The First Line of Defense – your employees

Cybercrime is on the rise. Ransomware, phishing attacks, socially engineered emails, open wifi hacking, and so much more. They all target the most susceptible part of your security – your employees!   

How can you prepare your employees to be the first line of defense for your organization and themselves? Top-quality employee training! 

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Using Artificial Intelligence to Keep You Safer

We all know that cybersecurity is vital! Learn how our cutting-edge cybersecurity software is keeping you, your business and your intellectual property safer from hackers….let’s go! (No technical jargon, I promise!)

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What’s the story? How our manufacturing clients use technology – Part 1

I’ve been heading out “into the field” lately to talk to some of our manufacturing clients about what they feel are their most important uses of technology. Read more

Our IT vision for 2019

We are focused on our mission of helping our clients gain a competitive edge from their technology. This year we are looking closely at 3 key areas that are critical to supporting your success. Take a look at this quick video:

The Elephant in the Room Keeps Growing!

 

It seems that no one wants to talk about it, or acknowledge its existence, but the elephant in the room is the continuing and constant growth of ransomware (malicious software designed to deny access to a computer system or data until a ransom is paid).

One of our partner companies, Datto, produces a fantastic yearly report on the global state of ransomware as reported by over 2400 managed service providers (MSPs) around the world. The report is filed with excellent information in a very readable format.  You can download the whole thing here.

If you don’t want to tax yourself with the whole report, below are some of the key points and main takeaways that are important to you and your business: Read more

8 quick ways to reduce your cyber risk

Whether it’s the risk of a security breach or the possibility of hardware failure, every company has cyber risk that can affect their productivity or even their ability to continue running their business.

While there are no real shortcuts to proper cybersecurity and network management, there are a few simple ways to reduce your risks.

Here are 8 things you can do to reduce your cyber risk quickly: Read more

Downtime got you down? Here are 5 steps to stay up and running!

IT downtime in your business can be caused by so many things – hardware failure, power surges, security breaches, storms, coffee spills, just to name a few. But no one cares WHY they’re down when they count on being up and running!

So, what’s the quickest way to get your business running again? At IT Direct, we use the axiom “proper preparation prevents poor performance,” in other words, plan ahead!

Yup, not the answer you were hoping for, I’m sure, but it’s the best way to ensure that downtime doesn’t ruin your day, your week, or even, possibly, your business.  Read more

NIST 800-171 requirements – in layman’s terms

In our last blog post, we gave an overview of NIST compliance and why it is so important. In this blog post, we provide you with a quick, very high-level breakdown of the NIST 800-171 Requirement Families.

Each family falls under one of the three main functions of cybersecurity: protect, detect, or recover.

  • Protect – Protect your systems from harm or intrusion to the highest level possible
  • Detect – Detect when a breach is in progress or has occurred, from either inside or outside your organization
  • Recover – Ensure you have the systems and procedures in place to recover from an incident as efficiently and effectively as possible, while following all legal requirements

There are 14 families of requirements in NIST 800-171. In the NIST Special Publication document, the families are presented in alphabetic order, but it may make a little more sense to divide them into their security function. So, that’s what we’ve done below: Read more

What manufacturers need to know about NIST compliance

The President of IT Direct, Ari Santiago, recently gave an hour-long webinar on NIST compliance. He provided a quick, but very thorough overview of what NIST 800-171 is, why it’s important, and the 14 families of the framework.

If you’d like to listen to the entire webinar, you can find it here on YouTube.

In today’s blog post, we’re going to give an overview of that overview – a 60,000 ft view, if you will!  Read more

Cybersecurity reminder!

Today the Connecticut Higher Education Trust College Savings Program (CHET) had a over a $1 million stolen in a security breach. You can read more about it here.

This is just the latest in a stream of cybersecurity breaches hitting the public and private sectors. Cybersecurity risks are on the rise and we all need to remain extra vigilant and careful. Pay attention to what you’re doing when you’re online, what you’re clicking in your emails, and who you are giving your information to.

Hackers are making money…so they aren’t going to stop anytime soon!

Give us a call if you want to learn more about your organization’s cybersecurity risks.
860-249-1200