Business Email: M365’s Exchange Online vs. Exchange

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Microsoft is a dominant player in the business email market. For most businesses, the question isn’t whether to use Microsoft email solutions, but rather “which one?” While Microsoft’s Exchange server solution has been the go-to option for years, the rise of cloud-based solutions has given businesses a more flexible and cost-effective alternative: Exchange Online through Microsoft 365. 

IN THIS ARTICLE: 

The Difference between cloud (M365’s Exchange Online) and premise (Exchange) 

Exchange Online and Exchange are two business email solutions offered by Microsoft. Exchange Online is a cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) solution within the Microsoft 365 suite. In this subscription-based model, Microsoft owns, manages, and secures the infrastructure. 

In contrast, the premise-based solution, Exchange, requires someone to own and manage the server infrastructure that the licensing is installed on. Large enterprises may manage this in-house on their own servers. Smaller businesses often contract with a third party for email hosting services (such as CIO Solutions’ Hosted Exchange). In this case, the third party manages the solution on their own servers.  

Both solutions offer similar features but differ in one major area: who manages and secures the email infrastructure. 

Although the idea of having control over managing their own infrastructure may seem less risky and appeal to many businesses, shifting that responsibility back to the vendor can actually provide significant advantages. 

Benefits of Exchange Online 

With great control comes great responsibility. Managing Exchange servers requires both time and resources. It’s also limited to the capabilities of your business or IT provider and evolves at a slower pace. This can mean fluctuating costs, occasional downtime, and yes, even additional risks for your business.  

Alternatively, M365’s Exchange Online infrastructure is managed and secured by Microsoft. Having the vendor in control of these responsibilities means your business benefits from: 

  1. Consistent Maintenance

    Exchange Online provides built-in enterprise-level security features, high reliability, and regular maintenance, upgrades, and feature updates. This reduces the complexity and burden of maintenance for your business. 

  2. High Availability

    Exchange Online in M365 offers high availability and disaster recovery features. Microsoft guarantees the system’s uptime, ensuring that organizations have access to their email at all times (via the Internet). On the other hand, organizations that depend on Exchange servers may experience potential downtime and data loss in the event of a disaster. 

  3. Enhanced Security Features

    With Exchange Online, businesses benefit from a consistent and robust security framework. Exchange Online offers the latest security features and advancements, with Microsoft implementing advanced security measures and managing the infrastructure in accordance with industry regulations. 

  4. Quick Application of Security Patches

    A major advantage of Exchange Online is that Microsoft swiftly applies security patches when vulnerabilities are detected. This guarantees that your business stays ahead of the latest security threats, with the vendor efficiently and rapidly implementing patches to maintain the highest level of protection.

  5. Predictable Costs

    Exchange Online provides a cost-effective and predictable pricing model as a subscription-based solution. With monthly or annual subscription options, it’s bundled with the rest of the 365 suite and doesn’t have additional costs for managing the infrastructure or maintaining the system. By using Exchange Online, you can avoid unexpected costs such as hardware upgrades, infrastructure costs, or special projects that come with running your own Exchange environment.

  6. Scalability & Integration Capabilities

    Exchange Online plays a central role in the M365 suite. It serves as the foundation for the function and interconnectivity of the entire suite of productivity tools. Migrating email into Exchange Online is the first step for businesses looking to leverage Teams, SharePoint, and other tools in the M365 ecosystem. As businesses continue to embrace collaboration, connectivity, and flexibility, Exchange Online can be a key first step to setting up scalable productivity options in the future.

Considering your Options 

Microsoft 365’s Exchange Online offers several benefits over Exchange servers in terms of flexibility, cost-effectiveness, high availability, scalability, and enterprise-level security and disaster recovery features. As more and more organizations opt for cloud solutions for their ease of use and flexibility, it may be worthwhile to explore whether Exchange Online could be a good fit for your business. 

Are you a current client of CIO Solutions? Talk to your vCIO to continue the conversation!

Not a client yet, but curious about maturing your productivity tools? Let’s talk!

Turning your Conference Rooms into Teams Rooms

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By Josh Farlow, Director of Cloud Services

At the height of WFH, we all got used to virtual meetings. Most everyone has used Microsoft Teams video conferencing to some degree. But now that people are returning to the office more and more, there’s a disconnect between virtual meetings and being in physical offices.

As more workers come back to the office and Microsoft Teams continues to be a useful tool, Teams Rooms are an effective tool for bridging the gap and elevating your meeting experiences.

IN THIS ARTICLE: 

What is a Teams Room 

Virtual meetings won’t be going away anytime soon. Even as more people return to the office, there’s still a significant remote workforce joining meetings virtually. Teams Rooms are Microsoft’s solution for hybrid workspaces. They create a seamless integration of virtual Teams meetings into the physical conference room setting.

By installing compatible hardware and setting up your meeting spaces in your Teams system, you can transform your conference rooms into Teams Rooms. This makes joining a meeting from the conference room as simple as walking in and pressing a button.

How Teams Rooms change your meeting experience 

If a business is using Teams already, Teams Rooms are a great way to simplify and enhance the overall meeting experience as they bring more people back into the physical office. Here are a few reasons why businesses opt to smarten up their conference rooms with this tool:

Ease of Meeting & Reduced Set-Up Time 

Say you’re at the office and there’s a Teams meeting scheduled. Some of the participants are physically present in the office, but everyone’s joining from their individual offices with their own computers and their varied cameras and microphones.

