Did You Know that Half of Small Businesses Experienced Some Form of Cyberattack in the Last Year?

While many may not want to admit it at full volume, these organizations and their hardships are quantifiable proof that small businesses are at risk of cybercrime and criminal activities… but why is this needed?

Simple: while small businesses once weren’t so often targeted as large companies were, a combination of these small businesses being just as reliant on IT and possessing equally valuable data can easily make them a sitting duck.

This combination makes it essential that businesses, regardless of their size, take the realities of modern cybercrime seriously.

A Lot of Cybercrime is Based on Scale

It may be tempting to view cybercrime similarly to more old-fashioned forms of theft. This is a mistake.

After all, in an old-fashioned holdup, the criminals responsible were limited in their scale. They generally could only target one business at a time, only able to steal from that one location and any poor saps unlucky enough to be present.

Nowadays, cybercriminals have no such restrictions. A single scam could potentially reach hundreds or even thousands of businesses, and since some will try to take what they see as the “easy” way out, a good portion of those impacted businesses will pay up.

Recently (as of this writing), strategic consultancy firm Dark Matter partnered with Dell Technologies and McAfee to produce a fictionalized but harshly realistic film called Butterfly: A True Cybercrime Story. We recommend you take the half-hour or so to watch it, as it is very well produced and does a pretty good job of depicting the impact that a cyberattack—in this case, ransomware—can have on just one business if that business isn’t totally prepared to deal with such an event.

As you watch it, I want you to keep something in mind:

This film depicts the experience of a relatively small business dealing with a cyberattack. In reality, dozens of organizations could have almost identical experiences simultaneously, depending on how effective the cybercriminal’s ruse was. So, as you watch the fictional JPX Construction struggle to deal with their situation, pay attention to all the wasted labor, the stress, and the funds that the situation forces upon them, and keep in mind that this is just what one business could feel. Today’s threats are designed to catch as many companies in their web (or, in keeping with the Butterly analogy, their net) as possible. In the world the filmmakers have created, JPX Construction is just the one example in focus, with dozens of others potentially experiencing the same thing or worse.

You Need to Do Everything You Can to Stay Out of the Statistics

Don’t get us wrong: today’s cyberattacks are more cunning and damaging than ever, but that doesn’t mean you’re helpless and can only hope you aren’t targeted. Many things can and should be done to prepare proactively for such an event, including the likes of:

• Keeping secure and isolated backups of all your data in case you lose your original copies in an attack.
• Making the critical investments proper cybersecurity requires to protect your business network, from servers to endpoints.
• Training your team members to recognize and appropriately respond to suspected cyberattack attempts and risk factors.
• Updating your technology and its protections so they are shielded from vulnerabilities, new and old.

We Can Help

While JPX Construction was depicted to have a very dedicated IT technician on staff, we know that isn’t the reality for many businesses nowadays… and those that do often have conflicting priorities their on-staff IT team is expected to honor. As a result, many companies, including some in TriState, just don’t have the resources to support the team required to keep them productive and secure.

That’s where we come in. At Patriot Tech Services Inc., we provide outsourced IT services and support designed to bring big business solutions to small and medium-sized organizations. Naturally, this includes a litany of cybersecurity services and protections. Find out how we can help keep your business safe by calling us at 877-874-4629.

Explaining Downtime

Downtime is known as the business killer, and if left unchecked, that’s not an exaggeration.

Downtime is any amount of time when your employees cannot work on critical tasks that move your business forward or generate revenue. In IT, this is when your team cannot access important computing resources. Downtime can be an expensive problem for any business to deal with.

If left unchecked, downtime can impact operations well after the downtime-causing incident, too, increasing its expense.

Explaining Proactive Maintenance

The best way to keep your business safe from downtime is to actively prevent it.

This is generally done through proactive maintenance and management to ensure maximum uptime. You want to address problems that could lead to downtime well before they actually amount to it. This is a lot better than waiting for downtime to rear its ugly head and cause all kinds of trouble for your business.

The key to proactive maintenance is to identify and address issues before they become more expensive, downtime-causing problems.

Why Should You Utilize Proactive Maintenance?

Technology is an incredible thing, and it’s the key to proactive maintenance.

IT administrators have the ability to monitor networks and their individual parts to check for potential operational issues. This provides an opportunity to address issues before they escalate and cause more trouble later on. The key benefit of proactive maintenance is business continuity, which is critical to the success of any organization.

Downtime can disrupt operations, increase expenses, and lead to lost revenue opportunities, so you can’t take it lightly.

Let Us Help Your Business Keep Up

If your business has trouble keeping up with routine maintenance, we can help.

Patriot Tech Services Inc. specializes in working with SMBs like yours to keep up with IT maintenance and management. Furthermore, we base our entire business model around proactively addressing IT issues before they become bigger problems. Trust us; the last thing you want is for unplanned downtime to sink your budget.

Learn more about our proactive maintenance today by calling us at 877-874-4629.

Green Business Practices Offer Various Benefits to You

Yes, They’re Better for the Earth

Of course, greener practices will be more environmentally friendly, cutting down on pollution and using fewer resources overall. This is the benefit that we are all familiar with, but it is still worth mentioning, as it really is important.

You Save Money

That’s right, green technologies can potentially save your business a little green as well. Due to their inherent focus on efficiency, they are built to minimize waste from design to active use… giving you more bang for your buck.

It Can Promote Worker Safety

As green technologies tend to be newer, they are more likely to feature additional guards and protections to keep you and your team safe. Your workers are the most valuable thing in your business, so ensuring they are safe and sound should be a priority.

It May Be Regulated (You Save Money Again)

Depending on your green initiatives, your waste reduction could be subject to various regulations on the state or even federal level, and if you’re lucky, that could lead to fewer costs for permits and approvals.

Your Business IT Can Be Greener, Too

Of course, today’s IT can also help you reduce your environmental impact. Remote work—or even hybrid operations—can greatly reduce travel to and from the office, eliminating miles of travel and the associated emissions. 

The cloud helps consolidate your needs. Instead of 20 separate servers running at 35% capacity but expending 100% of resources, one cloud location can replace them. Paperless options can remove the need for paper usage in the office altogether… especially when paired with the cloud.

Plus, these options can all optimize your investment in your technology, ultimately saving you money.

We’d be happy to help you implement these kinds of technologies. Call us at 877-874-4629 to learn more.