30
Mar, 2022
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Businesses Should Consider Partnering with a Security Operations Center (SOC)

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Cybersecurity is incredibly important for any organization that requires IT to remain operational (basically all of them), so it’s time to start thinking about your own strategies and how you can keep threats out of your network. One viable solution your business can implement is a Security Operations Center (SOC). What is a SOC, and how can you use it to keep threats off your network?

Defining SOC

Your business’ Security Operations Center is very similar to a Network Operations Center (NOC), but the entire premise is to keep watch over your computing networks and devices with the intention of eliminating threats. It might seem simple on the surface, but considering how complex most networks and business infrastructures can be, it should come as no surprise that it’s more complicated than it seems.

Today’s business infrastructures are always on, meaning that a SOC needs staff to keep up with the 24/7/365 demands that many have for their security and monitoring services. The SOC will work with your NOC and other IT resources to manage your cybersecurity strategy. It’s a best practice for your business’ IT to align with how you want your business to function, and it becomes critical that you maximize uptime and keep threats away from your network. Even a single vulnerability could put your organization at risk under the right circumstances. Your SOC will offer tools that can identify and address these weak points in your infrastructure in an effort to stay ahead of threats.

How the SOC Operates

We mentioned this before, but the SOC works just like a NOC in that its primary goal is to provide comprehensive monitoring and notification in the event of a security breach. If something happens, the SOC will log the issue and address it accordingly. The IT administrator will also be notified of the issue to keep them on top of things. Let’s examine some of the services provided by the SOC:

  • Complete assessment: Threats are found in the discovery process, and the SOC will examine hardware, applications, and other tools on your network to make sure they are all monitored around the clock.
  • Continuous monitoring: The SOC will monitor software and traffic trends, but also user and system behaviors.
  • Thorough logging: With such a large computing infrastructure, it’s hard to keep tabs on everything. Logs can help to ensure that the appropriate steps are taken whenever an issue arises. Plus, it provides exceptional oversight and security that is helpful, especially in regard to compliance and regulations.
  • Comprehensive incident response and investigation: SOC technicians are able to respond quickly and efficiently to any incident, meaning they can get to the root of the issue and address it in a timely manner.

NuTech Services can serve as your company’s SOC. To learn more, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.

16
Mar, 2022
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Where IT Services Meets Physical Security

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Data security isn’t the easiest thing in the world to plan for, especially if your organization doesn’t have any dedicated security professionals on-hand. While protecting your data with traditional methods, like passwords, firewalls, and antivirus, is important, what measures are you taking to make sure a thief isn’t just walking into your office and making off with your technology?

If you don’t have guards or security cameras in place, you’re more likely to suffer from a physical security breach, which can be just as devastating as a digital breach. Ask yourself how comprehensive your security really is. Why not use it as an opportunity to protect your business’ physical assets? With the threat landscape the way it is these days, it’s no surprise that organizations focus on the digital aspect of security, but some people are just old-fashioned and would rather infiltrate a business the traditional way.

It’s also important to keep in mind that not everyone is going to be the perfect employee. You might have a couple of bad apples in the bunch that want to steal business resources. In this case, digital security might not mean much, but physical security like locked doors and so on could make all the difference in keeping them from making decisions that are bad for both themselves and your business.

Basically, you need to take a dual approach: You need to consider both digital security and physical security for the following reasons:

  • Data access is restricted to those within your organization, but even the best employees make mistakes.
  • A tiered approach means that employees only have permission to access data they need for their immediate work responsibilities.
  • Knowing who is accessing devices and data, as well as when they are doing so, can help you to resolve issues as they occur.

Let’s consider a couple of scenarios where it helps to have physical and digital security. Access control limits who can access specific information, so if the data is corrupt or missing, then you’ll have a clear idea of who is responsible for it. On the off-chance that it wasn’t the employee, then you know their credentials have been stolen and abused by a cybercriminal. Access monitoring is helpful for this, as it can also determine when someone is accessing data, as well as where they are located. Thus, if someone from another country is accessing data in the wee hours of the morning, it’s likely that you have a digital security problem on your hands.

As far as physical security goes, consider what would happen if you didn’t keep track of the people who access the sensitive parts of your business. If something were to come up missing, having a cloud-based security system with digital playback as well as complete access control with logs, would let you go back and check to see exactly who had access, and what the situation was before so that you can get to the bottom of the problem. 

Therefore, in order to make sure that you’re keeping your data as secure as possible from all avenues of attacks, we recommend you work with the folks from NuTech Services. We can help you ensure security. To learn more, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.

10
Nov, 2021
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You Can Tell a Lot About Your Business by Monitoring Your Network

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Network security is one aspect of your business that absolutely should not be underestimated. In fact, many companies fail to adequately monitor their networks, and it can lead to many complications down the road. Why is it so critical to monitor your network, and how can you make sure that your business is actually doing it?

Let’s say that your day-to-day operations are proceeding without a hitch. Over time, however, small things start to go wrong. Files start to go missing or settings are slightly tweaked. You might also see some network slowdown. In any case, these issues can compound and you might not notice that they are issues until something seriously odd happens.

