It has been six months since the global health crisis invoked government-mandated “shelter-in-place.” Yet many organizations that scrambled to standup hundreds of work-from-home offices are…
Magna5 recently hosted an Executive Connect breakfast event in Seattle at the Columbia Tower Club. We brought together some of Seattle’s best in technology, from CIOs to IT directors from organizations ranging from healthcare, law, finance and more. The morning was crystal clear – and if you know Seattle, that’s rare – so attendees were treated to skyscraper views and the event backdrop was that of Mt. Rainier, Puget Sound. You could say, the view was stunning.
Also stunning: some of the topics presented during the event. Over orange juice, eggs and sweet rolls (and bacon too, of course), guest presenters Adam Barr from AlienVault and Jesse Gambetti from Commvault provided expert insight on the coming GDPR regulations that are going to drastically change the way businesses have to protect data. (What is GDPR? Find out more in this blog post.) In short, the morning’s topic focused on the idea that, in addition to protecting critical data, there’s an immediate need to start preparing, implementing, and managing specific security efforts in order to comply with sweeping regulations, set to enact in May 2018.
“Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.” -Coach John Wooden
You could sense the attendees’ concern as they questioned whether their company was ready for a data breach, compliance needs and so on: Was the right plan in place? Do they need more IT people? Was there a need to better their infrastructure? How would these needs affect budgets? And, how would they know if they’d done all the right things to avoid being out of compliance?
Thankfully – Magna5’s SVP of IT Justin Cameron was on hand, and, along with Jesse and Adam, presented viable solutions that would ensure data security, compliance assurance, and, well, peace of mind that Magna5 has things covered.
“If organizations are not properly preparing for the worst possible scenario, they are setting themselves up for failure that could lead to unplanned downtime and large upfront costs, or even worse, closing their doors for good,” Cameron explains. “I’ve seen it happen – and that’s a driving reason why we’re so committed to helping businesses protect their data and plan for what’s to come.”
Granted, it’s tough to have to consider worst-case scenarios when you’re just trying to run a company – but these are the topics facing CIOs and IT Directors every day in this ever-changing, rapidly emerging data landscape.
“There is a clear defender dilemma in today’s threat landscape – the attacker has an unfair advantage,” says Adam Barr, Partner Relationship Manager at AlienVault. “Threat actors are rapidly evolving the threat cycle and attack surface because there are unlimited resources and methods to exploit vulnerabilities.”
And like Bear Bryant said, defense wins championships.
Simply put, data protection and security must be a top priority for all organizations. According to a recent survey by CyberArk, despite an increasingly sophisticated cyber threat landscape, organizations are failing to proactively update their security defenses. A shocking 46% of organizations never alter or update their security strategy, even after suffering a cyberattack.
Furthermore, 46% of respondents said their organization can’t prevent threat actors from breaking into internal networks when an attack is attempted.
Magna5 solution: Reset your expectations, focus them on protecting mission-critical information and minimizing inertia throughout IT teams – and co-source with Magna5 when you need to fill gaps in your current staff.
Target, Equifax, Uber and Yahoo … all victims of large, significant data breaches. Thing is, most attacks don’t make the big headlines – and statistics show, most attacks hit small and medium-sized businesses. In fact, according to the 2017 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, 61% of data breach victims were small- to medium-sized businesses in 2017. Not only are SMBs growing as the favored targets, they are also the most impacted with 60% of SMBs shutting down within six months of a data breach.
Magna5 solution: Don’t have a false sense of cybersecurity confidence. Implement a multi-tiered approach that layers in defensive and offensive tactics. You can’t assume you’re secure because there’s a firewall and anti-virus. Work with Magna5 to implement the best, most up-to-date security solutions for your business.
While the security landscape continues to become more sophisticated every day, and threat actors are finding new ways to access environments, basic security services are now becoming insufficient as standalone products.
Magna5 solution: Realign your security strategy to include the three main pieces of a comprehensive security solution:
Many organizations realize the need for better security but are faced with challenges that hold them back. The top five IT security challenges that SMBs face today are: insufficient personnel, insufficient budget, a lack of understanding on how to protect against threat actors, insufficient security technologies, and lack of in-house expertise. Because of these challenges, organizations are starting to outsource their security services.
Magna5 solution: Use our outsourced security services, such as managed detection and response.
GDPR is the new EU data protection directive that aims to harmonize the data protection needs and wants of all EU citizens, no matter where they reside. GDPR will come into force on May 25, 2018 and if your organization is not compliant, you could be looking at fines up to 4% of annual revenue.
Magna5 solution: Have your GDPR plan in place now, even if you don’t have direct dealings in the EU. Think of it this way, GDPR is coming stateside sooner rather than later. Prepare now.