Typically, you may have to wait for someone’s laptop to update, troubleshoot someone else’s speaker issues, or remind another attendee that they’re, again, on mute. With Teams Room set up in your conference room, you can save time and frustration by gathering everyone in one place and joining seamlessly from there.  

Enhanced Audio & Video Quality 

With the rapid shift to WFH, everyone had to collectively lower the standards for what was acceptable video and audio quality. We had to work with what we had, but that’s not the case anymore.

Turning your conference rooms into Teams Rooms immediately raises the overall quality of the meeting. The meeting space hardware offers higher quality than a laptop could provide including:

  • Better cameras that can auto-adjust to center everyone who’s in the room, zoom in, and more
  • Bigger screens with higher resolution
  • Better audio from multiple, high-quality mics in the room

No one sounds too far away, everyone’s on the screen, and everything is set up to support professional, high-quality meetings.

Easy collaboration & content sharing

We’ve all gotten used to just clicking a “share screen” button during our meetings. But you might be wondering “how would I do that if I joined from the conference room?”

One of the coolest things about a Teams Room is the ability of the hardware to detect which devices are nearby. The hardware can detect your computer and you can share your screen instantly from the Teams app. No fumbling around with HDMI cords, just one seamless meeting with content sharing.  

Possible Future Applications of this Tool 

The setup of a Teams Room opens the door to all sorts of other hardware options and productivity tool additions. A few examples include:  

  • Non-Teams Content Sharing-installing a wireless presentation pod so vendors and other guests can easily cast presentations to your conference room TV
  • Content Capture- capturing and digitizing the contents of a whiteboard
  • Presence sensors – start meetings as soon as someone walks into the room! 

By modernizing your conference rooms with the powerful hardware for a Teams Room, you can enjoy an elevated meeting experience now with room to keep expanding your efficiency and productivity into the future. 

Exploring Your Options 

CIO Solutions is constantly testing and researching solutions to meet our clients’ needs. As our clients find themselves adjusting to returning to the office and having more hybrid meetings, they’re looking for solutions that solve their challenges and enhance their experience.  

Our team has sourced some of the highest quality and cost-effective products for Teams Rooms setups, focusing on specific features and priorities that will provide the best experience possible.

Are you a current client of CIO Solutions? Talk to your vCIO to continue the conversation!

Not a client yet, but curious about maturing your productivity tools? Let’s talk!

Neglecting MFA: The Scary Reality of Your Business Risk

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IT security is more important than ever. Cyber-attacks and data breaches are a daily occurrence, they just don’t all make headlines. Businesses that fail to take proactive security measures put not only themselves at risk, but their customers too.

One of today’s foundational security measures is multi-factor authentication (MFA). But here’s the scary part: many businesses still aren’t using MFA, which means they’re at risk of some serious consequences.

IN THIS ARTICLE:

MFA Explained 

MFA is a security feature that requires users to provide a combination of two or more authentication factors to gain access to a system or application. This is typically something the user knows (like a password) and something the user has (like a phone or security token). These are used to verify the user’s identity. Unlike solely relying on a password for access, requiring more than one authentication method adds an extra layer of security. If the user’s password is stolen, the second authentication factor helps to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive information and systems.  

Business Consequences of Not Implementing MFA 

MFA is a relatively simple solution that can significantly increase your preventative security posture. In today’s world, it’s only a matter of time before a user’s credentials are compromised. Without a second verification method, that’s all it takes for a bad actor to get into your systems. The fallout of that can be severe.

Here are some examples of what can happen if your business doesn’t use MFA on critical business applications: 

  1. Data Breaches

    Without MFA, hackers can easily gain access to business accounts or systems by stealing or guessing a user’s password. No one’s password policy is good enough to prevent this. Once inside, your sensitive data including customer information, intellectual property, and financial records are at risk. 

  2. Financial Losses

    Along the same lines, without MFA, stolen credentials can give bad actors all the access they need to transfer funds, make unauthorized purchases, or steal sensitive financial information. This can result in significant financial losses, legal fees, and regulatory fines. 

  3. Reputational Damage

    A breach can damage a business’s reputation quickly which is difficult to recover from. Customers may lose trust in your business and look elsewhere. Depending on the severity of the breach, it can cause prospects to think twice about choosing your company. Reputations take a long time to build, can be damaged in an instant, and may take years to recover. 

  4. Compliance Violations

    If your business has cyber-liability insurance (something all businesses should have these days), MFA is a requirement. Failing to adhere to this could risk your insurance coverage. Additionally, many industries, such as healthcare and finance, are subject to strict compliance regulations that require the use of MFA. Failing to comply with these regulations can result in legal penalties, fines, and even license revocation.

  5. Operational Disruption

    The day-to-day impact of a breach resulting from the failure to implement MFA can be damaging on its own. Bad actors who gain access to your business systems can disrupt your operations or even shut down your systems. This results in downtime, lost productivity, lost revenue, and negative customer experiences.

The scary truth is businesses that avoid implementing multi-factor authentication (MFA) put themselves at significant risk for avoidable incidents. Cybercriminals are always looking for easy targets, and the absence of MFA makes your business just that. 

