Peak Altitude Group Business Solutions Providers Thu, 09 Jun 2022 16:57:06 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0 https://peakaltitudegroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/cropped-favicon-32x32.png Peak Altitude Group 32 32 Risk Management https://peakaltitudegroup.com/risk-management/ https://peakaltitudegroup.com/risk-management/#respond Thu, 09 Jun 2022 16:51:29 +0000 https://www.solaritsolutions.ca/?p=5399 Implementing Ongoing Risk Management as a Standard Practice In 2021, organizations that didn’t have zero trust incurred an average breach cost of USD 1.76 million more than those organizations with a mature zero-trust approach.1 It’s no wonder that 69% of organizations believe that there will be a rise in cyber spending in 2022 compared to […]

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Implementing Ongoing Risk Management as a Standard Practice

In 2021, organizations that didn’t have zero trust incurred an average breach cost of USD 1.76 million more than those organizations with a mature zero-trust approach.1 It’s no wonder that 69% of organizations believe that there will be a rise in cyber spending in 2022 compared to 55% in 2021, and more than 25% expect double-digit growth in cyber budgets in 2022.2 With cyberattacks surging due to widespread remote work and increased online interactions during the pandemic, it seems likely that this trend will only continue to grow further.

About 85% of breaches involved a human element in 2021. Additionally, 36% of breaches involved phishing attacks while ransomware attacks contributed to 10% of attacks.3 Amid such an evolving threat landscape, your top-most priority should be ensuring an advanced layer of cybersecurity that can protect your organization from malicious actors.

Building a strong defense is not easy since cybersecurity is not a one-and-done exercise. Your business may be safe now but could be unsafe the very next minute. Securing your business’ mission-critical data necessitates an unwavering commitment over a lengthy period. While there are several pieces to this puzzle, the most important one is ongoing risk management.

In this blog, we will walk you through cybersecurity risk assessment. By the end of it, we hope you will realize how installing cybersecurity solutions alone isn’t enough to counter cyberattacks unless you make ongoing risk management an operational standard for your business.

Understanding cybersecurity risk assessment

In rudimentary terms, cybersecurity risk assessment refers to the act of understanding, managing, controlling and mitigating cybersecurity risks across your business’ infrastructure.

In its Cybersecurity Framework (CSF), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) states that the purpose of cybersecurity risk assessments is to “identify, estimate and prioritize risk to organizational operations, assets, individuals, other organizations and the nation, resulting from the operation and use of information systems.”

The primary purpose of a cybersecurity risk assessment is to help key decision-makers tackle prevalent and imminent risks. Ideally, an assessment must answer the following questions:

  • What are your business’ key IT assets?
  • What type of data breach would have a major impact on your business?
  • What are the relevant threats to your business and its sources?
  • What are the internal and external security vulnerabilities?
  • What would be the impact if any of the vulnerabilities were exploited?
  • What is the probability of a vulnerability being exploited?
  • What cyberattacks or security threats could impact your business’ ability to function?

The answers to these questions will help you keep track of security risks and mitigate them before disaster strikes. Now, imagine periodically having the answers to these questions whenever you sit down to make key business decisions. If you’re wondering how it would benefit you, keep reading.

Why make ongoing risk management a standard practice?

Making ongoing risk management an operational standard is vital, especially in today’s cyberthreat landscape where even a single threat cannot be underestimated. In one study, 30% of respondents say that real-time threat intelligence is critical for their cyber risk management.2 In one assessment, your business might seem on the right track but in the next one, you might spot vulnerabilities that can expose your business network to bad actors. That’s precisely why having an ongoing risk management strategy is now an integral part of standard operations for every business.

Most organizations lack the capacity to transform data into insights for cyber risk assessment, threat modeling, scenario creation and predictive analysis. This underutilization of data is one of the major roadblocks to making ongoing risk management an operational standard for businesses.

Here are seven reasons why you just can’t keep this key business decision on the backburner anymore:

Reason 1: Keeping threats at bay

An ongoing risk management strategy will help you keep threats, both prevalent and imminent, at a safe distance from your business.

Reason 2: Prevent data loss

Theft or loss of business-critical data can set your business back a long way, and your customers might turn to your competitors. Ongoing risk management can help you remain vigilant of any possible attempts at compromising your business data.