Staying up-to-date on global requirements can make you stand out from your competitors by installing confidence in your customers that you are compliant with the law and that you have their best interests in mind.
Magna5 solution: Being proactive about data privacy is a competitive advantage and we can take a look at your strategy, and help find you better solutions.
Data security is protecting the fortress around the data from external factors; data privacy is ensuring the legal collection, use of sharing and storage of data. Many organizations might think that they are protected from GDPR by their security procedures, but this can be inaccurate.
Magna5 solution: Here is a checklist to get the conversation started within your organization on whether or not your data is simply secure, private … or both.
At the end of the breakfast presentations, as everyone gathered around to chat further with fellow attendees and the presenters, the general tone had changed from being somewhat stunned about the coming changes, but to feeling much more prepared about the strategic plans they need to implement in order to better protect data and adhere to compliance needs – and how Magna5, along with partners AlienVault and Commvault, can help.
It only takes one mistake to be tricked by a scammer. Here are several guidelines to help us spot phishing attacks and become an effective human firewall barrier.
Magna5 will monitor the health of Tachyon Technologies’ customer networks, servers and devices in real-time to ensure network reliability and performance.
Teaming with Magna5 to manage your IT network monitoring can improve network performance and drive costs down.
Magna5 recently hosted an Executive Connect breakfast event in Seattle at the Columbia Tower Club. We brought together some of Seattle’s best in technology, from CIOs to IT directors from organizations ranging from healthcare, law, finance and more. The morning was crystal clear – and if you know Seattle, that’s rare – so attendees were treated to skyscraper views and the event backdrop was that of Mt. Rainier, Puget Sound. You could say, the view was stunning.
Also stunning: some of the topics presented during the event. Over orange juice, eggs and sweet rolls (and bacon too, of course), guest presenters Adam Barr from AlienVault and Jesse Gambetti from Commvault provided expert insight on the coming GDPR regulations that are going to drastically change the way businesses have to protect data. (What is GDPR? Find out more in this blog post.) In short, the morning’s topic focused on the idea that, in addition to protecting critical data, there’s an immediate need to start preparing, implementing, and managing specific security efforts in order to comply with sweeping regulations, set to enact in May 2018.
“Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.” -Coach John Wooden
You could sense the attendees’ concern as they questioned whether their company was ready for a data breach, compliance needs and so on: Was the right plan in place? Do they need more IT people? Was there a need to better their infrastructure? How would these needs affect budgets? And, how would they know if they’d done all the right things to avoid being out of compliance?
Thankfully – Magna5’s SVP of IT Justin Cameron was on hand, and, along with Jesse and Adam, presented viable solutions that would ensure data security, compliance assurance, and, well, peace of mind that Magna5 has things covered.
“If organizations are not properly preparing for the worst possible scenario, they are setting themselves up for failure that could lead to unplanned downtime and large upfront costs, or even worse, closing their doors for good,” Cameron explains. “I’ve seen it happen – and that’s a driving reason why we’re so committed to helping businesses protect their data and plan for what’s to come.”
Granted, it’s tough to have to consider worst-case scenarios when you’re just trying to run a company – but these are the topics facing CIOs and IT Directors every day in this ever-changing, rapidly emerging data landscape.
“There is a clear defender dilemma in today’s threat landscape – the attacker has an unfair advantage,” says Adam Barr, Partner Relationship Manager at AlienVault. “Threat actors are rapidly evolving the threat cycle and attack surface because there are unlimited resources and methods to exploit vulnerabilities.”
And like Bear Bryant said, defense wins championships.
Simply put, data protection and security must be a top priority for all organizations. According to a recent survey by CyberArk, despite an increasingly sophisticated cyber threat landscape, organizations are failing to proactively update their security defenses. A shocking 46% of organizations never alter or update their security strategy, even after suffering a cyberattack.
Furthermore, 46% of respondents said their organization can’t prevent threat actors from breaking into internal networks when an attack is attempted.
Magna5 solution: Reset your expectations, focus them on protecting mission-critical information and minimizing inertia throughout IT teams – and co-source with Magna5 when you need to fill gaps in your current staff.
Target, Equifax, Uber and Yahoo … all victims of large, significant data breaches. Thing is, most attacks don’t make the big headlines – and statistics show, most attacks hit small and medium-sized businesses. In fact, according to the 2017 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, 61% of data breach victims were small- to medium-sized businesses in 2017. Not only are SMBs growing as the favored targets, they are also the most impacted with 60% of SMBs shutting down within six months of a data breach.
