October 2018

Everything You Need To Know About The Pen Test

Backup Solutions, Cybersecurity & IT Threats, Disaster Recovery / activeimage / 30/10/2018 / ActiveImage, Backup, business, Cybersecurity, disaster recovery, infrastructure, pen test, security, testing

Although you may have implemented the best cyber-crime defenses and have a great IT team, there can still be holes in the infrastructure that cyber-criminals can manipulate to get access to your valuable data. This is why businesses run a penetration (pen) test.

What is a Pen Test?

It is a test to discover any vulnerabilities in the system before hackers find and exploit them. When running a pen test, you would simulate a cyber-attack on your own defenses to make sure the system and your staff are prepared for a real breach. Once completed, an evaluation of the whole system can be written for all staff to understand, and the shortcomings of the system can be addressed.

When To Perform A Pen Test?

The pen test should ideally be implemented before a system goes live, so that any issues can be detected and dealt with before operations commence. However, a pen test should not be carried out on a system that is fairly new, as there will be holes in a system’s early stages that can be missed if a test is performed too soon. It is always best to leave some time after a network or system deployment before testing commences.

The biggest mistake most companies make is to leave things here and not continue to test their systems. Some companies may only use the pen test after a cyber-attack to find and seal the hole in the system that was exploited by the hacker. Other businesses may only ever run a pen test due to laws or rules laid down by a board of directors.

The importance of the pen test can be lost in the everyday goings on of the business, but it is vital for the security of the business to regularly test its system. Cyber-crime is continuously evolving and new methods of attack keep appearing. With regular pen tests and other system evaluation methods, you can ensure your system has flawless security infrastructure.

How often your business can test its system will depend on factors such as company size, budget or infrastructure. However, testing your system once a year is better than only having it tested once or not at all. Remember, being up to date with certain standards doesn’t always mean you’re totally secure, as your system will change and develop vulnerabilities over time. You should do a pen test as often as you can to keep up with these changes.

The best security for your business starts with a great data backup and recovery plan. Contact ActiveImage today to learn more about the solutions we offer and how we can help you secure your data.

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3 Basics Ways to Protect Your Small Business From Phishing

Backup Solutions, Cybersecurity & IT Threats / activeimage / 25/10/2018 / ActiveImage, awareness, backup and recovery, cyber crime, cyber criminals, education, emails, IT threats, passwords, phishing, ransomware

Phishing uses social engineering techniques in an attempt to convince a user to give up their private information. They gain access to usernames, passwords, credit card number and other sensitive information. Cybercriminals will pose as a legitimate person or company. Email may include links to a real website. These websites, companies and individuals are fake and are only aiming to access your or your business’s sensitive data, which they will sell on to other criminals.

Other types of phishing emails include attempts to infect a machine with malware by sending emails with malicious attachments. An additional branch of phishing, known as spear-phishing, use highly-targeted emails to trick users into handing over personal information.

Most phishing emails can be quite general as if the criminals are casting a big net and seeing how many users take the bait. Spear-phishing emails are different in that they usually address the user directly. These emails may even contain information that the criminal has taken from social media platforms to personalise the attack further.

How to Protect Your Small Business

Although there has not been a rise in phishing attacks, all cybercrime is continuously evolving. Your business needs to keep up with the new threats to keep its sensitive data safe. Here are three methods you can start to implement in your business today, which won’t break the bank, but will still safeguard your data.

Better Password Protection

Strong passwords are an essential extra barrier against cybercriminals. To ensure the security of your password, they should contain a combination of numbers, uppercase letters and special symbols. However, a single strong password may not be enough. Changing the password every 90 to 120 days will more effectively safeguard your data. Regularly changing password is less likely to be compromised. An additional layer of security can be ob achieved by implementing two-factor authentication.

User Education and Awareness

All employees should know what a phishing email looks like and should be trained to never click on the links and attachments in the email, but rather to immediately delete any email that asks for sensitive or personal information. Employees should also be requested to alert the IT department if they receive an email or text with a two-factor authentication code, which they didn’t ask.

Backups and Ransomware Protection

Maintained and working backups of all your business’s data will allow you to recover from an attack quickly. ActiveImage provides total data protection, with some of the fastest recovery times on the market. Our disaster recovery and backup solutions, as well as our ransomware protection, will ensure that any type of phishing attack, whether it contains malicious malware or not, will be unsuccessful.

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ActiveImage – Helping MSP’s in Australia Improve their Bottom Line with Better Backup and DR software Offerings

Actiphy News & Updates, Managed Services Insights / utph / 10/10/2018 / Backup and DR Solution, Former StorageCraft Partner

Former StorageCraft Country Partner, Richard Giddey has been actively offering backup and disaster recovery software to IT partners and MSP firms since launching ActiveImage Australia. The growing traction MSPs are gathering in Australia is definitely a strong partner opportunity for ActiveImage. We are committed to growing our business through the channel.

ActiveImage offers faster speed, better reliability and more competitive pricing that Giddey’s former StorageCraft ShadowProtect product. The ActiveImage Linux, VM and Windows backup offerings have the full spectrum of IT environments covered. This possibility to save on scarce IT budget resources is particularly attractive to IT managers and CIO’s.

We encourage enterprises looking to take ActiveImage for a test drive to download a trial version of the software. We have a growing selection of MSP partners and software distribution partners to match you up with, alternatively, we are happy to contract with your preferred software vendor or MSP.

With IT threats on the rise resulting from Malware and Ransomware, now may be the best time to speak to us regarding our IT protection opportunities.

Together we can bring a solid backup and disaster recovery solution to customers and can drive great value to organizations in Australia, New Zealand and Asia.

We take seriously the responsibility to resonate with our partners, the market, and with customers.

We hold ourselves accountable to prove that we can derive value for our partners and provide a serious backup and disaster recovery solution to our partners, comparable to partner programs offered by StorageCraft, Veeam or Acronis.

Feel free to contact ActiveImage to discuss your business needs. We look forward to getting to know you.

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