Abel Solutions shelters its clients’ sensitive data from bad actors by offering comprehensive IT security services.

Keeping Your Data Out of the Wrong Hands

Information Technology (IT) systems likely power your business’s day-to-day operations. Everything from email services and instant messengers to document sharing and automated approval processes has been carefully introduced into your business environment for the laundry list of benefits they provide — inter-connectedness, speed, efficiency, and ultimately growth. But these technological improvements necessarily come with the added danger of access by unwanted persons. These bad actors want to exploit the critical information found on companies’ IT systems. Although their methods can vary from simple deception to highly technical hacking invasions, they can be combatted by implementing appropriate security measures. For individual users, simple security software may be sufficient, but companies with sophisticated IT systems will need to adopt a more robust security solution. Abel Solutions is a well-known provider of IT security services to clients around the country and can help defend your IT infrastructure through a combination of methods.

Employee Education

Firstly, Abel finds that knowledge is key. All methods of cyber-crime involve deceiving the victim in some way, so awareness of the methods bad actors implement in assaulting your IT systems can vastly increase the chances of your security measures shutting them out. What follows is not an exhaustive list of methods that cyber criminals employ, but these commonly-used schemes regularly appear in their playbook:

• DoS (Denial of Service) Attacks:
  • A bad actor sends such copious amounts of requests to a network (such as requesting access to a website on the server) that the network is not able to service any requests, including legitimate ones
  • Most often accomplished through the Distributed DoS (DDoS) method, where legions of computers make the fraudulent requests. With each using a different IP address, it is much harder to combat (by blocking requests from a single IP address)
  • DoS attacks can be used to weaken network security enough to steal data from the IT system or to distract responders from the true threat breaching security elsewhere in their system
• Inside Attacks:
  • Occasionally, a company’s IT security is attacked by someone who was given legitimate access to their information system
  • Upset former employees are the most common culprit behind this cyber-crime, using their old authorizations and passwords to get access to the IT system
• Man-in-the-Middle Attacks:
  • A scammer takes advantage of a network connection with no security to intrude on the victim’s electronic correspondence
  • The scammer receives all messages sent from both parties and can use the information they glean to deceive the victim into giving up vital data or manipulate them into doing something
• Password Attacks:
  • A hacker employs an application to guess passwords to the IT system (don’t have to install anything on victims’ systems to achieve)
  • Accomplished through a variety of processes (can exhaustively guess every possible password of that character length using an algorithm, guess using a reference point like a dictionary, etc.)
• Phishing:
  • A bad actor impersonates a trusted third party, such as your bank, your boss, etc. to deceive you into providing sensitive information (like account numbers, passwords, social security numbers, etc.)
  • Often includes the use of links to seemingly official websites that store your information when you enter it
  • A category of spoofing — uses similar methods, but uses the authority or credibility of the party they’re impersonating to convince victims to do something against their own best interests (download a file or program that carries a virus)
• Ransomware:
  • A malicious program that impedes victims’ access to their integral files (usually via encryption), demanding some sort of payment for the return of that access (it’s like kidnapping, but for data)
  • One category of malware (malicious software loaded onto a victim’s individual computer or IT network, often from malevolent links, websites, ads, etc.)

Network Administration

Next, we know that proper upkeep of IT and security systems can help tremendously in fighting off cyber threats. Abel Solutions offers network administrative services for this reason. We can handle the day-to-day management of your IT systems, ensuring that security measures are up-to-date and properly maintained. For instance, add-on software can have serious security vulnerabilities that hackers may exploit to get your data. Update patches released by the software company fix those holes in security, yet many companies have not fully patched the add-ons housed on their IT systems. Among other services provided, we can run regular network audits to make sure that all software is 100% patched and ready to resist intrusion. Further IT security services include handling granting and revoking of network access in the onboarding/offboarding processes, minimizing your IT system’s downtime, and monitoring your security systems to assess and respond to an incoming cyber threat as quickly as possible.

Security Software

Finally, Abel employs security software that is most relevant to our clients’ needs. A small business, for instance, may believe that they are beneath the notice of a bad actor because they have fewer resources than a multinational conglomerate, but this is not the case. Small businesses are often regarded as a goldilocks target — complacent enough about their security to be easily breached, but more profitable to defraud than an individual. That complacency regarding security that bad actors count on can be an extremely expensive oversight; the average data breach last year cost companies around $3 million, a devastating price tag to many small businesses. With sufficiently robust IT security software, however, those victims would be better protected from crimes of opportunity committed against them. Abel will consult with you, analyze your IT network, and help you find the security software that fits your situation.

Comprehensive IT Security Services — An Abel Solution

Abel Solutions has provided IT services to clients for over 20 years. Our IT support staff are experts in the field of network security and are passionate about preventing bad actors from taking advantage of our clients. Beyond our IT security services, we also provide help desk support and IT network consulting offerings. Abel is also well known as a provider of SharePoint- and Nintex-related services such as design, implementation, integration, extension, and training of IT solutions. The right combination of your awareness of cyber-crime methods, our meticulous administration of your IT network, and the implementation of adequate security software will better protect your IT systems from intrusion. Let Abel help you shore up your defenses today.