Investment decisions are often pushed back, budget constrained or in the most challenging cases, subject to a divided opinion on need. IT partners and co. will perform their role and make the necessary recommendations or as suggested by leaders within the security sector but cost is most often the driver that denies change.

Those businesses fortunate enough to adhere to some form of compliance are less prone to delays or division. In order to remain compliant, they must follow the security guidelines laid out before them.

The risks of avoiding or delaying such recommendations, can often far outweigh the costs of implementation and those that would continue to delay put not only their data, but the success and reputation of their business at risk.

The challenge for us as Managed Service Providers, is to help business owners understand both the necessity of investing in and having professionally managed up-to-date systems as well as the evident risks of not doing so. The solution is still a value or bottom line proposition as there is still a limited understanding and willingness to accept the risk.

To Manage or Not to Manage?
An awful pun but a very pertinent question. Having professionally managed and up-to-date systems have obvious benefits. As a SolarWinds® MSP partner, we are able to provide centralised management of servers, desktops, mobile devices and pretty much everything in between. We can empower IT Managers and Internal IT departments to take control of their own landscape and monitor their systems with ease. It is now a common approach that Managed Service Providers (MSP’s) have adopted as it streamlines, protects, reports and it does all of that in abundance. Businesses can reap the benefits of a single pane of glass approach to managing Antivirus, Windows Security Patching, Third Party Software Patching including Windows Server and Desktop Backups. Such systems significantly reduce systems downtime and the subsequent demand on support.

The Security status of devices can be seen in real-time allowing technicians to quickly react to threats and issues with AV and Patching keeping customer networks safe and secure. A threat on one customer site can be mitigated across all other customer sites in near real-time. This has a huge advantage over disparate Antivirus, patch management and backup systems with a lack of visibility and access rights across technicians. This disjointed and time consuming approach can leave customers and their IT partners exposed to significantly longer response times when mitigating or dealing with the aftermath of a successful attack.

We need better protection
Businesses understandably want the vendors of security products to do more to protect them, their employees and their data. MSP’s and businesses are crying out for that support and in most cases, we are seeing it. Security products are constantly evolving to detect the latest threats and can now predict where threats could occur by continually scanning your network for vulnerabilities whilst placing a £ value on the data that’s exposed. Yet, the responsibility cannot be solely placed with them and why should it? Human intervention and the employee determine the final outcome. The zero hour threats (new or latest iteration of a virus or malware) are the most difficult to protect against as a new strain may not have the same signature as its predecessors which means we cannot completely rely on the security products to perform. We all need an additional layer of protection.

This protection comes through education, we must educate our employees to recognise these threats but equally as important, be responsible for their actions. An employee armed with an understanding of consequence and what to look for, follows the guidelines for their own security (separate usernames and passwords for business and private accounts) and communicates with their IT team can single handedly prevent a devastating infection. It already happens several times a day and most don’t realise they are already protecting their employer from exposure!

For instance a spam email with a link or attachment has managed to make its way through all layers of protection and into a user’s mailbox. The decision at that point to be curious or careful is the decision that will determine how much downtime, data loss and financial burden is placed upon the business and IT support. The email looks genuine, it’s from another employee asking to transfer funds to pay an attached invoice, seems legit…but something is off. The reply address is a Hotmail address but it says it’s from the FD?
Having the ability to recognise such threats is the difference between the potential for financial loss and a normal working day. Where security products fail, our employees are our last line of defence and we should at least provide them with the tools and understanding of how to better protect themselves.

Every serious infection of virus or malware we have identified, is the direct result of an employee not understanding their responsibility, their role in the security process and how they can better protect themselves and the business.

So what do we do?
Investing in the right security products is an obvious component in threat protection. It is the responsibility of IT department heads, IT partners and the Security Product Vendors, to help their customers and decision makers better understand the products at their disposal and why they are needed. Configuring those products to help predict, detect and prevent infection can de-risk a signification portion of the IT landscape.

User education is critical and needs to be continually reviewed to ensure employees don’t become complacent.  Regular meetings or bulletins reinforcing the importance of being vigilant in their approach as well as updates to what to look for will be the mainstay. We can invest a significant portion of our budgets in the latest products but it can easily be undone by human curiosity or from a lack of education.

If you are unfortunate enough to be a victim of a ransomware attack, you will inevitably turn to your backups or Disaster Recovery Strategy. Local backups can be and are often infected if stored on local servers or Network devices such as a NAS but cloud backups are securely encrypted and safely out of reach of ransomware. Your recoverability determines how quickly you go about your working day so ensure you invest in a backup solution that securely stores your data offsite.

