystify the productivity problem
To overcome these key productivity issues, IT decision makers across industries are gravitating towards intelligent solutions that enable systems to automatically manage thermal dissipation, dynamically control CPU performance, and intuitively manage data backup, cyber security, system updates, and system diagnostics. But, that doesn’t mean that only endpoint devices can help organisational productivity. The approach needs to be more holistic.
Deploying modern technology
The first step to improving productivity for each employee is to make well-thought-out endpoint device investments that are relevant to individual workers’ job roles.
Click here to read more about how to do so for mobile users, non-mobile users, and advanced users that need to run specialised hardware.
Want to find out more?
As Lenovo Platinum Business Partners, Complete IT Systems can offer you expert advice on the Lenovo range and how it could be effectively deployed in your business. To find out more give us a call on 01274 396 213 or email .
Secure inboxes aren’t enough. Anti-malware software isn’t enough. Fraud detection isn’t enough. Physical backup isn’t enough. Can a business IT security strategy ever be enough to counter modern cyber security threats?
Some of the challenge is because 91% of hacks start with a targeted email attack, and 80% of security-related breaches are caused by employee behaviour, making them even more difficult for IT to anticipate and guard against.
From your inbox to your users, peace of mind comes with four layers of security protection. Find out more in the ‘Know Your Threats’ infographic.
As Barracuda 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.
We know full well that IT budgets are under pressure, and whether it’s storage, networking, hardware, file sharing or security, there’s always something demanding the IT department’s attention – and cash.
To try to help in this never-ending juggling of budgetary priorities, we thought it would be useful to share Kaspersky Lab’s IT security calculator, which enables you to view the average budgets your industry peers spend on IT security by region, industry, and size. You can also see what security measures they take, the major threat vectors they encounter, how much money they lose as a result, and what you can do to avoid being compromised. The Calculator has been created as an adjustable tool. The data presented can be updated and/or added to over time based on insights from customers and Kaspersky Lab.
The tool is obviously very high level, but nevertheless we thought it provides some insight and recommendations into how your security investment compares with other organisations, and takes only a few minutes to use.
Click here or click on the banner below to get started!
Want to find out more?
As Kaspersky Platinum 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.
Small and medium sized businesses are exposed to the same cyberthreats as everyone else is, and they need protection. But we get it – it’s not easy striking the right balance with your cyber defences; consumer cybersecurity products are insufficient, and yet enterprise solutions are too costly and complicated.
Small business IT security
At best, an small and medium sized businesses might have an IT team including someone who is responsible for cybersecurity. But IT is a lot more than cybersecurity, and one person doing it all cannot devote much time to managing a heavy security solution. However, even that is a best-case scenario for small business IT security. According to our research, some businesses dedicate the role of security management to non-specialist internal staff — and some companies have no cyber security function at all.
In the age of cyber attacks ranging from everything from networks to USB sticks, it’s not an option to leave your business unprotected.
I’ve seen the news, but why is cyber security so important to my small business?
Businesses of all sizes can fall prey to a variety of malware and social engineering attacks such as phishing. Here are some of the business assets that it’s wise to protect when thinking about your small business IT security strategy.
Your money
Financial fraud is still one of the most damaging types of attacks. Our solutions have a Safe Money subsystem that can protect your finances from scammers. It ensures that you access only genuine, secure financial sites, and it protects your financial data from unauthorised applications and unsafe browser extensions.
Your data
Your business information is another primary target for cybercriminals. That is why our solutions allow encryption of files and folders, and also includes an automated backup and restore feature to protect your data from cryptomalware.
Your software
Our solution can help keep your business applications up to date. By running a scheduled search for application updates, it decreases the risk of cybercriminals exploiting unpatched application vulnerabilities.
Your passwords
Part of our small business solutions is a module called Password Manager, which can store passwords, bank account details, document scans, and text notes in a secure vault.
Your server
In case you need it, the Small Office Security feature can be installed on the server and protect it as well as a workstation.
So what’s the solution? Is there one?
The good news is that SMB IT security is made easier with the right solution.
As a result, you do not need to be a security specialist or even an IT professional to install or manage Kaspersky Small Office Security. The small business IT security solution provides out-of-the-box protection from most relevant cyberthreats and can be managed by almost any office employee (or ourselves at Complete IT Systems if you prefer). The Web console provides all information necessary for managing cybersecurity: information about licenses, users, devices, product versions, and so on. The main protective subsystems do not need much attention, so your employees can concentrate on their day jobs instead.
Find out more in this short video
Want to find out more?
As Kaspersky Platinum 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.