 

Reason 3: Enhanced operational efficiency and reduced workforce frustration

As a business owner or key decision-maker of your organization, you would be amazed how consistently staying on top of potential cybersecurity threats can reduce the risk of unplanned downtime. The assurance that hard work will not vanish into thin air will surely keep the morale of your employees high, thereby reflecting positively on their productivity.

Reason 4: Reduction of long-term costs

Identifying potential vulnerabilities and mitigating them in time can help you prevent or reduce security incidents, which in turn can save your business a significant amount of money and/or potential reputational damage.

Reason 5: One assessment will set the right tone

You must not assume that there should only be one fixed template for all your future cybersecurity risk assessments. However, to update them continuously, you need to conduct one in the first place. Hence, the first few assessments will set the right tone for future assessments as part of your ongoing risk management strategy.

Reason 6: Improved organizational knowledge

Knowing security vulnerabilities across the business will help you keep a keen eye on important aspects that your business must improve on.

Reason 7: Avoid regulatory compliance issues

By ensuring that you put up a formidable defense against cyberthreats, you will automatically avoid hassles with respect to complying with regulatory standards such as HIPAA, GDPR, PCI-DSS, etc.

 

Choose the right partner

SolarIT Solutions can help you gauge every single cybersecurity risk your business is exposed to and protect your business continuously for a prolonged period. Contact us to learn how we can help you mitigate cybersecurity concerns with regular risk assessments.

Solarit Solutions inc. 
55 Village Centre Pl Suite 100, Mississauga, ON L4Z 1V9
(416) 306-0001

1Cost of a Data Breach Report, 2021

2Global Digital Trust Insights Survey, 2022

3Data Breach Investigations Report, 2021

 

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]]> https://peakaltitudegroup.com/risk-management/feed/ 0 5 Elements of Effective Tech Acceleration https://peakaltitudegroup.com/5-elements-of-effective-tech-acceleration/ https://peakaltitudegroup.com/5-elements-of-effective-tech-acceleration/#respond Wed, 25 May 2022 03:56:04 +0000 https://www.solaritsolutions.ca/?p=5393 Blog: 5 Elements of Effective Tech Acceleration  Are you up to date with the current technology landscape? Do you have an idea of what it will look like in the next five to 10 years? Knowing this information is crucial as it can significantly impact your business. The technology landscape is constantly evolving. Organizations must […]

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Blog: 5 Elements of Effective Tech Acceleration 

Are you up to date with the current technology landscape? Do you have an idea of what it will look like in the next five to 10 years? Knowing this information is crucial as it can significantly impact your business.

The technology landscape is constantly evolving. Organizations must keep up with these developments to avoid being left behind by competitors and customers. This is where tech acceleration can come to the rescue. We define it as intelligently improving the technology that employees rely on in a way that considers the future and helps organizations achieve long-term goals.

A few reasons why keeping up with evolving technologies is critical include:

  • Bringing together all of the necessary tools that integrate saves time and effort while increasing overall efficiency.
  • You can boost productivity by improving the employee experience with streamlined technology and processes.
  • It is possible to improve security by removing obsolete technologies that no longer receive critical security upgrades.

 

Before you bring new technology solutions and products into your infrastructure, there are a few things you need to consider for tech acceleration to be beneficial in the long run.

Elements of effective tech acceleration

  1. Think long-term instead of mere rapid acceleration

Technology adoption has increased at a breakneck pace thanks to the onset of pandemic restrictions. These fast choices and implementations helped many organizations remain relatively unscathed by utilizing remote working and other collaborative solutions. However, now that we’ve had time to adapt to the “new normal,” it’s clear that brisk change isn’t always beneficial to the long-term success of an organization.

While these technology upgrades helped SMBs stay in business during the chaotic year that was 2020, they also resulted in several hiccups that ranged from integration challenges to limited long-term value. That’s why the time is ripe to prepare for the future by adopting smart tech acceleration. This requires a thorough examination and assessment to evaluate whether your present systems are advanced and integrated enough to support your business objectives over the next five to 10 years, and not just the present.

  1. Evaluate previous technology investments

Examine your tech acceleration investments from the previous year (if you have any) to identify where you need improvements. It’s critical to assess whether prior investments have served your long-term vision/goals. Only then will you be able to determine whether your acceleration is on the right track or not.

  1. Benchmarking

What is the status of your tech acceleration environment? If it isn’t meeting your expectations, find out what other firms are doing differently to achieve better results. Consider what changes you can make to improve your organization’s performance to align it closer to your vision.

