Technology Solutions to Protect Your Data

The Three Best Technology Solutions to Protect Your Company’s Data

It’s the job of every IT professional to protect your company’s data. And as ransomware, data storage and backup/disaster recovery become more sophisticated so too does your job of keeping your company’s data safe.

At Netlink Solutions, we offer technology solutions that best fit your company’s needs. Here are our recommendations for the three best technology solutions to the common threats happening to companies on a daily basis.

Technology Solution No. 1: Use Barracuda: Sentinel & Essentials

Protect Against Spear Phishing and Cyber Fraud

Spear phishing, or impersonating someone by email to gain access, information or money, increases during the holiday season. At Netlink Solutions, we’ve heard countless stories of companies that were victims. For instance, it appears a CEO has emailed an office administrator, asking to buy thousands of dollars in gift cards for clients as holiday gifts but instructing the admin to keep the task a secret so as not to ruin the surprise. The office admin is crushed to discover that the CEO had never sent the email. Many of these victims were small businesses and their losses were significant: In 2017 alone, the losses claimed to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center were $1.4 billion.

The reason spear phishing works are that the scam impersonates someone in a position of authority at a company. The impersonator sends an email to someone lower in authority asking them to wire money, buy gift certificates, change a direct deposit and request for W-2s.

However, Barracuda works to thwart these fraudulent efforts and to stop the scam before it makes it to your inbox. As Barracuda explains in their instructional video, the scam “works because they [attacks] are highly personalized, and traditional security systems fail to detect them.”  Barracuda Sentinel works by utilizing AI within email services, such as Office 365 to detect spear phishing and account takeover.

Comprehensive Email Security

As Barracuda explains on their website, “91 percent of cyber attacks start with an email.” Barracuda Essentials is an all-in-one comprehensive email protection email service. Some of the benefits of this service are to stop spam and malware, block advanced threats, protect outbound emails and protect from file corruption and data deletion. It also offers cloud-to-cloud backup, email encryption and works with Office 365.

In short, it’s a great service to protect your email system from a variety of possible cyber attacks at a reasonable, affordable price.

Technology Solution No. 2: Sophos Intercept X

Send RansomWare Packing Before It Ever Comes Home

In our opinion, Sophos Intercept X is the best ransomware protection on the market. Sophos conducted a ransomware survey among security leaders in 2017.
Here’s what they found:

  • 76 percent of respondents see ransomware as a significant business threat to enterprises such as their own.
  • 52 percent of respondents say their capabilities to block or detect ransomware are average or superior when compared to peers.

Sophos Intercept X uses advanced, machine-learning techniques that make it more effective. Intercept X is a deep learning neural network, which is an advanced form of machine learning that detects both known and unknown malware without relying on signatures, the Intercept X website states.

Deep learning makes Intercept X smarter, more scalable and higher performing than endpoint security solutions that use traditional machine learning or signature-based detection alone.

You can see this advanced machine learning in action when The PC Security Channel puts Intercept X to the test by purposefully executing samples of some of the more sophisticated malware/ransomware threats currently out there. In this test, Sophos Intercept X was able to defend it from everything out there, a fact that caught even the tester by surprise. Watch the review to see what we mean.

Technology Solution No. 3: StorageCraft: ShadowProtect

Award-Winning Backup and Disaster Recovery Solutions

When a server crashes or data has been lost, every minute down costs a business. We recommend StorageCraft ShadowProtect for backup and disaster recovery, and we’re not alone. In fact, for the past three years, PC Magazine Editor’s Choice named StorageCraft ShadowProtect Desktop as the leading software for backup and recovery based on “full protection, speed, and reliability.”

Backup and disaster recovery plans are vital to business continuity. Derek Schauland, an IT professional, wrote a  review on TechRepublic about StorageCraft ShadowProtect. He includes some helpful screenshots and walks readers through how to configure a job.

When it comes to strong IT departments, you’ll need an offensive and defensive plan. These three solutions we’ve outlined are a little bit of both. If you have questions about any of the products listed in this article or are wondering if they’re right for you, give us a call! We offer free consultations.