div-r, Author at Abtech IT Solutions and Managed IT Services

When really is “the end” in OEM End-of-Service-Life?

No doubt you’ve had considerable experience with OEM support ending on your IT equipment over the years. If you’re experiencing this for the first time, it might incite a bit of minor panic since you’ve perhaps relied on this support for a while. Original equipment manufacturers frequently want to move on from legacy support because they want to build their own future.

In many ways, OEM support ending after two or more years is a symbiotic process, if by force. They’re essentially weaning you off OEM support reliance so you can benefit from third-party maintenance.

Going with a third-party maintenance plan isn’t a bad transition for various reasons, though you’ll want to know when it’s appropriate. It’s better to transition before your OEM support ends so you won’t have to scramble to find something suitable.

Declining Value in OEM Support Agreements

For some IT equipment, it’s sometimes possible to enter a longer OEM support agreement than others. Often, they’ll allow you to enjoy several years of support and then extend to a limited point through contract renewals.

Maybe you’re doing this now. Regardless, it’s worth noting as each year ensues, you’re receiving less support value. Since many IT manufacturers want to move forward to provide new technologies you’ll want to buy, they don’t waste time with an entire decade or more of support privileges.

When you start losing OEM support value, it could place you in jeopardy if you have a serious IT issue arise. An emergency might come up and you’ll realize the 24/7 support you once enjoyed is now extremely limited or non-existent.

If you find yourself in a tech emergency on a weekend or holiday, you’re basically left on your own to find technical help.

This is why you’re better off switching to third-party maintenance before your OEM support starts to degrade in quality.

The Growth of Third-Party Maintenance

Dissatisfaction with OEM support is one of the main reasons companies switch to third-party maintenance recently. According to statistics, 75% of companies make this switch because OEM support didn’t help with changing business requirements.

Data like this shows why maintenance from outside sources has rapid growth in IT departments worldwide.

When you find a new maintenance team, you’re going to discover they give you far more benefits than if sticking long-term with the OEM process.

Costs and Customization

It’s going to cost less hiring a third-party maintenance company because you’re basically outsourcing much of the technical help. They already have a dedicated team that’s going to monitor your IT equipment and even provide remote support when needed. In many cases, this means using pre-owned equipment, despite many businesses preferring this to save money.

You’re also giving yourself far more freedom. OEM support systems frequently prevent you from using your network for the entirety of its useful life. Now you can, including adding things to it the original manufacturer didn’t allow.

Better IT Management

Keep in mind you’re going to receive excellent IT management going through a third-party source. Many of these maintenance companies offer IT advisors, something you wouldn’t find with the OEM.

Through your advisor, they’ll guide you through any upgrades you want to do, the best equipment to use, and how much money you should spend.

With the new trend being decoupling hardware and software to extend the tech life cycle, a new IT paradigm is already here. Keeping costs under control is obviously a major hurdle for all companies. Now you can stop playing risk, especially when relying on security technology.

Visit us at Abtech Technologies to ask about our security products to augment business continuity and compliance.

How to Make Your Business Cyber-Resilient

Any business of any size is a potential target for a cyber-attack and cyber threats are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Even with the most advanced security measures in place, businesses are still at risk of having data attacked, corrupted or inaccessible.

In recent years, advanced ransomware attacks have infiltrated backups, leaving businesses with little chance of recovery without paying the ransom.
Cyber Insurance is available, but the increase in the number and size of ransomware payouts has meant that insurance providers are putting additional requirements into their policies before they will offer coverage. These requirements are particularly focused on the integrity of data backups.

So, what do you need to do to meet these requirements and make your business Cyber-Resilient.

Protection Goes Beyond Preventing Cyber-Attacks

We shall assume that you already have front end security measures in place such as anti-virus software, network firewalls and user security training. Whilst these are important, we should expect that a sophisticated cyber attack will find a way through these protections. Almost all businesses that suffer a cyber-attack, have these front-end security measures in place.

What is important is being able to recover, should such an attack take place. This starts with having a good, clean backup copy of your data.

Isolation, Immutability and Intelligence

Current research shows that there are three key areas to focus on when planning how to make your business cyber-resilient. Isolation, Immutability and Intelligence.

The following table shows the type of threats that are most common and how these measures protect against them.

Isolation

This involves creating a copy of your data backup that is isolated from your core network. This copy is stored in such a way that it cannot be accessed by anything running on your core network or anyone who has access to that network.

This means that if a cyber attacker manages to gain access to your core systems or infect your local data backup, it cannot infect the isolated backup.

