Wondering if your company needs the benefits of working with a managed IT service provider is like asking if you need a guide to scale Mount Everest. Theoretically, you could do the climb yourself but how many years would it take for you to gather all the knowledge you need about the terrain? And how long would it take to get your technical skills up to the level that they need to be? And what’s it going to take to manage the whole expedition?

By the time you get it all together you might very well have missed your chance to achieve the summit, and you’ll be left with regrets about sacrifices that you endured while you were struggling towards an ever-elusive goal.

With a Zero Trust strategy for cybersecurity, the presence of an intruder is assumed. That means that tactics are needed to limit exposure and the potential damage that the intruder can do. One of those tactics is the Principle of Least Privilege.

Least privilege involves matching up permissions to access data with the job or tasks that need to be done.

There comes a time when business leaders are forced to rethink the IT function of their business and ask themselves – Should we continue to have internal IT staff or is it time to outsource managed IT services? It could be that the IT manager is leaving or there’s been a lot of turn-over in IT. Maybe the organization had a cyber-attack.

Imagine that you’re in charge of protecting a castle. The castle has a drawbridge and a moat around it. You have guards stationed at the drawbridge who monitor the people coming into the castle. The guards let citizens in and keep known bad guys out. Because the guards prevent the bad guys from coming into the castle, the citizens can safely go about their business.

It used to be that all you had to do to secure your network and protect your data was to create a technical barrier around it and you were good to go. Sadly, that’s not enough anymore. Cybercriminals have evolved their tactics and the technology that your people work with every day has changed too.

The term “Managed IT Services” isn’t new but unfortunately, there are a lot of companies that say they’re “managed” but they’re really not. How can you tell the difference and how do you know if that’s what your organization needs? Start by asking yourself, “Is IT serving our business?”

Here’s what we mean by serving your business.

Employee Survey Affirms that Managed IT Service Company is a Great Place to Work for Third Consecutive Year
(October 19, 2021 – New Orleans, LA) –Bellwether Technology Corporation is on the Times-Picayune 2021 list of Top Workplaces in New Orleans.

Here are some ways you can decide whether to trust a website link or page in a web browser and tell when things smell phishy. Taking the time to look for signs of a hack attempt in links and websites is like washing your hands; it helps keep you and your co-workers safe, and every adult should know how to do it.

Kirk Coco: a brewery founder makes his way to Bellwether
Kirk Coco, Bellwether’s Director of Sales and Marketing, joined the Company in June 2018. His path to Bellwether, and to IT consulting, was certainly an unusual one: he went from personal injury attorney to naval officer to local brewery owner.

Bellwether Technology President Steven Ellis joins It's New Orleans and the Out to Lunch Podcast to discuss online threats and cybersecurity. Give it a listen for some up to date information on how hackers and scammers are targeting businesses.

Life Online

Andrea Woolsey: the heart of the office
Ask anyone at Bellwether, and they’ll tell you how much they love Andrea. She’s warm, hilarious, hardworking, and keeps the train on the tracks. As the gatekeeper for Bellwether’s Chairman, Poco Sloss, Andrea wears many hats.

Matt Lax: Bellwether’s IT swiss army knife
Matt Lax’s affinity for technology began at a young age, “I was the weird kid that asked for appliances for my birthday so that I could take them apart and put them back together.” As Bellwether’s Escalation Engineer II, he gets to deploy this passion for problem solving and technological learning by tackling client issues that reach him at the end of the escalation chain.

Every day every person with email is put to the test. No matter the job title or position, we all get phishing emails. And no matter your knowledge of cybersecurity, you make the initial decision of whether a message is malicious. So, when deciding whether to call the IT Help Desk, here are some solid, simple tips and tricks from the top to help ANYONE dodge bad guys' phishing hooks, nets, and spearguns.

