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Your data is one of your most important business assets. However, too many business owners underestimate how vulnerable their data is to hackers. This near-complacency is caused by a false feeling of safety in numbers, and that their business is too small to attract the notice of hackers. Out of the millions of businesses with an Internet presence, they might feel that the odds of getting “chosen” by a hacker are quite small. However, active hackers are numerous and many of them use software to find their targets. There are real business consequences of getting hacked.

Just as search engines have no trouble finding and crawling new websites, the bot crawlers of hackers can also find new websites with great efficiency. It may only take a month or two for the hacker’s software to discover your website after it’s launched. From that point forward, your site will be periodically probed by the software for vulnerabilities. If any are identified, they are then exploited.

Most hackers will choose your business because it’s a target of opportunity. The size of your business or the prominence of your brand generally isn’t a factor.

The Business Consequences of Getting Hacked

A hacker may access and exploit sensitive business information such as trade secrets, business strategies, or financial difficulties. This may cause great damage in the hands of your competitors. Hackers may also access the sensitive information of your customers who then become victims as well. Once your customers’ data is compromised, most if not all of them will never buy from you again, while some may take legal action. Word of this can spread fast on the Internet, which may diminish your future business prospects.

A hacker may also infect your traffic with malware or try to make money by redirecting them to gambling, porn, or drug websites. This also tarnishes your brand reputation. Still another possibility is incorporating your server into their bot net that they use for finding and hacking other servers. A hacked website can also lose its traffic when search engines drop it from their search results pages. Browsers may display malware or attack page warnings about your site to visitors and warn them to turn back.

All of the above outcomes of getting hacked are damaging to your business and reputation. Dealing with the problem after it happens is not an option because the consequences are too severe. Prevention is the best cure for this problem, and our managed security services will provide a strong and robust defense. Contact us today to learn more.

Your data is one of your most important business assets. However, too many business owners underestimate how vulnerable their data is to hackers. That is why they need managed security services. This near-complacency is caused by a false feeling of safety in numbers, and that their business is too small to attract the notice of hackers. Out of the millions of businesses with an Internet presence, they might feel that the odds of getting “chosen” by a hacker are quite small. However, active hackers are numerous and many of them use software to find their targets.

Just as search engines have no trouble finding and crawling new websites, the bot crawlers of hackers can also find new websites with great efficiency. It may only take a month or two for the hacker’s software to discover your website after it’s launched. From that point forward, your site will be periodically probed by the software for vulnerabilities. If any are identified, they are then exploited.

Most hackers will choose your business because it’s a target of opportunity. The size of your business or the prominence of your brand generally isn’t a factor.

The Business Consequences of Getting Hacked

A hacker may access and exploit sensitive business information such as trade secrets, business strategies, or financial difficulties. This may cause great damage in the hands of your competitors. Hackers may also access the sensitive information of your customers who then become victims as well. Once your customers’ data is compromised, most if not all of them will never buy from you again, while some may take legal action. Word of this can spread fast on the Internet, which may diminish your future business prospects.

A hacker may also infect your traffic with malware or try to make money by redirecting them to gambling, porn, or drug websites. This also tarnishes your brand reputation. Still another possibility is incorporating your server into their bot net that they use for finding and hacking other servers. A hacked website can also lose its traffic when search engines drop it from their search results pages. Browsers may display malware or attack page warnings about your site to visitors and warn them to turn back.

All of the above outcomes of getting hacked are damaging to your business and reputation. Dealing with the problem after it happens is not an option because the consequences are too severe. Prevention is the best cure for this problem, and our managed security services will provide a strong and robust defense. Contact us today to learn more.

The United States Department of Health and Human Services enforces HIPAA laws to protect the private health information of Americans. When organizations don’t follow their strict regulations they may face harsh penalties for noncompliance. That’s why it is important to understand which organizations are legally required to follow HIPAA and have HIPAA compliant hosting.

People and organizations that submit their patient’s protected health information (PHI) in electronic form are considered Covered Entitities that must follow HIPAA security rules. Healthcare providers that work in clinics, hospitals and regional health organizations are Covered Entities. The law also applies to individual medical practitioners who use electronic forms for their patients.

Health plans are also legally bound to use HIPAA compliant hosting. Covered Entities include Health Maintenance Organizations (or HMOs), Medicaid, and Medicare plans that cover prescription drugs. Healthcare clearinghouses, public health authorities, flexible spending accounts and third-party administrators also make the list. The government considers companies that offers health insurance to its employees Covered Entities. Universities that gather, store or transmit electronic protected health information when they enroll students in health plans must also use hosting that is compliant with the government’s HIPAA guidelines.

Please contact us today to learn more about our technical services. At WHOA.com, we offer HIPAA compliant hosting solutions for people and organizations in the healthcare industry. It’s very important to transmit private patient medical records in a secure HIPAA compliant environment. We understand how to process electronic healthcare transactions for healthcare software providers, healthcare providers and other healthcare personnel.

Business continuity and high availability planning focuses on keeping your organization productive and preventing business down-time. Computer network protocols such as SNMP help in achieving this goal through continuous system health monitoring that enables pre-emptive maintenance before a system or network outage occurs.

SNMP version 2 increases security by defining two additional authentication layers but still uses the same community string clear text authentication specified by SNMP version 1.

SNMP version 3 further increases security by including encrypted authentication, password hashes and directory services integration support. The SNMP version 3 protocol also includes features that enable system monitoring of multiple locations through integration with an organization’s directory services (such as Microsoft Active Directory).

SNMP deployment, when configured to send traps and allow SNMP polling to a central location, decreases system downtime potential by alerting system administrators when a host or network device may fail and is operating outside the acceptable performance range. SNMP also tracks maintenance needs (such as gradual system internal temperature increases) so that maintenance (such as hot swapping running hard drives plagued with bad sectors or clean fan filters) occurs before a failure occurs, saving the organization costly down-time.

The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is a key ingredient for business continuity and achieving zero down-time because SNMP provides performance monitoring and management services for nearly any device that connects to a TCP/IP network. SNMP enables IT managed services to monitor and maintain all network resources from a central location, providing cost savings in down-time and IT staffing.

Contact us to learn more about how IT managed services maintains business continuity through system monitoring and pre-emptive maintenance.