Immutability

To achieve immutability, you need to ensure that the original copy of your data cannot be changed. It cannot be modified, overwritten or deleted. Additionally, by keeping multiple copies of immutable backups, organizations guarantee recovery from ransomware attacks by finding and recovering from a clean backup.

Intelligence

Intelligence is the final and arguably the most important part of the cyber-resilience jigsaw. It involves using analytics and machine-learning software tools to analyze the backup looking for known threat patterns. The software effectively knows what ransomware looks like and can raise the alarm and isolate the infection before it is launched.

What Solutions Are Available to Make Your Business Cyber-Resilient

There are many solutions and services on the market that meet one or more of these requirements, but few meet all three. One solution that does meet all three is Dell’s Cyber Recovery solution.

Cyber Recovery can be deployed on premise in the main business data center, at a remote location or a cloud service. In each case, data isolation and immutability are achieved by building a Cyber Recovery Vault based on Dell’s Data Domain technology. Local backup is performed by software backing up to a Dell Data Domain appliance.

Another Data Domain Appliance resides in the Cyber Recovery Vault. Cyber Recovery software also resides in the Vault and periodically pulls a copy of the backup into the Vault. Once this has occurred, Cyber Recovery shuts the port isolating the Vault copy from the core network.

A retention lock is applied to the copy in the Cyber Recovery Vault to ensure that it remains immutable.

The final component is the CyberSense software. This provides the Intelligence, but analyzing the data that is brought into the Vault. CyberSense has a library of known cyber threat patterns that it uses as a reference to find and isolate infected data.

Infected data is interrogated to allow for further analysis. This also raises an alarm of a possible ransomware attack so appropriate steps can be taken to remove the infection from the core business network and isolate any infected systems.

“The Dell EMC PowerProtect Cyber Recovery solution offers comprehensive ransomware detection and recovery capabilities both on-premises and in the public cloud. The solution supports an immutable and air-gapped architecture and meets Sheltered Harbor recommendations.” Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup & Recovery Software Solutions – July 19, 2021

Deployment Options for Cyber Recovery

The Cyber Recovery Vault can be deployed in 3 ways.

On premise in the main corporate datacenter
At a remote business location
As a service delivered by a cloud provider such as Abtech’s StorTrust

This gives the business the flexibility to choose the deployment solution that best meets their resources. Deploying a solution on premise or at a remote business location involves more up-front cost and ongoing management resources but provides the benefit of having total control of the solution. Deployment by a cloud provider spreads the cost of the solution and can take the ongoing management responsibility away from the business IT team. Both options follow Dell’s rigorous validation process.

Summary and Next Steps

I hope this article helps provide some direction in how to achieve cyber-resilience for your business. We have covered the types of threat that are most common, the steps to take to protect against these threats and presented a market-leading solution.

Abtech is fully certified to design and deploy Dell Cyber Recovery and CyberSense. We are also certified in Data Domain and Dell’s suite of backup software tools.

If you would like to know more, please reach out to our Data Protection team and we can set up a presentation.

We look forward to working with you to achieve cyber-resilience for your business.

Useful Links

Cyber Recovery Solutions

Cloud Disaster Recovery Services

Dell Latitude 7230 Rugged Extreme Tablet – The Perfect Tool for Law Enforcement

Tested for Every Condition – Key Features

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Less than 2.8lbs/1.3kgs starting weight.

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Abtech Adds Axon 3 Bodycam to its portfolio of products and services

Abtech has added the Axon Body 3 bodycam to our range of solutions.

Axon Body 3 is more than just a camera. Featuring enhanced low-light performance, reduced motion blur and an LTE connection that enables real-time features like live streaming, Body 3 empowers officers with the ability to clearly capture what actually happened when an incident occurs. Axon Body 3 is a valuable tool on providing real evidence from the scene of a crime.

Abtech is experienced in deploying Axon camera solutions. This includes pairing with devices to Axon View and operation of the camera. This includes the setup of an agency domain with evidence.com for fully uploaded videos with category tagging.

Key Axon 3 Features

CLEAR FRAME PLAYBACK
MULTI-MIC AUDIO
ALERTS, LIVE MAPS AND STREAMING
IRONCLAD SECURITY
WIRELESS ACTIVATION
SLEEK LE-READY DESIGN
SAFETY + USABILITY
VIDEO RECALL

Abtech Engineers Attain CJIS Level 4 Security Awareness Certification

We are proud to announce that 5 members of Abtech’s engineering team as attained Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Level 4 Security Awareness Certification.