It’s true that implementing MFA won’t solve all security problems; it’s just one part of a robust security posture. But failing to take this foundational prevention step can lead to catastrophic events. The consequences for your business can range from uncomfortable to completely disastrous. 

It’s crucial that businesses take proactive measures to protect themselves and their customers. Implementing MFA on your key business applications is a simple yet effective way to increase security and mitigate risks. As the old saying goes, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

Are you a current client of CIO Solutions? Talk to your vCIO to continue the conversation!

Not a client yet, but wondering how to improve your IT security? Let’s talk!

SaaS Backups- Whose Job Is It Anyway?

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The importance of backups for Microsoft 365 

By Sean Gill, Director of Client Strategy

IN THIS ARTICLE: 

More and more, companies are relying on Software as a Service (SaaS) applications to run parts, or all, of their business. 

You’re very familiar with SaaS applications, whether you realize it or not. In the SaaS model, users access software applications over the internet. Some common SaaS services you may use regularly include Google workspace, Microsoft 365, MailChimp, and Zoom. Learn more about Software As A Service!

The Business Benefits of SaaS Solutions 

With the SaaS model, businesses can easily access effective software solutions without taking on all the management tasks. SaaS providers manage their infrastructure and security, regularly implement updates, and ensure consistent uptime of their services.  

All of this is wrapped up and accessible to users through subscription-based usage fees. Businesses that subscribe to these services gain useful and flexible Cloud-based solutions along with the peace of mind of knowing that the backend systems have experts focused on maintaining them.  

This offers incredible bang for your buck and ease of management. However, the other side of that is knowing where the business continuity responsibilities end for the vendor and where they start for your business.  

Understanding Microsoft’s Shared Responsibility Model 

One of the largest market shares for a SaaS solution belongs to Microsoft and its 365 platform. Businesses of all types benefit from the productivity tools and security features that Microsoft 365 offers.  

With all the ease and benefits of SaaS solutions, many business owners assume that their data in Microsoft 365 is backed up and easily recoverable. But is that really the case? 

The answer is yes and no. Enter the Microsoft “Shared Responsibility” model. 

SaaS providers like Microsoft do maintain backups to a degree. They store data around the world to ensure availability of service and protect against disaster. However, these recovery capabilities are limited. Microsoft doesn’t protect against things like human error (someone accidentally deleting files), malicious software, or hardware failure. 

The responsibility of protecting client data is shared with the client themselves. It’s their responsibility to back up their data above and beyond Microsoft’s native recovery capabilities. Many SaaS vendors have similar limitations like this, with the remainder of the responsibility belonging to the users.

This may come as a surprise to business owners who may assume that all recovery and backup functions are an included service with their SaaS solutions.  

Effectively Protecting Your Data 

So, what can you do to ensure that your data is protected? 

SaaS providers recommend using additional third-party solutions for backups to ensure business continuity for valuable data. If your business runs on SaaS solutions for critical functions, it’s important that these are properly backed up.

CIO Solutions offers solutions specifically designed for this through our technology partner, Datto. Datto SaaS Protection works natively with the 365 platform. This tool can capture multiple backups daily of Microsoft 365 applications including Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams. This allows for granular restores directly back into 365 that go well beyond Microsoft’s native backup and restore capabilities to ensure your data is protected.  

It is important to know what you’re getting with SaaS solutions and where there are gaps for your business. Knowing this, you can implement the right tools to ensure your data is secure while benefiting from the flexibility and productivity benefits of SaaS.  

Additional Resources:  

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sean has been shaping the IT strategies of businesses across a wide range of industries and sizes for over 10 years. As a vCIO at CIO Solutions, he works with business leaders every day to create a clear IT vision, mature technology solutions, and ultimately, enhance business productivity and security through technology.

He and the rest of the Strategic Client Services team at CIO Solutions are constantly evaluating important trends in the industry and advising clients on best practices and long-term IT strategies for success.

Are you a current client of CIO Solutions? Contact your vCIO or Client Success Manager to continue the conversation! 

Not a client yet, but curious about maturing your IT? Let’s talk!

Why Blacklisting Spam May Not Work

Why Blacklisting Spam May Not Work

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From CIO Support

IN THIS ARTICLE: 

Imagine this scenario: you’re sitting at your desk and an email pings. It’s an invite to a business conference from a name that looks familiar. Glancing over it, the email itself is innocent enough and doesn’t appear phishy; the organization putting on the conference is a legitimate industry-related business.

You delete this message and forget about it. The next day you receive another message seemingly from the same sender.

You’ve decided not to attend and don’t want to receive more of these messages – you never signed up for them in the first place. So, you quickly add the email to the blacklist on your spam protection.

What does it mean to “blacklist spam”?

Your blacklist is a set of senders/IP addresses that are blocked entirely or sent automatically to your spam folder.

The list is made up of senders the spam filter has automatically designated as “spammy” based on key characteristics, or that the user has manually added.

The sender is on your blacklist now which should solve everything, right?

The following day you receive virtually the same email.

Now you’re frustrated. Has your blacklist failed you?

Looking closer at the emails, you see that in all cases, they were sent from slightly different email addresses. Sending emails from varied IP addresses and servers is a strategy that even legitimate email marketers are using to get through spam filters. To keep up, you’d have to blacklist every version of that sender’s email!

