Company leaders are always on the lookout for more efficient and effective ways to protect and store employee emails, and they should be. The most frequent target in modern cyber-attacks is corporate email. Why? Because email caches, along with other key databases, typically contain reams of highly sensitive information prized by phishing campaigns, ransomware attackers, and other assorted bad actors. When a malicious entity gains access to an organization’s email files, they often find passwords, credit card numbers, bank account information, and other company-related files. It’s a disaster in the making, which is why so many large and small businesses use MSP (managed services providers) with an email archiving solution to protect and store email.
A CEO wants to avoid dealing with the nightmare of compromised email accounts. The common results of such a cyber catastrophe include unwanted revelation of corporate secrets, client financial details, long-term planning notes, and much more. There is perhaps no more important goal than making sure your secure email solution includes electronic mail folders are totally secure and properly stored. How do MSPs offer protection from dangerous, invasive emails from hackers and attackers? Additionally, managers need to know how to set up remote servers that give enough access to MSP technicians, what the distinct advantages are for using MSPs in the first place, and how a remote provider helps assure email continuity when systems go down or run into technical obstacles.
Protection from Dangerous Emails
Everyone worries about ransomware but few stop to think just how the process begins. Most hackers and corporate espionage agents use phishing messages and garden-variety spam to deliver ransomware weapons. How do they succeed? It’s a game of probability. They send out thousands of spam and phishing messages that contain ransomware code. All an employee has to do is click and open it, and view it for a few seconds. Even if they delete it after scanning, the damage has been done. Attackers send out so many of these sorts of bombs, that even if only five percent of recipients open the messages, the criminals have succeeded in penetrating and compromising dozens of corporate accounts. What do MSPs do to protect businesses from this kind of mischief? There are dozens of effective techniques that can ward off phishing and hacking perps, but the three most common ones, known collectively by the acronym MEC, include:
- Multi-Factor Authentication: A decade ago, the widespread belief was that frequent password changes were an ideal way to fend off hack jobs of all kinds. Nowadays, all the bad actors are more sophisticated, so password changing is not nearly as effective as it once was. Instead, remote providers help firms resist penetration via MFA, or multi-factor authentication. The method adds third and fourth layers of verification for anyone who tries to enter a mail account. In addition to standard user names and passwords, the party must provide a secure link or unique code word that’s been sent to them. Others layers can be added for enhanced security, but MFA stands as an excellent way to deter cyber havoc.
- Education: Even with the best of efforts, MSPs might be able to intercept 99 percent of attack messages. So, what about the other 1 percent? Here is where it pays for MSP experts to educate their clients’ employees. Typically, service providers teach workers how to spot unusual, risky mail, how to report the accidental opening of a dangerous message in a timely fashion, how to safeguard their personal data, and how to identify standard phishing lingo in subject lines.
- Cloud Security: Cloud-based storage locations for company mail, maintained by a remote managed-services provider, is one of the state-of-the-art protection methods in current use. The beauty of this strategy is that messages don’t even reach workers until each piece has gone through a screening process to ferret out suspicious items and blatantly dangerous correspondence.
When it comes to creative attackers and hackers, no single method of defense is 100 percent effective. However, the three-pronged strategy outlined above is in common use and offers a sound way to minimizing damage. With each passing year, the bad players become more talented and sophisticated. That’s why managed-service entities are always upping their own game by building more checkpoints, more secure systems, and adaptable defense techniques.
How to Set Up a Remote Desktop
Corporate leaders can easily set up a remote desktop for IT support via their managed-service professional. It’s basically a three-step process that begins with payment and booking an appointment with a professional service tech. After that, there’s usually a software package that needs to be downloaded to the business’s servers, and finally a test session to make sure the remote access setup is set up perfectly.
General Benefits of Using MSPs
Why do businesses turn to managed-service solutions for mail security and many more IT-related functions? The main reason is that unless your core talent is in the IT field, it makes perfect sense to hire a team of specialists. In general, the benefits include:
- The ability to outsource the entire IT function or just a few parts of it
- Support staff are available at all hours
- Minimized chance of losing vital data to hackers
- As a support for in-house IT teams
- All work is defined in detail in the written contract
- It’s scalable, so can grow with your organization
- The ability to work remotely from anywhere on earth
- How MSPs Assure Continuity of Email Access
Because remote managed-services teams work remotely and maintain backups of all pertinent files, there’s never a problem with email continuity during power outages, cyber-attacks, system downtime, or other emergencies. For organizations of all sizes, it’s imperative for workers to have continuous access to their mailboxes. That’s why the number-one priority for remotely-located techs are continuity of mailbox access.