By the time you choose to investigate, things are getting seriously bad. It turns out that one of your users has been accessing your network and making these odd changes, but the strange thing is that you know this user personally. They would never do anything like this, and they deny that they have been making any changes to your network. So, who do you believe?

Further investigation shows that the user has been accessing their account from an unknown IP address and from a different country, something which confirms your worst nightmare. Your network has been breached thanks to a compromised account, and since you were not looking for this from the start, who knows how much damage has been done?

Situations like the one outlined above are exactly why you need to keep a close watch on your network. Otherwise, how can you know when inconsistencies like these are a legitimate problem? If you don’t think to look where problems exist, you won’t discover any. While knowing the truth might be scary, the consequences are even more terrifying.

You don’t have time to monitor your network like this and keep operations moving, which is why we at NuTech Services offer comprehensive remote monitoring and network security services. We can keep a close watch on your network for these types of issues to make sure that threats don’t fly under the radar on your network.

With solutions like our unified threat management tool and multi-factor authentication, alongside access controls and password management, you can know for sure that your organization has done all it can to keep itself safe from threats. To learn more, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.

27
Jan, 2017
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Explaining Managed IT to Busy Business Owners

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As a business, you focus on providing a specific good or service to your area. This means spending a considerable amount of time trying to make your organization the go-to SMB for that particular service. All organizations specialize in a certain craft, but sometimes their skills may fall short of their needs in areas that lay outside this expertise. Outsourcing is a simple way for businesses to leverage skills that aren’t part of their expertise without taking the time to learn the skill themselves, and it’s an invaluable part of any business owner’s strategy.

Let’s use managed IT services as an example. While enterprises might have the budget and workforce to accommodate managing on-site networks and hardware, it’s unlikely that the SMB does as well. Technology maintenance requires careful attention to detail, which can only be offered by trained professionals who understand the importance of their task. IT maintenance and management isn’t something that can be learned overnight.

While the benefits are significant, the major roadblock for organizations isn’t implementing a new IT management model; rather, it’s their limited budget. They struggle to resolve problems with their IT systems without breaking their budget, and the typical break-fix IT company isn’t devoted to saving them any cash on technology repair. Instead, a managed service provider tries to take proactive measures to prevent issues from happening in the first place.

Comparing the two solutions side by side gives more than enough reason to forsake break-fix IT services. If you can prevent problems from happening in the first place, why wouldn’t you? When a server or workstation breaks down, countless files and hours of productivity are lost, making recovery difficult, if not impossible.

Managed IT allows for fixed monthly payments, taking the unpredictability out of managing technology. Unlike break-fix IT, which capitalizes on your business’s technology breaking down, managed IT services aim to prevent this from happening in the first place; saving your business money in the long run. You’ll find that when you experience minimal trouble with your IT, the possibilities are quite literally endless. You can invest more time and money into your business’s other aspects.

To learn more about managed IT services, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.

6
May, 2016
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Prepare for a Future of More Jobs Being Automated

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Eliminating unnecessary costs is a natural part of doing business. By “trimming the fat,” so to speak, organizations can optimize operations and profits. Automation technology is instrumental to this plight, but as these systems grow more advanced and capable, even professional employees are finding themselves at risk of losing their jobs to cheaper, more efficient automated systems.

You can see this in many forms throughout the manufacturing and retail industries. For example, the self-checkout systems at major retail stores allow for shoppers to get their wares and get out. Manufacturing plants use automated assembly machines to aid in some mundane tasks. The goal is to eliminate payroll and optimize operations, but let’s face it; these trends put people out of work. Yet, despite the various advantages of automation, their performance is often variable, and they require a certain amount of oversight in order to be effective. Shopping centers will often have a staff member on-hand for times when the self-checkout machines don’t work, and someone has to fix malfunctioning technology when it’s not assembling parts correctly. Thus, humans still have a vital role in ensuring the success of automated systems.

In light of this fact, rather than replacing workers, a solution could be to use automated technology to augment the capabilities of human workers. For example, there are programs that write articles for news aggregates. These systems are capable of writing much faster than a human ever could, but they also lack the emotion required to appeal to readers in a way a human author can. There are still plenty of jobs that automation systems can’t touch, but how long will this remain the case?

While we’re not necessarily declaring that technological advancement is bad, we want to raise awareness of how technology advancement affects the economy and job market. If a technology is putting skilled people out of work, can it really be called “advancement?” This is a question that you have to answer for yourself.

Even if automated solutions are taking jobs, they can still be somewhat useful. Take, for example, your business’s IT infrastructure. You can now outsource your business’s IT needs to a managed service provider, allowing for an “automated” process of managing and maintaining your business’s technology solutions. In a way, you would be augmenting your business by bringing valuable technical expertise into the fold, allowing for more efficient management and maintenance of your systems.

The beauty of working with NuTech Services is that we aren’t like other automated solutions, like those that want to replace your workers. Instead, we want to work with your internal IT department (if you have one) to help your business reach its greatest potential. If your team is having trouble keeping up with critical updates, we can handle this responsibility for them. Or, if you want to implement new solutions and innovate for a better future, we can recommend and implement solutions based on your team’s unique needs. Regardless of whether your team has the training and expertise to handle your IT solutions, our team can offer a way to improve your business’ operations.