Abtech takes online security seriously, so it is important that our team members are trained to the highest standards. The purpose of this certification is to make all users with authorized access to Criminal Justice systems and data aware of their individual responsibilities and expected behavior. Security Awareness Training Level 4 is designed for all information technology personnel including system administrators, network administrators etc.

The CJIS is a division of United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Security training is key to the human element of information security.

Enhance performance with Microsoft Teams for your organization

Microsoft Teams is a powerful tool that empowers remote teams to collaborate seamlessly, regardless of their location or time zone. It provides an array of features and functionalities that enhance communication, including instant messaging, video conferencing, file-sharing capabilities and project management tools.

To fully enjoy the benefits that Microsoft Teams offers, it’s essential for employees to have the necessary skills and knowledge required to harness the potential of this platform.

Therefore, organizations need to provide comprehensive training on how to use all aspects of Microsoft Teams to optimize employee productivity. Investing in Microsoft Teams training can help employees become more proficient and confident in using the platform and promote better collaboration within teams which leads to achieving collective goals faster.

10 effective ways to boost performance with Microsoft Teams Training

Assess the training needs of the company: Abtech can conduct a needs assessment to determine the current level of proficiency of the company’s employees in using Microsoft Teams, and identify areas where training is needed.
Provide certification: Abtech can offer certification courses and exams to certify the proficiency of the company’s employees in using Microsoft Teams, which can be useful for tracking employee progress and promoting professional development.
Offer training for remote teams: If the company has remote teams or employees, Abtech can offer virtual training sessions to ensure that everyone can participate regardless of their location.
Provide ongoing support: After the training sessions, Abtech can offer ongoing support to answer questions, address concerns, and provide additional resources to ensure that the company’s employees continue to improve their skills in using Microsoft Teams.
Customize the training sessions: Abtech can tailor the training sessions to the specific needs of the company, including the size of the group, the level of proficiency of the employees, and the specific features of Microsoft Teams that are most relevant to the company’s business needs.
Integration with other software: If the company uses other software tools in addition to Microsoft Teams, Abtech can help integrate these tools to work seamlessly with Microsoft Teams, enabling employees to easily switch between different applications.
Offer best practices for security and compliance: Abtech can offer guidance on how to use Microsoft Teams in a way that meets security and compliance requirements, ensuring that sensitive company information is protected.
Help with migration: If the company is transitioning from another communication platform to Microsoft Teams, Abtech can help with the migration process, ensuring a smooth transition and minimal disruption to the company’s operations.
Measure training effectiveness: Abtech can conduct post-training assessments to measure the effectiveness of the training, identify areas for improvement, and provide recommendations for ongoing training and development.
Offer workshops and consulting: Abtech can offer workshops and consulting services to help the company identify areas for improvement and optimize its use of Microsoft Teams for its specific business needs.

Abtech provides a comprehensive suite of services to assist enterprises in optimizing their use of Microsoft Teams including customization of training sessions, ongoing support, integration with other software, best practices for security and compliance, help with migration, measuring training effectiveness, and workshops and consulting services.

By partnering with Abtech you can maximize productivity whilst minimizing potential risks associated with adopting new technology.

If you want to optimize your team’s workload, start by learning Microsoft teams with Abtech Technologies.

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LESSONS FROM THE RANSOMWARE ATTACKS AT BALTIMORE COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS & GREATER BALTIMORE MEDICAL CENTER

Just before Thanksgiving this year, as students were entrenched in virtual learning, a major ransomware attack took down Baltimore County Public School’s (BCPS) computer systems. As a result, schools closed for several days, many devices were unusable, and like any other major IT security incident, significant costs were incurred to remediate the damage. BCPS will most likely undergo an assessment to determine exactly how the incident happened and they will have to invest significantly to harden their systems and change how they operate.

Ransomware Attacks

Shortly after the BCPS attack, a few miles up the road, Greater Baltimore Medical Center (GBMC) experienced its own ransomware attack, which took down many of their systems. Fortunately, patient care was still mostly maintained, aside from some postponed elective care. It appears that data and operations will be back to normal in fairly short order, but there will still be costs associated with this, and certainly, nobody at GBMC wants to be associated with a ransomware incident.

Is Your IBM hardware reaching End Of Service (EOS) -IBM Support?

