Bike

Mixing Up Vulnerabilities and Risk

A bike is resting against a lamppost without being locked. Is the bike at risk of being stolen? To answer that question, you’d need to find out: Is the bike valuable? Is it in desirable condition? Who would want the bike? What’s the crime rate by the lamppost? Are people around? Is it daytime? Is there a security camera? Also, what effect would it have if someone were to take the bike?

An unlocked bike resting on a lamppost is not a risk, but, in the words of cybersecurity, it is a vulnerability that might be exploited … [5 min. read]

suspicion

Zero Trust: Painful, Slow and Inevitable

Most corporate networks are structured the same way: highly reinforced perimeter, and highly vulnerable interior

“In the zero-trust model, every network and every user are considered hostile,” said Bryley engineer Myk Dinis. Windows 11 offers new ways of achieving zero trust, but Myk said, “baked into Windows is an easy-to-see instance of zero-trust. You have three default network security levels: private, work and public. Depending on which of those network types that you declare you’re in, right down the line it strengthens the firewall. So in a private network your firewall is going to be the least restrictive; it will allow the most access both ways. Work allows a little less access. And with public nothing’s allowed; everything has to be proven with certificates; public is built according to a zero-trust networking model …” [5 min. read]

And behind the curtain was a door

Considering a Business Purchase or Merger?

Here’s Why a Tech Risk Assessment Should Come First

When looking to buy a business or merging with another business, part of the process should include doing due diligence – checking everything top-to-bottom about the other party’s business. Due diligence includes making sure the other business is operating within the law and the guidance of its industry’s regulatory bodies. And because of societal reliance on technology, due diligence ought also to mean scrutinizing the business’ IT practices … [5 min. read]

Loooove!

Embracing Compliance

Yes, Compliance Is Like Eating All Your Vegetables

Compliance is something someone else makes you do, AKA yuck.

Compliance is laws, regulations, contracts and insurance policy terms. And failure to adhere leads to penalties, lawsuits, investigations and the chance insurance won’t cover your claims. Yuck.

But Compliance Is Meant to Keep You from Being Easy Pickings to a Hacker

Think about it from the other point of view. By making nice with compliance (like eating your kale) you can avoid fines and penalties, improve operational safety, cut your risk of cyber-attack, improve public relations, prevent attrition of clients who will more and more need their suppliers to be compliant and, if needed, make sure liability insurance claims are paid. So really compliance is one of those business rarities that can demonstrate a measurable return-on-investment … [5 min. read]

Ill-prepared

Taking Cybersecurity Seriously Too Late

Is your IT staff usually prioritizing the problems of their co-workers: ‘my email doesn’t work,’ ‘I can’t print,’ ‘I lost a file?’ If so, by dealing with the urgent, they’ve traded away the time they’d spend doing the important, proactive work of IT – building and maintaining your secure network to advance your business’ goals … [6 min. read]

Can what's in your mobile device get out?

Twenty-Two Percent Have Suffered a Mobile Compromise

The Same Verizon Study Showed Fifty-Nine Percent of Businesses Have Sacrificed Security for Employees’ Flexibility – Going Mobile Has Increased Our Exposure

It used to be our precious assets were protected behind layers of security: Cash was in a steel safe, customer lists and bank records were in a locked filing cabinet and HR records were behind a locked HR office door.

Of course electronics revolutionized the workplace. Employees then used computers to navigate a digital file system which contained the business’ confidential info. The sensitive documents that were once tangible were now within the network for users to access. The data was protected by passwords and limited permissions. These were useful means when computing devices were stationary and did not leave the physical office. Yes, employees used to report to the office for work and only there and then be granted access to confidential information. It was rare for the data that companies prized to ever leave the premises.

And of course this is no longer true. Because of their convenience, mobile computing devices are part of most working environments … [7 min. read]

Worcester Business Journal Top IT

Bryley Again Ranks Among the Top IT Service Providers

The Worcester Business Journal (WBJ) annually analyzes and publishes a resultant list of IT Service Providers in Central Massachusetts. The recently-published 2021 report ranked Bryley Systems among the top ten … [2 min. read]

Bryley's Clinton offices

Bryley’s First Thirty-Five Years

Since 1987 when Bryley was incorporated, the world looks different: we now have immersive virtual reality, AI that converses with us and cell phones that have more computing power than 1980s mainframes.

Looking back on thirty-five years, who can deny that the ubiquity of the internet has been the big game-changer for us all? How can we estimate the value of our new-found ability to time-travel – to instantly be in each other’s presence – even across the globe? And imagine the pandemic without that connectivity?

Bryley’s past trajectory might be summed up by noting its shift … [9 min. read]

Takin Care of Business

The Backup Chronicles

Working data-sets are not fixed. They change and grow and shrink and experience events (like component failures and breaches). So you need to have plans, policies and trained people in place to ensure your backup is ready to restore your organization at any time … [6 min. read]

MSP 501 2022

Bryley Systems Achieves MSP 501 Designation

Bryley Systems has for the eighth time been ranked among the top in its industry in a worldwide evaluation. MSP 501 is an IT industry signifier that recognizes the MSP (managed service provider) industry’s highest operational efficiency and business models. The MSP 501 award is based on a sixty-point audit