Our professional IT staff will prove more valuable than any automated solution ever could be. To learn more, give us a call at 810.230.9455.

11
Sep, 2015
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3 Benefits of Outsourced IT That Let You Do More For Less

b2ap3_thumbnail_companys_it_budget_400.jpgCost drives business, this much cannot be denied. When the technology your business relies on fails, you have to get it repaired or replaced quickly in order to keep the resulting downtime from damaging your business. The traditional method of computer repair is much like when your car is in disrepair. When your technology isn’t working properly, your organization reacts to the problem by calling your friendly neighborhood computer repair guy.

The technician will come to your office and try to fix the technology that is broken. When they figure out they can’t fix the problem on the spot, they will give you a quote. The time and materials of summoning these technicians to the office will cost you money, so will the replacement technology, and most notably, the downtime you accrue. Add that to the variable cost of fixing the malfunctioning technology, and your business has a real problem.

At NuTech Services, we offer a proactive IT support platform that utilizes remote monitoring and management software to ensure that the technology that’s attached to your network, and your network itself, is up and working properly. Additionally, our whole IT services platform is billed in one monthly payment.

If you add it up, you are saving money in every aspect of your business. You not only remove the variable costs of keeping your IT running smoothly, you also get proactive support that in many cases gives you the time to replace hardware BEFORE it fails, saving you from the doldrums of company wide downtime.

The fact is that small and medium-sized businesses need to cut their technology support costs if they want to compete with larger organizations. There are a myriad of benefits that come from a managed services provider like NuTech Services handling the administration and support of your technology. Besides the obvious cost savings, two other huge benefits include:

  • Comprehensive Support: A major speedbump SMBs have when shopping for any service that claims to help their business, is the quality of that service. For those that worry that our managed services are too good to be true, we employ certified and trustworthy technicians that are proficient in finding solutions for today’s most challenging business technology problems.
  • Single Point of Contact: As an alternative from having to manage several vendors, our IT service offering provides you with a single point of contact for all of your technology needs. Since we understand the intricacies of your network, we can get issues resolved faster.

Managed IT services can provide you with many other benefits as well. For more information about how our managed IT services can benefit your organization, call us at 810.230.9455 today.

3
Apr, 2015
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Tip of the Week: How to Find the Perfect Outsourced IT Company for Your Needs

b2ap3_thumbnail_it_company_for_your_needs_400.jpgA growing company tends to experience a lot of IT pains. This is because growth usually goes hand-in-hand with an expanding IT infrastructure, and your in-house IT staff might not be able to keep up with the increased workload. This is especially painful if your budget isn’t as flexible as you’d like. You decide that it’s in your best interest to outsource your IT, but where should you start looking?

Outsourcing your IT comes with a lot of great benefits, and it should always be considered as a viable option. Compared to hiring a full-time team member, you save money in the long run by taking advantage of easily-budgetable payments. In addition to cost-efficiency, you also need to look for technology competency. Not all of the so-called professionals you meet will have the skills to back up their claims. The solution to finding the best of the best can be as easy as holding a “mock interview,” of sorts with the prospective outsourced IT vendor.

Are They Up-to-Date in the Industry?
It’s only natural that technology professionals keep up with the latest occurrences in the industry, and your prospective business partner should be no different. Are they keeping up with the latest security protocol and backup practices? Are they always trying to use the latest technologies to stay ahead of the competition? If they are, it shows a passion that can be leveraged for your benefit.

NuTech Services is one such business. We stay ahead by following reliable news feeds and staying aware of important findings and trends. We know what a reliable IT staff should concentrate on, and our strategies reflect these trends to help your company take full advantage of its technology.

How Do They Handle Difficult Tasks?
In IT, issues that aren’t a technician’s expertise frequently arise. This means that they might not be entirely comfortable dealing with a situation. How IT staff handle stressful situations like these can make or break their service. Do they research the problem? Do they strive to make clarity one of their biggest and best selling points?

They absolutely should, and NuTech Services knows this better than anyone else. We always work to find the best solution to a problem, even if we’re unfamiliar with it. If it looks like a job that we can’t help you with, we’ll find someone from our list of trusted IT vendors who can assist you to the best of their ability. Their work is a reflection of our company, and since you trust us, you know you can trust them to perform their duties to both your expectations and our own.

How Do They Handle Hypothetical Situations?
Now that you’ve limited the number of applicants to those who know what they’re doing, you can impose hypothetical situations onto your candidates to see who has a thought process similar to your own. This process is perhaps the most important part of hiring an outsourced IT agency. You want to make sure that they have solid business practices by seeing them in action for yourself.

At NuTech Services, you can see our prowess with your own eyes with a IT consultation. This can address any problems or questions you might have concerning your technology. We do our best to explain the problems to you, and make sure that you know all of your options before you commit to a particular solution.

These tips can help you locate a quality IT specialist, but why do so when you have NuTech Services readily available to help you out at this very moment? All you have to do is call 810.230.9455 to get started. We’ll work with you to make sure your technology is working at maximum capacity.