Blog
Happy Thanksgiving!
It’s almost that time of the year! Holiday season is upon us, and in a few short days, we’ll be eating way too much food and spending time with family. As we approach this holiday season, our Sterling Ideas team took some time to reflect on what we’re grateful for and what we’ve been blessed with. We’re thankful for a lot, and I thought I’d take some time and personally express some of the things I’m grateful for as we enter into this season. This year, I am thankful for our team, the...
Encryption
Encryption refers to the process of coding information with the goal of making it inaccessible or indecipherable to unauthorized viewers. Pretty fancy stuff, right? Have you ever seen movies where the hero has to crack some sort of overly complicated, impossible-to-comprehend code to stop a missile from launching or to save New York City? I know I have. Well, luckily enough for us in the real world, encryptions aren’t that easy to decode, and because of that, we can protect sensitive...
NCAM: Cybersecurity Essentials Overview
So far this month, Sterling and Todd covered the very basics of cybersecurity, and that’s a great place to start. However, there’s a lot more to it. There’s so much that we can’t write enough blogs to convey all the information, so instead we wrote a 40-page guide called Cybersecurity Essentials for Business Owners. We talk about the threats businesses face, notable statistics (that can be helpful for evaluating your own company), the NIST Security Framework, and CIS Controls and...
NCAM: Business Cybersecurity
Since it’s my first opportunity to write to you during October, Happy National Cybersecurity Awareness Month! I’ll be talking this week about security practices that you should bring to your workplace, whether you work from home, work from the office, or own your own business. Last week, Sterling talked about cybersecurity for personal technology, and all those principles hold true for business security. However, cybersecurity for work might pose a few different challenges than security at...
NCAM: Personal Cybersecurity
This week, we’re talking about personal cybersecurity in honor of National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. Personal cybersecurity, in the context that we’ll talk about it today, is cybersecurity for any devices or technology-involved activities that do not directly relate to your career. For instance, talking to your child on the phone, using your Walmart app, interacting with any personal email account, banking online, accessing personal medical documents, or donating to charity online are all...
NCAM: Intro
It’s finally October, and October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month! This month, we’re putting forth a concerted effort to educate and inform our clients and communities about cybersecurity. At Sterling Ideas, we talk about security every day. Every. Single. Day. And that makes our clients’ technology much more secure. But those conversations rarely make it farther than our office and our clients’ offices, and that’s why we’re focusing on bringing that information directly to you this...
Protective Measures Against Ransomware (Part II)
Let’s talk about a few more security measures that will help defend your business against ransomware attacks. In case you missed last week’s blog, Charles did a great job of introducing password managers, logging and alerting, multifactor authentication, and patching. We’re coming to the end of our series on ransomware, which has been guided by the attached CERTNZ ransomware graphic. If you take a look at the graphic, you’ll see little colored hexagons scattered all over with a key at the...
Protective Measures Against Ransomware (Part I)
Over the last few weeks, we’ve talked about ransomware: what it is, how attackers get in your systems, and the damage it can do. In all honesty, it’s been kind of bleak. This week and next week will be much more encouraging if you’re concerned about ransomware and the security of your systems. Even though ransomware is threatening, you can protect yourself. Of course, we cannot guarantee 100% that if you do these things, you’ll never experience a ransomware attack; the technical world is...
What Damage can Ransomware Do?
Ransomware attacks cost businesses and consumers an average of $1.85 million in recovery per attack, according to Sophos’ State of Ransomware Report 2021. Aside from the monetary cost of ransomware, there are data losses, company downtime, exposed information, and more issues associated with the problem. This week, we’re looking at how criminals inflict damage once they’re in your systems and what the short- and long-term effects of a ransomware attack are. Take a look at the two columns named...
How Does Ransomware Enter your System?
Let’s take a look at the first step in ransomware attacks: how ransomware enters your system. Before we get into the details, take a look at the graphic attached to this blog. This was produced by CERTNZ and is an amazing resource for educating about ransomware. We’re going to use this graphic over the next few weeks, breaking it down step-by-step so that you understand the ins-and-outs of ransomware and how to protect your technology. (I recommend you keep this graphic for future reference...