Blacklisting spam: a losing battle

Our support team at CIO Solutions sees this scenario often. Users have an annoying sender they don’t want to receive emails from anymore. So they call or email our team to get that address blacklisted. We can do this, no problem, but it won’t solve the problem long-term.

Because of this tactic of sending emails from different IP addresses to bypass spam filters, this is going to be a recurring issue. Spending time blacklisting every version as it comes in isn’t a productive use of time for anyone.

So, what are the options for stopping pesky emails from continuing to clog up your inbox?

Alternatives to Blacklisting

  • Clicking “unsubscribe”- NOT advised

Unsubscribing may seem like the obvious answer, but it’s too risky.

If it is a malicious phishing email, clicking on any links in an email could lead to a password compromise. Even if it’s a benign sender, “unsubscribes” could still go ignored or worse, confirm that you received and engaged with the message in the first place (not great practices, but it happens).

  • Increase the spam threshold- Recommended

Increasing the spam threshold is a common and free option on many spam filters. Adjusting this sets the aggressiveness of the spam filter. The more spam-like or unreputable characteristics the email has, the more proactively it will be blocked.

Unfortunately, the downside is that you run the risk of legitimate emails getting caught more often by the spam filter. However, depending on your spam filter, you can check your lists and adjust your settings to “whitelist” or approve certain senders as needed!

Making better use of your time

Increasing the spam threshold is a broader, more proactive solution than the time-consuming, frustrating, and reactive one-by-one blacklisting method. It’s true, it means you may need to do some work to allow desired emails through. But it’s much more productive to allow the things you want vs. spending time and energy trying to keep up with blocking the things you don’t!

NOTE: CIO Solutions offers additional paid tools to help flag emails based on a threshold of legitimacy. Please reach out to explore your options if this is of interest! 

Not a client yet? Let’s talk!

Understanding Office 365

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By Josh Farlow, Director of Cloud Services

You’ve likely heard of Microsoft 365* in some form. However, what it is and what people think it is, are often two different things. Many people still think of it in limited terms. Without understanding the full value and extent of productivity benefits this tool can offer, it’s easy to miss out on what it can really mean for a business.   

*There are a lot of terms thrown around with this tool (M365, Microsoft 365, Office 365, etc.). Depending on the product licensing, the naming may be different. Office 365 is the most ubiquitous, so for the purpose of this article, that’s how we will refer to it.  

IN THIS ARTICLE: 

How people think of it: Email 

Often when people refer to Office 365, what they really mean is “email”. Many people think of O365 as just another way to host their business email. When this is the case, a business may consider it solely as an email option that offers additional security features and high availability (which Microsoft offers with multi-regional data centers and locations.)  

While email is the thing that interests businesses in the O365 ecosystem in the first place, this alone is not the primary value adder of O365. Using it as simply another option for hosting email will provide significant additions to security and availability (which shouldn’t be ignored), but it isn’t going to change much as far as experience or functionality. 

Migrating email to O365 is the first piece that enables a whole new range of productivity opportunities.  

What it really is: a suite of applications  

If we stop thinking of O365 as synonymous with “email”, we can start to see the tool for what it really is. A way for a business to consolidate, access, manage and connect many of the Microsoft tools that are important to their productivity.  

At its core, Microsoft 365 is “a subscription service that ensures you always have the most modern, up-to-date productivity tools from Microsoft”.   

In other words, it is a subscription service that offers subscribers access to a suite of cloud-based Microsoft applications. Instead of licensing all these applications separately, they’re bundled under different licensing tiers.  

Your business likely uses one or a few of these applications already for some of your key business functions: 

  • Meetings & Voice (Ex: Teams)  
  • Office apps (Ex: Word, Excel) 
  • Files & Content (Ex: Teams) 
  • Email & Calendar (Ex: OneDrive, Stream)  
  • Work Management (Ex: Forms, Planner) 

Each subscription level includes different combinations of applications. Businesses can choose the subscription tier that offers the tools that best fit their unique needs. Ultimately, bringing all these tools together in one place under one license.  

Business benefits beyond just email hosting 

When thinking of O365 in this broader sense, we can start to understand the benefits of the platform as a whole. Having all these applications under one umbrella not only simplifies everything but brings with it a ton of other business benefits as well.  

1) Ease of management (licensing)  

From a licensing standpoint, everything becomes easier. Businesses don’t have to license applications separately. They just need to manage one license in order to get access to all these productivity apps.  

Bundling and consolidating your tools like this makes procuring licensing, managing them, and budgeting for them so much easier. 

2) Ease of management (security)  

When you centralize applications, you bring an inherent level of security with that. You get a clearer understanding of what you have that needs to be secured.   

Now, instead of thinking about multiple different points, everything is in one place so you’re only concerned with a single identity for everything. When you have that one identity, now you can protect it much more simply with multi-factor authentication. 

3) Cost for value 

Office 365 is very cost-effective versus traditional Office licensing and email hosting. Even if it works out to be comparable in cost, you get a ton more value built in for the price.  

With a subscription-based licensing model, you get access to more features, control, and ease just due to the nature of the platform. 

4) Consistent updates 

Because it is a cloud-based platform, your applications are always up to date (which lends to added security as well). You don’t have to worry about managing updates, encountering issues if someone is running old versions, or patching any security updates. It’s all built-in.  