It’s that time of year again….. What time of year, you ask? It is the time of year that you are receiving (or not receiving) notifications that IBM support and service will no longer be offered to you and your company on a range of products. This is hardly ever good news because it means you will have to do something about it, and whatever “it” is, is most likely going to cost money… IBM sends out end of service life notifications for the following software and hardware models: · IBM P7 · IBM S20 · IBM JS21 blades · IBM RS/6000 · IBM Power i5 · IBM Flex · IBM P6 · IBM Websphere This happens twice a year. Effective EOS dates are usually April 30th and September 30th. Hopefully you do receive a notice that your software or equipment is reaching its EOS date. Usually they will give you a month or two to plan for it and give you two choices: 1. Upgrade to a newer version or release. 2. Purchase a support extension What they don’t usually tell you is that there is a third option that is usually better for businesses like yours: 3. Use a third-party IBM support company In most cases, 3rd party support is a good option. 3rd party IBM support providers, like Abtech Technologies, can provide high quality hardware maintenance to extend the life of IBM products. Abtech Technologies has a dedicated and experienced staff that is very knowledgeable about IBM products and offer best in class software management and support. Abtech Technologies also has a large inventory of replacement parts for IBM hardware.

Abtech Technologies awarded multi-year managed services contract.

Abtech Technologies has been awarded a multi-year contract to provide and deliver IT Managed Services, IT Security Services and IT Consulting Projects for the City of Lake Forest, CA. This is in addition to the Cloud Backup and Disaster Recovery Service that Abtech Technologies already provides for the city.

Abtech won the bid against strong competition. There were 48 companies registered to bid on this contract, some of them billion-dollar corporations.

Four companies were asked to interview and were taken through an extensive evaluation process.

Abtech Technologies was awarded the contract based on several factors, but key to the award was Abtech’s capability in IT Security, Project Management, IT Consulting and the overall deep technical knowledge of its many engineers.

About Abtech Technologies
Abtech Technologies has revenue of $20 million and employees 60 associates of which more than 50% are engineers.

In addition to the City of Lake Forest, Abtech Technologies has 300 other IT contracts supporting medium-sized and Fortune 500 companies. Abtech performs services ranging from Hardware Maintenance, day-to-day Managed Services, Database Administration, IT Security and various forms of Consulting.

Prevent, Protect and Mitigate Cyber Attacks

An anatomy of a real attack

User targeted by spam email.
User engaged with hacker and their local laptop was compromised.
The hacker then used the VPN connection on the laptop to access the corporate network.
With access to the network the hacker started a network discovery sweep.
One spreadsheet with admin credentials was found.
Ransomware was deployed and in less than 20min the entire network was encrypted.
The company did not have an effective backup plan an it too 2 weeks for them to get back to 80% of production.
As of 2 months after the attack they are only at 90%

Signs of unauthorized access attempts on your computer systems.
The hackers target individuals who may hold confidential company information. Then, they contact them via text messages or emails containing executable malware or links, by posing as someone of a familiar identity. If these links are clicked on, the hackers could gain substantial access to the victim’s network and data.

What will an attack look like?

Identifying the malware, phishing, spyware, trojans and viruses.

Presuming the cybercriminals are successful, the target company may experience:

Malware infections: Bitcoin mining, Keystroke loggers or Identity theft.
Data theft/high jacking.
Ransomware.

How to prevent the attack?

Preventing a cyber attack and saving your data and network. People need to be educated about this threat, and strong awareness needs to be spread throughout the organization. Companies need a Defense in Depth approach to a security architecture that is multilayered and spans all networks, endpoints, mobile devices, and the cloud. These are the measures recommended to ensure maximum safety:

Basic IT Security Measures

Phishing and password training
Proofpoint email protection
Datto RMM anti-Ransomware
CyberHawk
KnowBe4
End point Security Software
Web Application Firewall
Botnet protection
Latest updates from vendors
Identify all attack vector

High End Security Measures

Additional Security Measures: Bi-Annual Penetration testing, Internal Vulnerability Scans, Annual Information Security Audit and Compliance audit readness
Intrusion Prevention System
Cyber Insurance
StorTrust: Cloud Backup and Disaster Recovery: Allows data to be stored offsite and be restored should an accidental deletion, a failed software upgrade, database corruption or ransomware occur.
Stortrust Immutable Backup: Immutable backups are air-gapped and cannot be affected by ransomware originating from a client site.

We protect your data and your business. With our service, file and systems can be recovered instantly from a local appliance. If disaster strikes, we can spin your critical systems up in our cloud so your business can keep running. We include an annual DR test, sou you can relax, knowing we will be there when you need us.