Lantek Blog

When companies talk about cybersecurity, they usually brag about their expensive technology they use to do the job: the firewalls, the fancy encryption, and the smart detection software. The thing that matters most, however, your actual employees, gets completely overlooked.

Does your business technology drive you up the wall with uncertainty? Are you reacting to IT problems when you would instead prefer to proactively leverage technology to drive your business’ growth? It’s not your fault; it’s the result of a phenomenon known as the Executive IT Gap, and it’s keeping you trapped in an endless cycle of reactive, costly, and inefficient technology decisions that are slowing your business down.

Are you exhausted from constantly dealing with garbled audio, dropped calls, and confusing telephone bills from your vendor? You deserve better, and while you know it, your telephone provider doesn’t. Thankfully, we do as well, and we have just the solution for you: Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP.

Clutter is a part of life, but one place you absolutely don’t want it is your business’ network. This clutter is called “digital cruft,” which 1) is an actual word, and 2) creates serious problems if you let it accumulate. Your digital cruft can lead to significant vulnerabilities that put your network at risk.

How often have you been frustrated by the challenges of installing new software? How about expiring licenses or outdated tools that need to be upgraded frequently to prevent them from becoming obsolete? These are all problems associated with buying software licenses, and they can all be avoided through the smart use of Software as a Service.

Network bottlenecks are some of the biggest problems that businesses face in their networking architecture. While you might be paying your ISP for a certain speed standard, chances are you’re not getting it, especially if you’re relying on a consumer-grade router. If your network can’t handle all the abuse you throw at it day to day, then you could be putting your productivity and profits in jeopardy.

In IT, we often talk in terms of firewalls, encryption algorithms, and next-generation detection and response tools. We meticulously patch systems, configure complex security policies, and deploy the latest hardware. After two decades in this field, I can tell you where the biggest, most persistent vulnerability lies: the people.

Most modern businesses are powered by their on-premise server hardware assuming that it creates a more secure environment for them. While having your data close by, where you can easily access it, sounds like a great idea, know that there are also issues that arise from these kinds of arrangements. In fact, your business might be the most dangerous place you can host your data. Here’s why.

If and when an employee departs from your business, they should go through a comprehensive offboarding process. This process should include the physical handoff of keys, laptops, and any other assets or resources they used during their employment with your business. While it’s easy enough to collect these physical items, it’s harder to shore up your business on the digital side of things.

As a cybersecurity professional, I've seen organizations of all sizes and sectors make a critical, often fatal, mistake: they wait for the water to boil. They operate under a reactive cybersecurity model, adopting the same slow, passive approach as the hapless subject of the boiled frog analogy.