5) Upgrades included 

In addition to regular maintenance, you’re also at the forefront of any advancements. With the ongoing subscription model, you automatically get access to any upgrades that are released. You no longer need to purchase or implement any major software upgrades.  

Productivity Tools for the Future  

With this approach to licensing for productivity tools, your business is always able to tap into the evergreen innovation that Microsoft offers. You’re automatically at the cutting edge of new tools and enhanced ways of working instead of having to pick and choose, budget additional upgrade fees, and create an implementation plan.  

Some businesses may be skeptical of a subscription-based licensing model for their Microsoft apps. It’s a different approach to what many are used to, so there may be a fear of relinquishing control, or concern about data and backups (to learn more about this, read more in our “what to plan for when moving to M365”). But there are many options for tailoring the subscription levels and tiers to meet your needs. At this point, the benefits far outweigh most reasons for not transitioning to this model. 

Now you know a bit more about O365, what it is, and potentially what it can mean for your business. It’s important to understand that it’s not an either-or situation; it’s not just email, and it’s not just office applications. 

It’s a flexible suite of business applications that can truly help your organization consolidate your Microsoft licensing, open doors to more efficient tool management, and unlock more opportunities for collaboration, productivity, and effective work. 

Are you a current client of CIO Solutions? Contact your vCIO or Client Success Manager to continue the conversation! 

Not a client yet, but curious about maturing your IT plan? Let’s talk!

Upgrade Your Tech BEFORE the End (of Life)

Upgrade Your Tech BEFORE the End (of Life)

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Upgrade tech BEFORE the End (of Life) 

By Sean Gill, vCIO 

“All good things must come to an end”, wrote Chaucer in his poem, Troilus and Criseyde. Alas, who knew that this would be particularly true in the realm of technology today? Many of us have fond memories of long-lost operating systems (Windows XP – we see you) or our favorite firewalls. But time and progress march ever onward and for the good of our organizations’ security and relevancy, we must keep up.

It’s generally understood that keeping systems up to date is important. But the ongoing work of keeping systems patched with the latest patches is only part of the equation. The other thing to keep in mind is the system’s overall usable timeframe or “End of Life” date.

IN THIS ARTICLE: 

“End of Life” and General lifespans

The “End of Life” (EoL) date is determined by the vendor. It marks the date when they will no longer support that technology (operating system, software version, etc.), and/or release any additional feature or security updates for that system.

The length of time before a system goes EoL differs depending on the type of system. In general, plan for the following life spans:

  • 2-4 years for software/line of business applications (depending on the vendor)
  • 3-5 years for workstations or laptops
  • 5 years for server hardware
  • 5 years for network hardware (firewalls, switches, etc.)
  • 10 years for Windows Operating Systems (from original launch date)

There are two approaches to dealing with system End of Life dates:  

  1. Create a strategic plan to proactively upgrade the systems over time
  2. Wait it out and, like an old car, drive the old system until it’s dead

You can probably guess which approach we advise.

While it may seem more cost-effective to keep a system until it dies, there are a lot of risks in this approach that far outweigh the upfront costs of replacing these systems sooner rather than later. Here are a few reasons why it is always a good practice to upgrade systems before they go completely “end of life”.

Reduce Security Vulnerabilities

In today’s day and age, security is at the top of most organizations’ list of concerns. Security is one of the biggest reasons to upgrade or replace older systems before their EoL dates. When a system reaches its End of Life, the vendor stops putting out security patches and stops all support for the system. Once this happens, that system becomes more insecure day by day. Threat actors know this and keep a close eye on these dates, waiting for the opportunity to exploit them.

Two current examples of this are the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 operating systems. These were great OS’s but went End of Life in January of 2020. They are now a potential liability to organizations still using them, as hackers work to find unpatched vulnerabilities in these systems and put out exploits to take advantage of them. Replacing these systems sooner rather than later can dramatically improve an organization’s security posture.

Avoid Unexpected Hardware Failures

Like security, productivity is another business priority that suffers when End of Life dates are overlooked. If a company is running critical systems on older hardware or servers, eventually these hardware systems will fail, grinding productivity to a halt when it does. And if “Ol’ Murphy” has anything to say about it, this will happen at the most inopportune time like during month-end or some other critical crunch-time.

Planning ahead for hardware replacements can help businesses avoid unexpected failures and prevent lost productivity. In addition, proactive planning can help identify systems that might need special attention.

For example, perhaps there is an older financial software system that is business-critical but can only run on an operating system that’s reaching its End of Life date. Determining this early can help the business plan accordingly. Maybe they determine that the system can be upgraded. If not, and the system must be kept, they can plan for security contingencies like firewalling or air-gapping the system away from the rest of the production systems.

Access More Features and Work More Productively 

Upgrading systems that are going End of Life isn’t just about avoiding disaster. Embracing current systems sooner rather than later can unlock access to new feature sets, better performance, and more capabilities that were limited in the older system. In addition to being more secure and more reliable, this can also improve productivity and user experience.

Plan Ahead & Upgrade Sooner Rather Than Later 

We all wish that everything could be backward compatible. It would be so much easier if things just lasted and kept on lasting. But that is unfortunately not the reality. Software companies build their software on the backs of new coding techniques and technologies which allows them to give us the feature sets we ask for. As those technologies advance, we need to keep up to be able to run the new system. As mentioned earlier – time and progress marches on, and so must we. Hopefully, these insights help explain why it is important to upgrade systems before their official End of Life.