Magna5 solution: Don’t have a false sense of cybersecurity confidence. Implement a multi-tiered approach that layers in defensive and offensive tactics. You can’t assume you’re secure because there’s a firewall and anti-virus. Work with Magna5 to implement the best, most up-to-date security solutions for your business.
While the security landscape continues to become more sophisticated every day, and threat actors are finding new ways to access environments, basic security services are now becoming insufficient as standalone products.
Magna5 solution: Realign your security strategy to include the three main pieces of a comprehensive security solution:
Many organizations realize the need for better security but are faced with challenges that hold them back. The top five IT security challenges that SMBs face today are: insufficient personnel, insufficient budget, a lack of understanding on how to protect against threat actors, insufficient security technologies, and lack of in-house expertise. Because of these challenges, organizations are starting to outsource their security services.
Magna5 solution: Use our outsourced security services, such as managed detection and response.
GDPR is the new EU data protection directive that aims to harmonize the data protection needs and wants of all EU citizens, no matter where they reside. GDPR will come into force on May 25, 2018 and if your organization is not compliant, you could be looking at fines up to 4% of annual revenue.
Magna5 solution: Have your GDPR plan in place now, even if you don’t have direct dealings in the EU. Think of it this way, GDPR is coming stateside sooner rather than later. Prepare now.
Staying up-to-date on global requirements can make you stand out from your competitors by installing confidence in your customers that you are compliant with the law and that you have their best interests in mind.
Magna5 solution: Being proactive about data privacy is a competitive advantage and we can take a look at your strategy, and help find you better solutions.
Data security is protecting the fortress around the data from external factors; data privacy is ensuring the legal collection, use of sharing and storage of data. Many organizations might think that they are protected from GDPR by their security procedures, but this can be inaccurate.
Magna5 solution: Here is a checklist to get the conversation started within your organization on whether or not your data is simply secure, private … or both.
At the end of the breakfast presentations, as everyone gathered around to chat further with fellow attendees and the presenters, the general tone had changed from being somewhat stunned about the coming changes, but to feeling much more prepared about the strategic plans they need to implement in order to better protect data and adhere to compliance needs – and how Magna5, along with partners AlienVault and Commvault, can help.
It only takes one mistake to be tricked by a scammer. Here are several guidelines to help us spot phishing attacks and become an effective human firewall barrier.
Magna5 will monitor the health of Tachyon Technologies’ customer networks, servers and devices in real-time to ensure network reliability and performance.
Teaming with Magna5 to manage your IT network monitoring can improve network performance and drive costs down.
It has been six months since the global health crisis invoked government-mandated “shelter-in-place.” Yet many organizations that scrambled to standup hundreds of work-from-home offices are…
“I’m about to go ballistic! Our SLAs are falling short. We’re experiencing more frequent network downtime. Our vendor is monitoring and sending us alerts but…
Do you have a trust deficit with your existing managed IT services provider? Are you confident they are taking care of your network? Is juggling…
Driving Responsiveness – Agility Series (Part Four) Recognize this? “Jason is the kind of guy who’s always in a state of readiness. He likes…
Recently, the Enterprise Networking Magazine’s editorial board selected Magna5 as one of its Top 10 SD-WAN Solution Providers for 2020. The magazine evaluates and selects…
Driving Responsiveness – Agility Series (Part Three) By default, playing it safe during a downturn can hurt your chances to thrive in a stronger…
Driving Responsiveness – Agility Series (Part Two) During a business downturn, it is important to go beyond just surviving and position your organization as a…
Driving Responsiveness – Agility Series (Part One) Rather than tapping the brakes during the COVID-19 business lockdowns, many organizations are accelerating growth by reaching out…
It has been open season for cyber threat actors targeting organizations’ endpoints during the COVID-19 epidemic. With a large percentage of employees now working from…
By 2025, contact centers will morph into experience hubs and how they perform will be placed more clearly within the context of the overall performance…
Every day, cyber criminals bombard networks with phishing emails or social engineering enticing users to give up confidential information. Examples include trying to trick you…
With the rise of the remote worker operating model, it doesn’t take long to discover that a distributed workforce depends upon high network performance and…
It is bad enough that cyber criminals relentlessly breach organizations’ networks with malware and ransomware to hold their data hostage. Now they are going a…
Unified Communications has been around for a while. But during the recent nationwide pandemic lockdown, the dynamics of communicating from any place, on any device,…
Hackers are leveraging ransomware and other malware through phishing lures, malware distribution and domain registration tied to COVID-19. Common themes include scamming, brand impersonation, blackmail…
The ripple effect of a major global health crisis can have a profound impact on organizational operations. As we’ve seen with the recent coronavirus outbreak,…