How do we protect our customers?
We are open and transparent about our methods and approach to network management and take pride in having invested in the best tools available. SolarWinds® MSP allows us to manage our customer’s IT landscape with real-time monitoring, Antivirus, security updates, risk intelligence and full disaster recovery solutions delivering an unparalleled support and systems management experience.
Speak to us, we are great at listening

Spammers collect email addresses (including yours) from a variety of sources including websites that you have registered your email addresses with. They then send you emails in an attempt to verify that your address is valid in order to start sending unsolicited spam messages, often as part of phishing scams.  Phishing aims to obtain sensitive information such as login or password credentials, credit card numbers or bank account details.  Often spam is responsible for spreading malicious code or spyware on to machines and transmitting viruses but it can take other forms.

Give me an example of an email virus infection?

E‑mail attachments are a primary source of virus infection.  As an example, you can receive an e‑mail, even from someone you know, with an attached file that is disguised as a document, photo, or program, but is actually a virus. If you open that file, the virus will infect your computer and potentially your network.

What else do they try and do?

Deceptive links in e‑mail messages are often used as part of phishing and spyware scams and can look as though they are genuine, but they can also be used to transmit viruses. Clicking a deceptive link can take you to a webpage that attempts to download malicious software onto your computer or encourages you to enter sensitive information into fake webpages. Use extreme caution when deciding whether to click a link in a message, particularly if the sender is unknown to you or the message itself, seems inappropriate or very vague.  Even when the message appears to be from a genuine sender it is always better to exercise caution in choosing whether to open a link – see further information below on spoofing.

Spoofing is the creation of emails with a forged sender address.  The sender address could purport to be from your own email address or simply be using just your name and any email address.   A spoofed email does not mean the alleged sender has been hacked.

Spoofing is a very common tactic used in phishing because the victim if more likely to open the email and act upon the contents when they think it has come from someone they know and trust.  The idea is to get you to give up sensitive information or convince you to take action such as opening an attachment (virus) or making a fraudulent payment.

You can recognise a spoofed email sent to you by looking closely at the name and email address of the sender or in more detail by checking the message header.  To check the sender in the message header, open the email message (by double clicking), click the File tab, on the Info tab, click Properties and header information appears in the ‘internet headers’ box.

Always be vigilant and exercise caution.  If in any doubt call the sender to verify the contents especially if the sender is asking for a payment to be made.  Do not reply to the email as your reply may go straight to the spammer.

What are Ventrus doing to protect us?

Anti-virus and Anti-spyware – Ventrus has deployed Anti-virus and Anti-spyware which automatically blocks the “known” viruses and phishing scams however this is an ever-evolving and hourly changing threat and new technologies are consistently being designed and deployed to circumvent these security products and spread malicious software.   Until those malicious technologies are deployed, the threat is unknown and patches will not have been developed therefore no amount of anti-virus or spamware will ever completely eliminate this threat.  It is therefore very important to remain aware of the risks and take the appropriate action.

What should I be doing to minimise the risk?

To reduce the possibility of receiving spam emails there are things you can do to protect your email addresses and accounts, on your computer. The following tips will help you and your company combat the amount and type of spam you receive.

• Limit the places where you post or register your business email address
• Review the privacy policy of websites
• Try not to leave too much personally identifiable data where it will be easily accessible.

What should I do if I receive a suspected spam email or an unexpected attachment or link?

Employees - If you receive an email from an unknown source or even a trusted source, particularly if it has attachments or links, makes requests for sensitive information or asks for a payment – the general rules are as follows:-

• Look at the sender’s address, it might be an address you recognise at first glance but if you double click on the address or check the headers it could be something entirely different.
• If the email has what appears to be a genuine link, hover over it to see the real address
• Never click on any links or attachments: this is the simplest and most effective way to handle junk emails.
• Ignore and delete the spam message
• Never reply to a spam message as this lets the sender know it is an active account.
• Never forward a spam message.
• If you receive e‑mail attachments or links from a KNOWN SOURCE that you aren’t expecting, consider contacting the sender by telephone and asking them to verify that they actually sent the attachments or links before you open them.
• Be aware that the email could be spoofed to look genuine, were you expecting a request for a payment? Is the payment for someone you’ve never made a payment to? Is it asking you to submit sensitive information or visit a website? Always exercise caution, check the header and/or make contact with the sender via telephone especially where requests for payment are concerned.

What else can the company do to minimise the risk?

Establish and enforce clear information security policies in order to make staff aware, educate staff to recognise security risks and follow the guidelines set out to protect them and your company.

Have internal security processes for payment requests whereby they are verified with a phone call.

Do not respond to these emails, by responding to spam emails, employees are actually confirming their company email address as a valid address to spammers.

Restrict the use of office email addresses for personal messages or participation in website newsgroup or chat rooms by employees.

Do not register your company email address on websites that you do not trust not to pass on your details to third parties. Ensure employees register their personal addresses with personal use websites.