The metric used to monitor the progress of your tech acceleration initiative should consider levels of cybersecurity, customer experience, employee experience, technology integration across the organization, backups, compliance and so on.

  1. Consider the total experience (TX)

Total experience can be defined as a blend of customer and employee experiences (CX and EX). By breaking down silos and integrating technology with the employees, customers and users, total experience improves the overall experience. It focuses on addressing customer/employee needs to produce better long-term and meaningful business outcomes.

Experts estimate that by 2026, 60% of large enterprises will use total experience (TX) to transform their business models in order to achieve world-class customer and employee advocacy levels.*

  1. Committing to integration

Individually outstanding solutions that don’t integrate (or that your company doesn’t commit to integrating) will not serve you in the long run or help you scale. Systematic integration unifies the customer and employee experience, reducing the risk of error, increasing efficiency and providing the opportunity to automate repetitive operations, among other benefits.

Collaborate for success

If your organization doesn’t invest in smart tech acceleration, your competition could overtake you in the market. It’s time to say goodbye to short-term fixes that aren’t helping you achieve your goals and upgrade your IT ecosystem to help you achieve greater productivity and operational success for the long term.

SolarIT Solutions can help you find, implement, fine-tune and manage your technology infrastructure to ensure it’s moving you towards your long-term goals and vision. Feel free to contact us today for a no-obligation consultation to see how we can bring smart tech acceleration to your business.

Source:

* Gartner Report: Future of Work Trends

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]]> https://peakaltitudegroup.com/5-elements-of-effective-tech-acceleration/feed/ 0 Blog: Password Best Practices https://peakaltitudegroup.com/blog-password-best-practices/ https://peakaltitudegroup.com/blog-password-best-practices/#respond Tue, 17 May 2022 05:29:17 +0000 https://www.solaritsolutions.ca/?p=5383 12 Password Best Practices With the business world heavily reliant on digitalization in this day and age, the use of technology in your organization is unavoidable. Although technology can undeniably give your business an advantage in increasingly competitive markets, there are many troublesome areas to keep an eye on. This is why interest in cybersecurity […]

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12 Password Best Practices

With the business world heavily reliant on digitalization in this day and age, the use of technology in your organization is unavoidable. Although technology can undeniably give your business an advantage in increasingly competitive markets, there are many troublesome areas to keep an eye on. This is why interest in cybersecurity has risen in recent years.

Password protection is the best place to start if you want to ramp up your cybersecurity. Setting a password to secure an entity’s data is called password protection. Only those with passwords can access information or accounts once data is password-protected. However, because of the frequent use of passwords, people tend to overlook their significance and make careless mistakes, which could lead to breaches in security.

This makes it imperative for businesses to devise strategies to educate employees about best practices when using passwords.

6 Password “Don’ts”

Protect the confidentiality of your passwords by following these six password “don’ts”:

  1. Don’t write passwords on sticky notes

Although you may feel that writing down passwords improves password protection and makes it more difficult for someone to steal your passwords online, it can make it easier for someone to steal your passwords locally.

  1. Don’t save passwords to your browser

This is because web browsers are terrible at protecting passwords and other sensitive information like your name and credit card number. Web browsers can easily be compromised and a wide range of malware, browser extensions and software can extract sensitive data from them.

  1. Don’t iterate your password (for example, PowerWalker1 to PowerWalker2)

Although this is a common practice among digital users, it is unlikely to protect against sophisticated cyberthreats. Hackers have become far too intelligent and can crack iterated passwords in the blink of an eye.

  1. Don’t use the same password across multiple accounts

If you do so, you are handing cybercriminals a golden opportunity to exploit all your accounts.

  1. Don’t capitalize the first letter of your password to meet the “one capitalized letter” requirement

Out of habit, most of us tend to capitalize the first letter of our passwords to conform with the “one capitalized letter” requirement. However, hackers are aware of this, making it easy for them to guess the capitalized letter’s position.

  1. Don’t use “!” to conform with the symbol requirement

However, if you must use it, don’t place it at the end of your password. Placing it anywhere else in the sequence makes your password more secure.

6 Passwords “Do’s”

Protect the confidentiality of your passwords by following these six password “do’s”:

  1. Create long, phrase-based passwords that exchange letters for numbers and symbols

For instance, if you choose “Honey, I shrunk the kids,” write it as “h0ney1$hrunkth3k!d$.” This makes your password harder for hackers to crack.