Parker Bordeaux: a geographic information systems expert with a penchant for the visual arts
Parker Bordeaux, a New Orleans native, joined Bellwether off the heels of completing his undergraduate degree in December 2014. At Vanderbilt, as a math major, Parker found a true passion in problem-solving, something he wished to carry into his career.

'Storm preparation' is a term with which people across the gulf coast are intimately familiar. Most of the tools we need from June to November (and this year possibly longer) have become second-nature. Sandbags. Non-perishable foods. Battery-operated radios.

Nathan Raby: Bellwether’s back-up expert with a passion for sports-writing and podcasting
Meet Nathan Raby, a Data Assurance Engineer who joined in June 2012 and has become Bellwether’s in-house security and back-ups guru. When asked why he has stayed at Bellwether for so long, Nathan explained one key component: leadership that listens.

Effective help desk services are critical during this time of increased remote work.
Employees can no longer ask the person sitting next to them for help. Instead, they have to figure out a solution on their own or contact the help desk. Unfortunately they are often underwhelmed by the response that they get.

Largest New Orleans IT Company built on service, growing with cybersecurity expertise
 

NEW ORLEANS, LA (August 5, 2020) – New Orleans IT company Bellwether Technology will mark its 40th anniversary of exceptional IT service to the Gulf South on August 1st.

Too often an IT company will take on more clients than they can reasonably handle.  They price managed services too low to be able to staff appropriately and find themselves unable to deliver on promises made to their clients and to their employees.

In part 1 we examined what is going on behind the scenes of an understaffed managed IT company.

The world is adapting and reacting. With companies asking staff to practice social distancing in response to the current pandemic, both employees and managers realize the challenges ahead to ensure business continuity.

While the phenomenon of “social distancing” addresses the immediate issue, practicing social distancing might not work for businesses in the long term if they do not learn to maintain productivity standards.

Best practices for Remote Meetings
Before you run out and buy an ultra HD camera and noise cancelling headsets, try these remote meetings tips to get the most out of the equipment that you already own.

Tip #1. Test every earpiece & microphone combination.

Applying a Technology Edge
There is no denying that technology has been driving improvements and innovation across different global industries for decades. Although the adoption of many technological solutions may seem disruptive at first, they are essential investments that help enterprises gain an edge.

Any IT frustration that you are feeling can always be traced back to this, your IT company is understaffed
Does any of this sound familiar?

I’m tired of seeing the same issues.
We have new employees starting, but their computers aren’t ready.

Work from home is the new normal.
For many, it is likely to continue to some degree long after the COVID-19 crisis.  Here are 8 cybersecurity work from home tips to protect yourself digitally.

Feel free to download and distribute this infographic.
Click to Download

COVID-19 has presented your IT department with a great opportunity
After spending the last few weeks managing work-from-home requests, it is time for IT departments to take advantage of empty offices and quiet networks. Often times, important items are overlooked or put off, because of concerns over user impact.

COVID-19 is now a global pandemic. Millions of people are affected as countries go on lockdown to halt the spread of the disease. Many employees are forced to work from home. That’s why there’s a sudden surge in demand for cloud services worldwide. Can the web infrastructure survive this pandemic, too?

Even before the pandemic, many companies were already turning to online productivity and collaboration tools for their business.

Version 1 of the much anticipated Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) framework was release by the Pentagon on January 31. Many news outlets are reporting that, "All DoD contractors must be certified by 2025." This is a correct statement, but a misleading timeline.

Overall, small businesses face more challenges as compared to established setups. And the one area they tend to overlook is technical support.

Whether it is a multi-office law firm, or any other business, lack of tech support may lead to an unprecedented financial crisis.

Whether it is about developing an application, managing a network or even organizing files, security guidelines are essential. The organizations that keep their security guidelines aligned and in place from the start not only can assess their options but also make reasonable decisions based on the type of industry and the sensitivity of the information.

Whether you run a small business or a big enterprise, a well-planned technology strategy is vital.  It enables your company to employ an extensive business strategy. The best technology strategies do much more than allow businesses to plan their operational tasks; it mainly helps shape them.