• Consistency is key

Windows 10 is a much easier system for the user, whether you are navigating via your desktop PC or via a touch screen on your tablet.  The look and feel of the system is consistent across all devices including your Xbox!

Much of what you currently see in Window 8 has remained which gives users the benefit of familiarity and the confidence that they will get to grips with the new system in little time.

• Start  button is back

Microsoft have rectified the mistake they made with the Windows 8 release when they removed the popular start button as this is back in all its glory in the new release!  Click  Start  button on the taskbar and start pinning apps and programs, moving and regrouping tiles.  It can also be resized.

• Microsoft Edge

Codenamed Project Spartan from the Trident rendering engine used in Internet Explorer 11; has replaced Windows Explorer with new easier ways to find things, read and even write on the web page plus a little help from the lovely Cortana if you get stuck.  Internet Explorer will continue to run on a legacy basis for the time being.

• The Hub

This is where you store everything you find on the web.  The Hub incorporates favourites, a reading list, browsing history and downloads.  The Hub also allows you to read without distractions by clicking on the book, edge will display your page with purely just text and pictures without all the titles, ads and pop ups.

• Search

You can search much faster straight from the address bar which will provide you with a list of search suggestions and instant results.

• OneDrive incorporating on and offline access

Files that you save to OneDrive are available online at OneDrive.com and offline on your PC. This means that you can use them at any time, even when you’re not connected to the Internet. When you reconnect, OneDrive updates the online versions with changes that you made offline.

• Task view now in desktop mode

Task View historically just available on tablets is now available on desktop mode. Accessible either via the button in the taskbar or by using the Windows-Tab keyboard shortcut, it allows you to create virtual desktops.

• Snap and resize

Snap allows you to quickly resize a window so that it takes up a quarter of the available screen size by simply dragging the window to a corner of the screen.  As soon as you release and as if by magic, thumbnails will appear of all your other windows allowing you to click or tap and resize.

• Windows Updates

Windows updates are now mandatory with the exception being the Enterprise version in which you can choose to receive only critical updates and defer others for 90 days, you a then divide them into circles and dictate which are updated fist and set update schedules so as to minimise disruption to the working day.

• Apps

In Windows 8, the Windows Store apps on a desktop are a full-screen making them awkward for use on a normal desktop. In comparison in Windows 10 these are in a windowed mode and much less intrusive.

• How we can help

Improve performance of your workstations and laptops with a faster, lighter operating system by upgrading to Windows 10 now.  We will begin by checking your workstations for compatibility and plan the migration on your behalf. Standard engineering rates apply.

• See more here:-

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-10/getstarted-get-to-know-windows-10

At Ventrus Networks our extensive service portfolio is continually evolving with the adoption of new services and technologies that are aligned with the needs of our customers ever-changing requirements.

We are therefore, excited to announce the launch of our new brand We are Cloud, which will change the way you do business in the future.  Our aim is to help you simplify the adoption of the We are Cloud solution allowing your business to increase capacity and capabilities without investing in new technology or infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software. Ultimately, it can save your company a considerable amount of money…

We have already been recognised by both Daniel Thomas, Founder and Director of Compare the Cloud along with Cloud Expo Europe for demonstrating why our cloud solution will solve your IT business challenges better than anyone else.

This is what we said:-

Fifty shades of Cloud……We are Cloud will work with you to provide a fully customisable Cloud environment to fit your exact business needs for security, expertise, transparency, accountability, reliability and proven professionalism in the field.  Our cloud is fully scalable, providing you with innovative ways to reduce costs and maximise value.  We offer a personable, all-encompassing service assisting you in establishing company readiness to enable a phased or hybrid approach if required.  Our cloud is always available, always fast and always cost–effective.  We offer a seamless solution tailored to individual business requirements.  We guarantee reduction of expenditure, security, improved resource utilisation, scalability, seamless integration, anywhere access, disaster recovery and minimal upfront costs.  We really are the silver lining you have been looking for.

Let us know what you think, we’d love to hear from you…..

Ventrus Networks described, in 150 words why our Cloud Solutions and technology can solve your business problem better than any of our competitors.  We faced some stiff competition in the form of some very convincing pitches.

Our extensive service portfolio is continually evolving with the adoption of new services and technologies that are aligned with the needs of our customers ever changing requirements.   We thrive to consistently deliver IT services of the highest standards through continual service improvement and innovation.

This is a very exciting time for Ventrus Networks.  We are looking forward to the launch of our new brand “We are Cloud” in just a few weeks and we feel that our winning entry demonstrates and further cements not only our position as a premier provider of helpdesk, server monitoring, managed networks and consultancy services but also strongly places us as a front runner in the Cloud Computing market.

To see our winning entry, click here http://www.comparethecloud.net/4949/tell-me-why/ and for further information on how our Cloud Technologies can help you contact us on sales@wearecloud.co.uk