Many managed service providers (MSPs) will tell you that they offer network security services—but how do you know that their offerings are actually high-quality and useful to you as an organization?

Your network is one of the most critical parts of your business—which means that any technical issues will come at a high price. According to a study by ITIC Corporation, 81 percent of organizations estimate that a single hour of downtime would cost their business $300,000 or more.

Cybersecurity is the responsibility of everyone in your organization, not just the IT department. Executive positions such as the CIO (chief information officer), CISO (chief information security officer), and CTO (chief technology officer) are becoming more and more common, as leaders recognize the impact of cybersecurity on the business as a whole.

Only twice has Microsoft issued a patch for old, out-of-support versions of Windows: in 2017, just before the massive WannaCry cyber attack, and just recently. With newly discovered vulnerabilities from Intel, and even one in Windows 10, a very high number of computers around the world are potentially exposed right now. While we haven’t seen exploits yet to take advantage of these vulnerabilities, they likely aren’t far off. Conditions have scarcely been better for a massive cyber attack on the scale of WannaCry. Last week, I had the chance to break this down for listeners of the Brad Davis Show.

Cybersecurity risks have been on the rise in recent years, and products and services have been constantly evolving to keep up with these threats: 83 percent of organizations say that they experienced phishing attacks in 2018, up from 76 percent in 2017. Social engineering attacks use psychology to trick people into revealing sensitive information such as passwords and credit card numbers by impersonating a trusted authority. Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are a new (and lucrative) attack target.

Many business owners simply don’t think about the topic of business continuity and disaster recovery, assuming that they’ll be fine just because they haven’t yet faced a catastrophe. Others argue that their IT department’s budget is too small to spare any funds for a hypothetical future event.

Cloud computing has been around for a while now, but it remains a bit mysterious to many in the business world. I was thrilled to have the chance to help well-known tech journalist John Edwards break down some common misconceptions and assumptions in an article for CIO.com.

Kelser is proud to announce that Jim Parise has been promoted to president. In 21 years with the company, Parise was previously vice president of professional services and an enterprise solutions executive. He was instrumental in launching Kelser's suite of professional services such as Cybersecurity-as-a-Service and technology lifecycle management.