In recent years the cybersecurity landscape has changed dramatically. Businesses are targeted daily by malicious individuals, professional criminal enterprises and state actors. With the prevalence of command-and-control software used to steal data and insert ransomware, the risks have never been higher. Couple that with the risk of downtime, data exposure and fines from multiple entities, and a bleak picture emerges.
Businesses, just like yours, are targets for hackers whether you know it or not. The unfortunate part is that many businesses think that if their IT vendor keeps their systems patched and their anti-virus up to date, they are safe.
NOTHING could be farther from the truth! Plus, a dirty little secret here – your IT Vendor likely isn’t keeping your systems patched because they follow the ‘set-it-and-forget-it’ mentality, as most do. Only when there is a breach do the excuses come out; pouring salt in the wound when you get a bill for cleaning up something you were paying your IT vendor to prevent.
How do we know this?
We had a client experience a breach.
Our CEO was LIVID, no, like REALLY LIVID. We pay an arm and a leg for anti-spam, anti-virus, patching, content filtering, security awareness training AND yet another tool that was supposed to specifically defend against ransomware. On top of that we have a team of people dedicated to looking at these systems top to bottom to ensure they are actually doing what they are supposed to be doing.
Despite it all, a user clicked on a link, gave up their credentials and the hackers walked right in through the front door; they were given the keys.
This was embarrassing to say the least.
So, what does an IT Partner who has ‘Own It’ as a core value to do? You guessed it, we had an ‘all-hands-on-deck-this-isn’t-a-drill’ response and got them back up and running. And what was the bill that we sent our clients? A big, fat $0! Why? They were paying us to prevent this type of breach and that makes it our responsibility to clean it up, to put them back together like it never even happened!
But that was just the start..
We then spent many, many, many, hours detailing exactly what happened and looking for a tool that would mitigate even something like a user giving up their credentials and rolled it out, at our cost, not to just the client that had the original problem, but to all of our clients.
At Technology Associates, we work hard to provide the very best in technology and processes to protect our clients. We are constantly analyzing and evolving our plan for the most effective tools to secure our clients against malicious cyber criminals.
In order to offer our clients the highest level of security possible, Technology Associates is excited to announce our latest strategic partnership with Crowdstrike.
CrowdStrike is the pioneer of cloud-delivered endpoint protection.
CrowdStrike Falcon has revolutionized endpoint security by being the first and only solution to unify next-generation antivirus, endpoint detection and response (EDR), and a 24/7 threat hunting service — all delivered via a single lightweight agent. Using its purpose-built cloud native architecture, CrowdStrike collects and analyzes more than 30 billion endpoint events per day from millions of sensors deployed across 176 countries. The unique benefits of this unified and lightweight approach include immediate time-to-value, better performance, reduced cost and complexity, and better protection that goes beyond detecting malware to stop breaches before they occur. These capabilities are based on a unique combination of prevention technologies such as machine learning, Indicators of Attack (IOA), exploit blocking, unparalleled real-time visibility and 24×7 managed hunting to discover and track even the stealthiest attackers before they do damage.
Why? Because that’s how we roll. We learn from our mistakes (even the ones we don’t actually make) and we work to make sure they never happen again.
When we talk to business leaders across North Carolina, we hear all the time that they are looking for an IT vendor who is asking the questions they don’t know to ask. If you are telling your IT vendor what to do, versus the other way around – this is a big red flag!!
Our clients don’t have to worry about not knowing the questions to ask, we are already asking them on their behalf. We are telling them what they need to know, bringing the combined knowledge and experience from managing customers across NC and apply they experience across all of our clients.
To read more about The CrowdStrike Difference, click here. To learn about The Importance of Endpoint Protection, click here.