There is no denying that technology has evolved considerably over the last few decades. And if you are a startup or a small business, your IT department may not be able to manage the pace of advanced innovations. It may make your company’s IT more reactive and vulnerable rather than proactive.

Cybersecurity is one of the most common concerns of the interconnected world today. As more organizations and companies transition their operation data online, the volume of cyber attacks has escalated as well.

According to a recent report, the number of cyber attacks in the past two years has nearly doubled.

IT policies and procedures play a strategic and crucial role in making sure that the company’s corporate information is safe. Know that policies can address requirements to protect confidential information from unauthorized access, disclosure, corruption, loss, and interference in both physical and electronic formats.

Choosing a reliable service for your company’s IT needs saves you a lot of money and time. Plus, the common pitfalls of poorly chosen IT services and technology can lead to frustration, capital loss, and low adoption rate. Even worse, you can get stuck with a long- term contract for IT services that are useless for your company.

Don’t Think IT Solutions Are Complete without User Training.

A frequently underappreciated contributor to a well-run IT operation is the ability to communicate with and train end users effectively. Its absence too often leads to a disconnect between the way the computer guys intended a system to be used and the way that people actually use it.

Imagine working with a blindfold on your eyes. You’ll constantly be thinking about your next step. Not only will you have to search for which direction you should take the next step but also you will waste a lot of time while doing so. It is a perfect analogy to describe what it is like to work without standardization and documentation.

Do you need it and, if so, what kind?

I am not a cyber insurance expert, nor am I qualified to give legal advice, but as someone who thinks a lot about IT vulnerabilities and threats, I believe that every business should evaluate the cost-benefit of cyber insurance to help protect from cyber risk.

The key to aligning IT with your business
Given the variety of approaches and number of choices available in IT for small businesses, a certain amount of strategic planning ensures that your business applies technology as well as it should. To be reasonably effective and applicable, strategic planning needs context, which means you should have a very good sense of your overall priorities before you can begin to think about how IT should fit in.

They're more useful than you may realize.

Online meetings through solutions like Webex and GoToMeeting have been around for nearly 20 years, and not a whole lot has changed over that time. Today, as before, they allow people to collaborate in real time over the internet via audio or video conferencing and screen or document sharing.

Data analytics is becoming not just more prevalent, but more useful for business.

As someone with a mathematical, financial and technological background, I am a strong proponent of the benefit of analyzing and using data to make better decisions.

Like much of IT, cybersecurity is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. The comprehensive approach that large enterprises should employ to identify and address risks and detect and respond to attacks is often out of reach for small businesses. Yet as the frequency and impact of cyberattacks on businesses of all sizes continues to grow, the typical small-business approach of taking the usual precautions and hoping for the best is proving to be inadequate.

Demands have changed in this cloud-based world.

As the cloud and other developments continue to change the ways small businesses deploy and use technology, IT departments must adapt. Long gone are the days when most IT environments looked the same — a few Windows servers in a closet and a Windows PC on every desk — when all the IT department had to worry about managing core networks.

Now’s the time to review your DR plan.

Much has changed with disaster recovery in the 10-plus years since we got a firsthand lesson from Hurricane Katrina. Server virtualization now makes recovery of many systems much easier and faster than it was, and the rise of the cloud puts more options at our disposal than we could have previously imagined.

What’s your business’ policy for dealing with mobile device security?

The immense popularity of mobile devices is inescapable, yet most small businesses have given little real thought to how best to manage them. Until recently, I shared the opinion that there often isn’t much to worry about.

Cybersecurity awareness is key for business.

From a cybersecurity standpoint, the one behavior that leads to more headaches than any other for small or midsize businesses is people clicking (or otherwise acting) on things in emails that they shouldn’t.

The IT team can help: Certainly scanning email for malware or signs of phishing is a must.