If I had a nickel for every time I heard someone say they had an IT "guy".... and these words were coming straight from the mouths of business owners and top level executives.
You have to remember, some companies, though small in size, can still earn millions of dollars annually. And because they’re smaller businesses they think they can't afford the help of an entire department to run their network.
The best defense against ransomware attack is knowledge and then of course applying that knowledge. Knowing what you need to do in order to protect yourself is critical to the safety of your business. The recent "wannacry" ransomware attacks provided us with valuable information, which are basically opportunities, to learn or re-learn how to defend and secure our networks. As with most attacks, our attackers leave behind clues in their wake. The Cyber Ransomware Attack labeled “Wannacry” recently took a "second go" at attacking its’ victims.
The Connectors Executive Network met last night, in Boca Raton, to discuss "best practices for hiring and retaining great employees." The turnout was incredible!
Some people traveled quite a few miles, some even had to endure rush hour traffic just to attend the event! The journey was worth it, I can guarantee you that much. "The whole point of these events are for the guests to gain from them," said David Bennett. "I want our guests to learn something new, to walk away with an action item, whether it's a new way or idea on how to make results driven changes at work or maybe the event produced some great new business connections!"
It's no secret that natural disasters (any kind of them by the way) should all have one thing in common, a backup plan, because, well, you're dealing with something unpredictable--nature. Being confident in your goals should not prevent you from contingencies...life isn't so two-dimensional. A brilliant friend of the family started his company from his garage in 2004 and within 6 months he’d outgrown it, forcing him to lease an office space close to home, which at the time was in Broward County, Florida. His one man operation turned into a forty man operation in less than 2 years. You could say that he was on the fast track to success, in a beautiful high-rise building in Fort Lauderdale. Unfortunately Bill’s company didn’t have a BDR (Backup and Disaster Recovery) plan, this three letter acronym that every managed IT services provider knows so well. In October 2005, South Florida was hit by Hurricane Wilma, the most damaging storm to hit Broward County since Hurricane King in 1950, and Wilma destroyed residential and commercial property in its path. Bill’s office building suffered tremendous damage and because they didn’t have any offsite backup, they lost everything.
I was in college, living paycheck to paycheck, eating Ramen Noodles and buying all non-brand name products. So outsourcing any type of service wasn't really an option for me. It wasn’t a choice, it was reality and it was the way it had to be. I was living on a budget so that one day I could enjoy the finer things in life. My beautiful college girlfriend (who by the way is now my beautiful wife) nagged and nagged about the color of our walls until one day I decided I’d just paint them myself. I couldn’t afford to outsource the paint job. How hard could it be? I went to the local paint store, bought the cheapest brand of paint I could find, came home threw on some coveralls and began to paint. Close to 2 weeks later, I was done. I stood in front of those walls and I knew deep down I’d done a crap job! I knew that it would have looked a thousand times better if I had outsourced the job to the professionals. But the cost was right and that was that.