IT monitoring and management services offer organizations a way to improve security and network uptime without burdening internal IT teams. In this post, we’ll review…
SD-WAN in healthcare is changing how hospitals, medical offices and clinics care for patients. Here are four ways healthcare organizations are reaping the rewards. SD-WAN…
Federally Qualified Health Centers are community-based health care providers who provide a vital link to primary and preventive healthcare services in underserved communities. Dependable communications…
We’ve heard the saying: “Expect the unexpected.” But do businesses really take it seriously? Last October, weathermen cautioned residents in the Dallas area of pending…
In our last two blog posts, we discussed how to “OWN IT” and “SECURE IT.” Today, continuing our National Cybersecurity Awareness Month series, Be Cyber…
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is working on final rules to enable true national number portability on a nationwide basis. When implemented, it will enable complete national number porting…
Imagine getting to work and seeing an invoice from your voice provider that your company ran up a $122,000 phone bill in a single weekend!…
By 2021, a new business will be victimized by ransomware every 11 seconds. Even with strong security controls in place, your organization still has a…
Toll-free least cost routing helps organizations find the best path between caller and destination at the lowest available cost. Here’s why it matters. Toll-Free…
SD-WAN with Magna5 offers three popular deployment models to fit the needs of your organization – on-premises, hybrid and cloud application. Software-Defined WAN (SD-WAN) is…
Roughly 40-60% of midsize businesses never reopen after a disaster. But, with the right disaster recovery and business continuity plan in place, the damage can…
Over the past five years, security breaches have increased by 67%, according to Accenture’s global survey. Traditional security is in trouble. As threat actors deploy…
An effective IT monitoring and management strategy helps organizations protect precious uptime to eliminate downtime situations. Every company’s network and server structure are different. Some…
SD-WAN is revolutionizing networking by improving how businesses connect. But before hopping on the SD-WAN train, you need to decide whether you want to manage…
Healthcare providers are finally hopping on the managed SD-WAN train – and telehealth is driving it. In this post, we’ll look at five ways s…
If you’ve ever seen your area code on the caller ID, only to be greeted by a pre-recorded voice message promising to erase your credit…
SD-WAN is the new buzz word these days. Do you fully understand how it can positively impact your business? Managed SD-WAN can bring benefits and…
As you see in the video, sometimes network complexity can make you want to go back to the antiquated days of pen and paper. However,…
Deliver high quality voice and application performance over SD-WAN for your employees, nationwide. Organizations utilize Unified Communications to bridge the gap between multiple locations and…
Every organization is liable for the information it keeps. In a data-driven world, company records and information are everywhere … in servers, in storage, on…
Traditional WAN is out of date. SD-WAN can make your network agile and efficient with the cloud. Almost every IT and business leader today is…
Simplify your branch office network with optimized application performance using SD-WAN Today’s enterprise IT has become more sophisticated and bandwidth intensive, creating a complex and…
Companies are increasingly moving IT workloads to the cloud, but are they doing it at the risk of exposing themselves to a data breach? Multiple…
Lots of companies are moving IT workloads to the public cloud, but is this the right strategy for your business? I’m sure you’re aware by…
Disasters hit every organization sooner or later. The cloud, combined with reliable partners, makes recovering from disasters easier than ever before. Disasters have a tendency…
Simplify your Enterprise communications with Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) in the cloud. Enterprise businesses are constantly struggling with communication challenges. Traditionally, business phone…
Secured business communications mean better connections to your customers. UCaaS (Unified Communications) ensures your security with features like encryption, business continuity, and 24/7/365 support. Security…
Improve customer satisfaction and the customer experience with a hosted UC and Cloud Contact Center solution. One of the many exciting things happening at Magna5…
Managing your network can be hard, but it doesn’t have to be – that’s why Magna5 now offers Cloud Managed Network. Experience feature-rich benefits and…
Reduce Costs, Increase Uptime and Improve Performance A network operations center (NOC) is the heart of an IT managed services provider – monitoring, managing and responding…
Enhance collaboration to increase productivity and save money Being able to easily connect with your customers, vendors, and fellow employees is key. Without it, employees…
What is SD-WAN? Combined with UCaaS, it’s the future for small businesses in 2018 Unified communications, delivered as a service (UCaaS) from the cloud, is…
A fast, flexible data recovery system not only saves thousands – it could save your business. Business Data Loss can be the result of anything…
Businesses today either evolve or get left behind. We see organizations of all sizes that were once successful, now losing customers because they have not…
As business pushes the limits of IT availability, productivity and efficiency, the importance of reliable IT operations continues to be apparent. Small- and medium-sized organizations…
Interested in finding a Managed Service Provider for your network needs?
Would you like to find out more information about Magna5? Whatever your need, reach out!
