Iranian hacking is a major issue but not isolated. North Korea, Russia, China and other countries have thousands of hackers working for the government or just in the country, probing for weaknesses.

Their goals can be to cause chaos like what Russia did with the NotPetya attack which cost companies more than $10B dollars in damage.

Another option is what happened at Travelex. They were hit with Ransomware which was a result of them not patching their systems. A hacker used a known exploit and got into their systems and wreaked havoc. They asked for $6 million.

In most cases, hackers use phishing – sending an email that looks legitimate but is not, to fool a user into clicking and either downloading malware or getting them to enter their password.

Spear-phishing is a more targeted version of phishing where research is done to send a more relevant message. Perhaps pretending to be a friend or family member.

Regardless of the threats, many companies are outsourcing their tech support to am MSP or other IT service company.

Like with all companies, there are differences between the various choices on the market.

For example, in New York, you can choose from dozens of top-ranked MSPs that provide tech support services. In the face of the hacking onslaught, looking to shut down your business if you don’t pay the ransom… Or worse – hackers who are looking to lock up all the data on your systems indefinitely, you need to choose a tech support provider who is a leader in cybersecurity.

Apex Technology Services, for example, is an award-winning cybersecurity company and moreover, has an experienced team with tremendous knowledge of financial and healthcare best-practices.

These areas have stringent cybersecurity demands which generally exceed other markets.

There are many good companies to choose from when looking to outsource tech support – be sure the company you hire, knows how to keep your company safe.

If you want to stay secure, follow these three steps to start:

1) Read cybersecurity essentials – a simple list which will help most organizations become far more secure.

2) Go to a phishing simulation vendor now and sign up for one of their offerings. Phish360 is great and costs nothing to get started. This is needed to train workers by testing them without their knowledge by sending real-looking emails to their inboxes. If they click, they are immediately trained on what not to do.

3) We also recommend you get a free evaluation of your cybersecurity risk from an MSP/MSSP immediately – they can also help you build in the needed compliance to reduce the risk of being fined.