What is Ransomware?
Ransomware is a big deal. In today’s technology-driven world, your data is extremely valuable, not only to you but to criminals as well. As much as I wish that weren’t true, it is. And because criminals find your information valuable, you must protect it. At Sterling Ideas, we believe one of the most effective ways to defend against cybercrime is to be educated about the different threats to your data. One of those threats is ransomware. Ransomware is a type of malware. Malware is a type of...
Network Security: How it All Works Together
Over the last 3 weeks, we’ve talked individually about firewalls, network segmentation, antivirus software, and threat detection software. These are all integral pieces of system security. But let’s take a look at the bigger picture: how they actually work together. In Charles’ blog about firewalls, he uses the analogy of a guard at a gated community being the firewall of your security system. I’m going to take his analogy and expand it to show you how all of these security tools interact with...
Antivirus & Threat Detection
These days most operating systems, like Windows 11 or the newest iOS, have built-in antivirus software that protects your computer. You’ve probably also interacted with antivirus software like Norton Security or MacAfee before. Every antivirus software is different, but they all have the same basic objective: protecting your systems from viruses, malware, and a host of different threats. Originally, antivirus was just that – against computer viruses. However, as malware, ransomware, and a host...
Network Segmentation
Network segmentation is a vital part of cybersecurity, but what exactly is it? In short, it’s putting different systems on different networks so that if one system is compromised, the incident is contained to that specific network and cannot spread to other systems. So, in the worst case scenario that a system gets hacked, the damage is as contained as possible. The easiest example is your guest network. You want your guest network segmented because, by nature, it’s being accessed by devices...
Firewalls
I’m sure you’ve heard the term “firewall” over and over. You’ve probably heard your IT guy refer to it, or maybe you’ve tried to scroll through Facebook on a work computer and gotten a “Blocked by Firewall” popup. A firewall, in the simplest terms, is a protective barrier between your internal computer systems and external systems (like the internet). Firewalls can be physical hardware or even software that runs on your computer. They monitor the activity on your systems and operate based on...
Interview, re: Cloud vs Local
Q: If a client asks you which is better—cloud or local servers—how do you respond? Would your answer differ based on the size of the company? Charles: “Probably the biggest thing that we have to understand concerning cloud versus local systems is the client’s requirements. I can think of one of our clients that works with cloud systems—their data and systems fit neatly inside of Office365, they don’t need any outside systems, so cloud is a slam dunk for them. On the other side, I can think of...
How do Cloud and Local Servers Fit in Small Business Systems?
Now that we understand servers and the cloud, how do we apply that information to your small business and its technical needs? Before we talk about that, if you have any questions about servers or the cloud—what they are or how they work—go back and read the last two blogs. It’ll help tremendously. Our number one priority is always supporting your business in a way that helps you thrive. Because that’s our ultimate goal, we don’t necessarily think that either local servers or cloud servers are...
What is the Cloud?
Last week, Sterling talked about servers and how they function. This week, we’re going to talk about a related concept: the cloud. But, before you read any further, if you don’t already know what a server is and how it works, go back and read last week’s blog. Trust me, this will make a lot more sense if you do. To start, let me say this: the cloud and all of its various capabilities are highly complex and multifaceted and certainly cannot be covered in one blog post. That being said, it is...
What Exactly are Servers?
Servers are essentially big, extremely powerful computers. The difference between your personal computer and a server is that servers fulfill a different purpose. Servers don’t have keyboards or screens, and they aren’t used like an everyday personal computer. A server houses data that can then be “served” to those who have access. For example, every website is hosted on a server. That server then “serves” information to any device that tries to access that site. So the Sterling Ideas website...
Interview, re: SII Anniversary Part 4
Q: Tell us a little bit about the beginning of Sterling Ideas. What made you decide to start your own company, and what were some of the challenges at the very beginning? Charles: “I had been working in IT and IT support for quite a few years, and I had gotten to the point where I was doing consulting work for national and even international companies, which is very interesting work, but it does tend to necessitate travel. And I had reached a point where I didn’t want to be away from home that...
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