Do you have any outdated systems that come to mind in your business? It may be time to put an upgrade plan in place!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sean has been shaping the IT strategies of businesses across a wide range of industries and sizes for over 10 years. As a vCIO at CIO Solutions, he works with business leaders every day to create a clear IT vision, mature technology solutions, and ultimately, enhance business productivity and security through technology.

He and the rest of the Strategic Client Services team at CIO Solutions are constantly evaluating important trends in the industry and advising clients on best practices and long-term IT strategies for success.

Are you a current client of CIO Solutions? Contact your vCIO or Client Success Manager to do a review of your systems! 

Not a client yet, but curious about maturing your IT plan? Let’s talk!

Reframing Your Approach to IT Security Decisions

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By Sean Gill, vCIO 

The IT security landscape has continued to shift rapidly over the past couple of years. Threat actors leverage creative social engineering techniques, phishing and spoofing threats are continuously rising, zero-day vulnerabilities are exploited, and ransomware is at large. Businesses are more reliant on technology than ever before, and the industry continues to move toward SaaS (software as a service) solutions like Microsoft 365, shifting company data online and increasing the importance of adapting security best practices.

With rising threats and more at risk reputationally, financially, and operationally, it’s important that businesses adapt the way they think about security to meet these changing times. Taking an attitude of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” or choosing to delay making changes “until it becomes a problem” can be devastating to a business.

Unfortunately, many companies still think that IT security breaches are a problem that only hits those unlucky few. But the reality is, the frequency and variety of threats turns the unlucky “few” into the unlucky “many”. Everyone knows a business that has experienced a compromise. We want to help you avoid becoming one of them.

Modernizing how we think about security 

Business owners and decision-makers now find themselves more involved in the nuances of IT security decisions in ways that they didn’t used to be. If this is true for your business, you’ll know that one of the frustrating challenges is figuring out how to keep up with security and associated IT jargon, especially when your core focus is, appropriately, on running the business and servicing your clients.

As the nature of threats and risks to businesses continues to change, how you think about security should as well. In this article, we will give you a simple framework that aims to help you conceptualize IT security and serve as an outline for making decisions.

IT Security Framework: Prevention, Detection, Response 

There are three key pillars to a thorough IT security framework: Prevention, Detection, and Response. Keeping these in mind when assessing IT security strategy can help ensure that in the budgeting and planning process, your organization doesn’t overload on one area and neglect another.

Prevention Pillar 

Historically, this category is where IT security spending primarily occurred. These solutions were the first (and often primary) line of security against threats. It is still an important focus, but no longer to the exclusion of the others.

Think of your business like a house. This would be like ensuring your locks work and installing a strong gate. These tools are there to prevent a break-in.

Technologies and practices that fall under this pillar of “Prevention” include: 

  • Firewalls – Perimeter security that blocks access to internal networks 
  • Antivirus – Software that recognizes and stops malware and viruses before they take hold and spread 
  • Password Policies– The practices of changing passwords frequently to prevent lost or stolen passwords from being used to access corporate resources 

All these are examples of Prevention security and are still valid and necessary today. But now, in addition to these, it’s important to consider additional ways of preventing malicious actors from getting in and gaining a foothold. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) and leveraging Artificial Intelligence (via Endpoint Detection and Response or EDR) are among the new technologies to improve the stack.

Multi-factor authentication is an essential component in your security foundation, and for good reason. As the name suggests, MFA requires a user to authenticate themselves more than once when trying to access company resources like your Microsoft 365 ecosystem. In contrast to simply providing a password (which could be compromised) to login, MFA also requires that the user supply more verification in the form of something they know, something they have, and, in some cases, something they are.  

This includes some combination of a traditional username and password (something known) and a digital token or code sent to a user’s mobile phone (something they have), and additionally, with most mobile phones incorporating some form of biometrics such as a fingerprint reader or facial recognition, (something they are). 

If your business requires users to utilize MFA for access, hackers will be prevented from accessing systems even if they come to possess a user’s password. This tool has given businesses of all sizes an additional layer of prevention capabilities in today’s landscape and has shifted from being nice to have, to a security standard across the industry.

Likewise, the use of Artificial Intelligence via Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) has revolutionized traditional antivirus software. Traditionally, antivirus solutions were binary and merely reported on whether malware was or was not present – usually based on a set of definitions or some light heuristics. EDR moves beyond that. Instead of simply preventing known malware and viruses, in an EDR system, the antivirus feeds into and informs a more sophisticated detection and response platform. The use of Endpoint Detection and Response is continuing to become a requirement. In fact, most insurance companies require an EDR solution to purchase a cybersecurity insurance policy.

Detection Pillar

While everyone hopes that their Prevention stack is sufficient to keep out all the bad guys, the way the threat landscape has evolved, this is now just not the case. Even with a good prevention stack, bad actors still find creative new ways in and will spend time in your environment observing patterns and trends, waiting for their time to make a move – exfiltration of data, ransomware, or account takeovers. This is known as “dwell time”. Because of this, the Detection Pillar of the security framework may arguably be the next most important.

A traditional antivirus solution won’t detect if a system is still compromised after the initial compromise. If the bad actor is leaving traces of activity, without a detection tool like EDR, this trail will not be easy to find.

