The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine has led to a sharp rise in cyber attacks. While many of the attacks are between Russia and Ukraine, there is real potential for other countries to fall victim to cyber-attacks by Russia, thanks to the sanctions placed upon it.

The White House has issued a warning and some great cyber security advice to all businesses.

You’re in IT, I’m in IT, and you know something, we love us some good data. Start with Charles Joseph Minards “March on Moscow”, a fantastic graphical display, and it answers questions.

So how do you answer questions about data when you don’t even know what data you have? You should create for your organization a data database. Really all this needs to be to start out with is a list of all the databases that you folks have internally. These can be applications, ERP, MRP systems, customer support systems, whatever, as well as anything that you can get from 3rd parties.

A new report has discovered that 67% of remote workers are using faulty tech when they work remotely. And often that’s because they’ve accidentally damaged the tech themselves and they don’t want to admit it to their boss in case they get into trouble. A company that sells refurbished technology surveyed 2,500 employees. It found that laptops were most likely to be broken, followed by keyboards, monitors, and PCs.

What’s up! I’m Drew Larsen, I was brought on recently as Simplex-IT's Video Producer and Editor. While studying integrated media, marketing, social media, and forensic chemistry (trust me my academic advisors didn’t get it either) at Ohio University, I was able to work on plenty of short films and have had amazing opportunities such as moving to Los Angeles for a semester to experience and take part in the entertainment industry firsthand.

It seems like we’re talking about cyber scams a lot at the moment. Now there’s yet another new trick you need to be aware of. Cybercriminals are intelligent. They’re forever coming up with new ways to infiltrate your devices and networks to access your valuable data. Fortunately, the defense weapons continue to get stronger and stronger to help keep you protected.

Hello! My name is Cassie Riebau. I recently joined Simplex-IT in February as a Social Media Marketing Coordinator. I have previously worked as a sales associate while in college. This Spring I will graduate from The University of Akron, where I studied speech pathology and audiology, professional social media, sales, and entrepreneurship. I have an eight-year-old golden retriever named Oaty…

While the cyber security of your business should always be a high priority, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine means that businesses may be at an increased risk of cyber-attack. Although there is no direct threat at present, the West is placing a range of sanctions on Russia. There could be retaliation, and Russia has used cyber-attacks in the past.

But what does this mean for your business?

The average office worker sends and receives around 121 emails every day. And while that sounds like a lot, what’s more shocking is that 3 billion phishing emails are sent each day. They account for 1% of all email traffic.

What’s a phishing email? It’s an email sent by cyber criminals that pretends to be from a trusted source, such as your bank, Amazon, or a delivery company.

You may have something in common with my younger grandkids. Not just the total lack of respect for me – but a love of infrastructure! My youngest three, oh boy, they love playing with infrastructure!

This is their latest infrastructure project in the basement of our house. What, you thought it was going to be a network or something..? They’re like 3 to 7 years old! But it does follow the traditional definition of infrastructure.

We were so excited to celebrate Pi Day in person this year, after having to get creative last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pi day is on March 14th, 3.14, to celebrate the first three numbers of the mathematical constant Pi (π). It is a great excuse to enjoy the different varieties of pie. This year eight team members from Simplex-IT gathered fresh pies from Gardner Pies and hand-delivered them to our clients across northeast Ohio.

So you’re the internal IT Person and you’re expected to know everything about MS 365, I mean Office 365, I mean Windows 365…you get the idea, right?

Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a website that you could go to and be able to really dig deep into the features and specifics of the various 365 subscriptions? And I’m not talking about a Microsoft site either! Ooh, and compare them against one another? Maybe really figure out what you need?

Zero Trust World was an excellent conference and it’s been great getting back out there with peers in the industry after 2 years of virtual conference.

I had a chance to catch up with some of our amazing partners (looking at you Liongard and CompTIA) but also got to meet plenty of new folks. I’m excited to spend more time looking into their solutions later this year.

So if your country’s being attacked, invaded, and essentially just under siege, who are you going to call, Microsoft?

I want to call your attention to something that’s going on in terms of the Russian invasion and attacks on Ukraine that really brought Microsoft front and center. And this information is taken from primarily a post from Brad Smith, President and Vice-chair of Microsoft who talks about the roles that Microsoft played and it’s a pretty cool story actually.

Apparently, I want to buy cars in England, I want to sign up for anything that moves, and I want to have meetings with lots of people, or are these email scams?

I’ve noticed recently that there’s a significant increase in companies that are claiming that I’ve signed up for their services, even if it’s a 30 day demo or the like, and if I just click here I’ll finish setting up my demo. Problem is I haven’t heard of any of these guys.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the results of 100 battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer defeat. And if you know neither the enemy or yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

The reason I’m bringing it up is you’re the leader of an organization and you need to know what the bad guys are trying to do.

Trust me. No two words have such a wide array of implications. It’s the punchline of a joke. An appeal for help. An appeal to help. But here’s my question. What kind of trusts are there? And do we get them mixed up?

Computers are becoming more and more interactive every day, from video games giving you an ego boost by telling you, “You’re the hero of Gandor”, to your smart devices cheering you up when you’re feeling down. “Hey phone, make me feel better.” Haha, time well spent, thank you phone. But could the future of psychology be actually artificial?

So you’re the CEO of an organization, small, medium business and you’ve got internal IT people and they’re ok but they need some help. Co-Managed IT Services may be the right fit. Or maybe not?

What I want to talk about here is really the 3 types of Co-Managed IT services. And by that I mean things that are going to help or assist an organization that still wants to hold on to their internal IT people.

So, it’s your responsibility to continually improve your value proposition to your clients. Whether it be improvements to your product, service, delivery, or experience. Guess what? So do the bad guys.

And they’re taking a page out of our book.

No, these are not people trying to put chips into your bloodstream! (Gurh!)

The CIA Triad is actually a model that we use to communicate effectively, core bottom line cyber security concepts to people who aren’t cyber security experts. The CIA in this case stands for Confidentiality, Integrity, & Availability.