  1. Change critical passwords every three months

Passwords protecting sensitive data must be handled with caution because there is a lot at stake if they are compromised. If you use a password for a long time, hackers may have enough time to crack it. Therefore, make sure you change your critical passwords every three months.

  1. Change less critical passwords every six months

This necessitates determining which password is crucial and which is not. In any case, regardless of their criticality, changing your passwords every few months is a good practice.

  1. Use multifactor authentication

It’s your responsibility to do everything in your power to keep nefarious cybercriminals at bay. One of the best approaches is to barricade them with multiple layers of authentication.

  1. Always use passwords that are longer than eight characters and include numbers, letters and symbols

The more complicated things are for hackers, the better.

  1. Use a password manager

A password manager can relieve the burden of remembering a long list of passwords, freeing up time for more productive tasks.

Need a password manager? We can help.

Adhering to password best practices requires constant vigilance and effort on your part. As a result, it is best to work with an expert managed service provider (MSP) like us who can help you boost your security and put your mind at ease.

Contact us for a no-obligation consultation.

📞   +1 416 306 0001
📧   info@solaritsolutions.ca
www.solaritsolutions.ca

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]]> https://peakaltitudegroup.com/blog-password-best-practices/feed/ 0 Why You Should Prioritize Your Technology Gaps https://peakaltitudegroup.com/why-you-should-prioritize-your-technology-gaps/ https://peakaltitudegroup.com/why-you-should-prioritize-your-technology-gaps/#respond Fri, 07 Jan 2022 04:08:49 +0000 https://www.solaritsolutions.ca/?p=5210 Technology is an unavoidable component of most businesses these days, helping them achieve their goals and vision. However, if you are not cautious, technological flaws could allow cybercriminals to access your network and cause harm to your company. Technology auditing is the solution to this problem. A technology audit can assist you in better understanding […]

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]]> Technology is an unavoidable component of most businesses these days, helping them achieve their goals and vision. However, if you are not cautious, technological flaws could allow cybercriminals to access your network and cause harm to your company. Technology auditing is the solution to this problem.

A technology audit can assist you in better understanding and identifying gaps in your organization’s security, compliance and backup postures. But if you don’t have a background in IT, the results of a technology audit can be confusing. You may be overwhelmed by the number of items that need to be refreshed or replaced, and you may not know where to start.

Having a managed service provider such as SolarIT Solutions at your side can help you avoid these stumbling blocks. We can provide you with a prioritized list of the most urgent to least urgent gaps, allowing you to decide how to proceed and allocate funds.

Why should you prioritize your organization’s technology gaps?
Here are some reasons why prioritizing technology gaps is critical:

1. To fix the most critical gaps immediately

Following a free audit by SolarIT you may discover hundreds of vulnerabilities, prompting the question, “Should all of these be fixed at once?”

To make an improvement on a major highway, you wouldn’t close every lane at the same time. Instead, you would first block and repair the most damaged one during non-peak hours. The same is true for vulnerabilities, and it is always better to bridge the most critical one first.

Bridging all the gaps at once is rarely practical, both financially and in terms of time and effort. Furthermore, if you prioritize a lower-priority vulnerability first, cybercriminals can swoop in and exploit critical flaws in the blink of an eye.

2. To promote better budgetary decisions

Budgets, when properly planned, can serve as a tool to assist you in meeting organizational objectives.

Randomly allocating funds to bridge gaps will neither help defend against threats nor be a wise budgetary decision. Instead, prioritize gaps and distribute financial resources based on vulnerability severity.

3. To improve control over transformation and upgrade

Timely upgrades and associated transformation are crucial for a business to stay competitive in constantly evolving business landscapes. Even so, it is critical to maintain control over such transitions. Otherwise, it could lead to confusion and poor decisions, ultimately harming your company’s growth.

Get a better understanding of upgrades and transformation by prioritizing gaps and systematically bridging them based on their severity.

4. To avoid overburdening key stakeholders

Tending to all gaps at once can overwhelm your employees, in turn lowering their productivity and deteriorating customer service. Avoid this to the greatest extent possible. If your customers and employees are dissatisfied, your business can suffer serious setbacks such as employee attrition, customer churn, accidental data breaches and so on.

Collaborate for success

Not sure where to start? SolarIT Solutions can help you prioritize technology gaps in order to optimize IT platforms and help you get the most out of your technology investment, all while ensuring uptime and productivity.

Contact us to learn how we can help your organization successfully prioritize technology gaps to achieve targeted goals in a sustainable manner.

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