EDR keeps track of everything that has happened-from how a bad actor got in, to which systems or files were accessed, to newly spawned processes. This log of events is referred to as the “kill chain.” The kill chain provides an in-depth understanding of exactly which processes ran or files were touched. This ability to detect and understand all activities, in turn, allows for more certainty when remediating any exploit. From this information, it’s possible to determine if a threat has or has not been fully cleansed and shows exactly what systems should be reviewed for compromise.

Let’s go back to the analogy of your business as a home. Advanced detection tools like EDR are like installing a security camera system. You can detect suspicious activity early, be alerted to it, and if there is a break-in, have clear records of what occurred. 

Response Pillar 

Responding appropriately to any given event is essential – this applies to all areas of life, including our IT Security Framework. This pillar includes the tools and resources you would employ should a breach occur. This can be small (a plan for cleaning out all traces of a malicious actor) to large (hiring a forensics team, communicating to clients, and filing an insurance claim).

An effective Response Pillar includes creating playbooks for how to respond in different scenarios. Does your Security team or IT Steering Committee need to meet? Are there any reporting requirements for clients? Does a Cybersecurity insurance claim need to be opened? Do Business Continuity or Disaster Recovery plans need to be implemented? These reactions can, and should, be thought about before they are needed. Table-top exercises with the Executive Team can be a great way to brainstorm about various scenarios and how the organization should act if they were to arise.

To continue the home security analogy, our locks and gate (Antivirus and MFA) attempted to prevent the break-in. But when that didn’t deter the invader, our security system detected that something was wrong, and the camera (EDR) recorded everything. After reviewing the footage (EDR data) and assessing what happened (was anything taken, was anyone hurt, is the intruder still there?), we can respond and take appropriate action.

Was the alarm triggered by suspicious activity (antivirus quarantined a malicious file) and no actual break-in occurred? Or was the incident serious (a Zero-Day exploit that allowed bad actors inside the network) and do we need to call for help? 

We can see how all the previous pillars of the security framework support our abilities in the response pillar. Particularly the detection tools like EDR data, without which, analyzing risk and appropriate action becomes very difficult. Without this kind of clear insight, the organization may take actions disproportionate to what is needed – either by overreacting and spending unnecessary time and resources or by underreacting and opening themselves up to more risk.

IT Planning 

We all know that protecting our companies’ infrastructure is critical to the success of the business. The foundational requirements for securing your business have shifted to meet the demands of today’s current security landscape, and they will continue to change over time. If your business is part of an industry with inherently high-security compliance demands (like legal or medical businesses), it’s likely you’ve already been implementing modern tools to maintain the highest level of compliance. On the other hand, if your industry has less stringent security compliance regulations, your business may have historically viewed advanced security tools as “nice to have” but not necessary. Unfortunately, the reality of the world today makes that mindset a luxury that no business can afford.

The best place to start is by evaluating your current solutions with these three pillars in mind. With a better understanding of this framework, how does your security stack up? Has your organization implemented modern prevention tools such as MFA? Do you have an EDR solution in place to bolster your prevention and detection abilities? Have you mapped out a response plan? If not, the first step is discussing your security with your IT expert!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sean has been shaping the IT strategies of businesses across a wide range of industries and sizes for over 10 years. As a vCIO at CIO Solutions, he works with business leaders every day to create a clear IT vision, mature technology solutions, and ultimately, enhance business productivity and security through technology.

He and the rest of the Strategic Client Services team at CIO Solutions are constantly evaluating important trends in the industry and advising clients on best practices and long-term IT strategies for success.

Are you a current client of CIO Solutions? Contact your vCIO or Customer Success Manager to continue the conversation around your IT security!   

Not a client yet, but curious about maturing your IT security? Let’s talk!

How to ride a wave of ravenous demand for products and services

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By Russ Levanway, President

Last year, so many of us had to cope with things we never even considered would happen. I don’t have to go into detail, of course — we all lived it. From working remotely, to COVID protocols, to people getting sick or losing a loved one, to isolation, and the commingling of personal and work life, the social fabric of humanity most definitely frayed.

But humanity is resilient. We came into 2021 with new hope and good momentum. You can see that momentum in people’s pent-up demand for goods and services after living without for a year. We want to travel again. We want a new car or a new home. The demand is enormous, and it’s created a strain that we haven’t really witnessed in recent memory.

More, more more

Underlying all this is a supply chain bottleneck. The supply chain is impacted whenever factories shut down, shipping becomes tapped out, trucking companies can’t find enough drivers to hire, and a thousand other factors. It’s all driving up inflation to levels we haven’t seen since the 1970s, and at an astonishing rate.

The strain has hit every kind of business, including ours. Core infrastructures like switches and servers are much more difficult to find and cost significantly more than they have in the past. The strain has also hit our employees with high prices, myself included. I’m not just referring to the ridiculous increase in home prices; I’m talking about the basics. Everything just costs more.

Whether it’s a temporary or long-term change, I won’t attempt to predict. But, as a company, we don’t want to be caught flat-footed in this new reality, however long it lasts.

The benefits of being nimble and scrappy

How do we begin to support our employees and clients under price and availability limitations? We start by keeping close track of our team composition, recognizing that financial difficulties and high inflation are real considerations, and taking steps to help our employees out.

We’ve also become really creative with buying and procuring equipment. Our procurement team scrounges around on random websites for a laptop here, a switch there. Often, we can’t go with Plan A, so we come up with a Plan B or even Plan C. Sometimes, we just have to tell the client that we can’t get them the piece they want — or at least not yet. In certain cases, we can provide loaner equipment; I’ve watched employees raid the e-waste pile for a temporary switch that will do for our client until the permanent switch comes in.

Baked-in flexibility

How have we been able to stay creative and adaptable? I think we handle change well because it’s been in our DNA from the beginning. Long before COVID struck, we built our company to guard against rigidity or strict adherence to doing things only one way. We fostered a very innovative problem-solving culture. Those measures and methods we set in motion years ago have served us well.

In this time of unprecedented new challenges, have you been flexible and adaptable? Many organizations have evolved while others have fallen by the wayside. And then there are those organizations that hung on tight to the belief that everything would go back to “normal” when COVID ended: everyone in the office again, packing the conference room, meeting up for a happy hour at 5 o’clock, etc. They believed (hoped?) that COVID was just a rude interruption.

I don’t believe that’s true. Are you an organization that has embraced adaptability in your culture? That will be critical to retaining your employees and coming up with innovative solutions for your customers. Start now, if you haven’t already; this might be our new normal.

Understanding The Enemy + Why Your Antivirus Isn’t Enough

Understanding The Enemy + Why Your Antivirus Isn’t Enough

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By Russ Levanway

You probably saw a dominant story in the news a couple of months ago about a major fuel shortage across the eastern seaboard. The pipeline that provides almost half the oil to the northeast and south came under a cyber-attack. Gas pumps ran dry in Tennessee, Georgia, and other states. This happened fast on the heels of other major exploits. Then in the last 2 weeks, tech news has been dominated by a serious vulnerability in management software called Kaseya, with over a million computers encrypted with ransomware as a result.

Ransomware attacks are getting to the point where they are becoming existential threats to organizations and can disrupt entire industries and supply chains.  If it wasn’t serious before, it is now.  Furthermore, hackers are increasingly sophisticated and daring. They’re often backed by foreign governments bent on destabilizing, stealing intellectual property, or just plain old making money via extortion.

The risks of a confidential data leak are higher than they’ve ever been before. It is critical that businesses not only understand how these adversaries operate but also rethink their own approach to security.

How cyber extortion works

Hackers’ typical MO is:

    1. Acquire your passwords or exploit some vulnerability
    2. Log into your device and/or network automatically or manually
    3. Steal a copy of your valuable data (credit card numbers, bank account numbers, social security numbers, intellectual property)
    4. Encrypt everything
    5. Hold it for ransom

If they don’t get what they came for, (you restore the data and can’t (or won’t) pay the ransom), the hackers leak your data all over the internet, selling it to the highest bidder.

Doesn’t my antivirus software protect me?

As someone in the IT field, one of the questions I often get asked is ”what about antivirus software? Doesn’t that protect me?” This is an understandable question. I preach the benefits of installing and maintaining antivirus software all the time. If it’s so important to have this tool installed, shouldn’t that be enough protection?

Unfortunately, no. The truth is, antivirus software stops 95 percent of attacks, so we always have it deployed as a security baseline, bar none. But what is it stopping exactly? Antivirus is preventing known viruses, known threats. When we talk about extortion and data infiltration, we’re not talking about viruses — we’re often talking about other tactics.

Flying under the radar

Threat actors often use phishing techniques to trick you into giving them your password (if they haven’t stolen it elsewhere). Often, a cyber-attack like this begins with an email from “your bank” that asks you to log in to your account to validate information. If you aren’t well versed in how to identify a counterfeit or deceptive email like this, you’ll fall for it and click the link. (No need to be embarrassed by your gullibility: you are in very good company. According to some estimates, a staggering 30 percent of people open phishing emails and 12 percent click on malicious links and/or attachments.) That fateful click leads to a counterfeit of your bank’s website. You put in the username and password, and you’re led to a blank page. You’ve been phished. Now the hackers have your credentials for the bank. All of this is done without using a virus of some kind, mind you.

Alternatively, threat actors may identify a vulnerability in your system. Once this vulnerability is identified, they exploit it by running what may appear to be legitimate software that goes undetected. Again, hacking you and your systems without the use of a virus.

These tactics leverage legitimate credentials and exploit existing vulnerabilities. Because of this, they can, therefore “fly under the radar”. Standard antivirus software can’t prevent this, it can only help stop code it knows to be malicious.

Adjusting your expectations

I talk about hacking all the time, I must seem like a broken record. But cyber-attacks keep happening, both in extreme cases like what we see in the news and for our clients, large and small. I keep hoping that if nothing else, a major event like the fuel shortage can help people understand how prevalent and destructive they really are.

Arming yourself with an understanding of how these threat actors operate is the first step. The second step is realizing that effective cybersecurity isn’t a question of simply having current antivirus installed. As we’ve seen, this tool can only do so much. That’s why the approach needs to shift. Cybersecurity is not one-dimensional and antivirus is not a catchall. In today’s world, antivirus is only one part of what must be a much broader cybersecurity toolset. It’s important that the expectation is adjusted to match the reality.

[ READ: Ditch the Drama: 5 ways to stay ahead of the hackers]