Think About IT with Chris Messer, CTO | Coretelligent Blog

Think About IT: COVID-19 Pandemic Anniversary in Review

Thoughts from Coretelligent’s Chief Technology Officer,
Chris Messer

This month marks the one-year anniversary of when many of us transitioned to out-of-office work environments in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic challenges. What we thought to be only a few weeks- or months-long experience ultimately led to our current full-time work from home experience, and this may be the same for many other organizations worldwide. As we look back, it is important to reflect on the many lessons and (now) permanent changes that have occurred during this time.

Many organizations were forced to either embrace new vendors and technologies to enable remote work and collaboration or quickly double down and expand existing plans and deployments overnight. The shifts to remote access or cloud-first resources caught many companies mid-stride, while others were already well down their digital transformation path and had a much easier time adjusting and coping in the early stages of the Pandemic.

There have been several big winners in the vendor and tech ecosystem, including Zoom, Microsoft, and Amazon to name a few. There are also many cloud focused vendors that have further enabled improved remote collaboration and work during the Pandemic to enable companies to adjust from previous traditional office workflows.

The following are some of Coretelligent’s reflections of changes and challenges many organizations have experienced during a year like no other:

Vendor and Tech Changes

With the onset of the pandemic and shuttering of offices around the country, many organizations struggled with shifting their technology stack to accommodate a steep influx in remote work. In general, there was a larger emphasis around increased adoption and investment in cloud computing, cybersecurity solutions, and communications/collaboration tools, especially in the small- to mid-size business segment.

Technologies offering remote access capabilities, such as virtual private networks (VPNs) and virtual desktop infrastructures (VDIs), suddenly had to deal with a larger number of regular users. Items such as telephony and file sharing/collaboration software also required new strategies as workers were removed from their traditional office-based resources. Companies needed to scale their ability to keep employees collaborating, and those that were not as far along in developing their strategies and cloud adoption were left with large hurdles to clear in a short amount of time.

Vendors continued the march towards a subscription model for many services as cloud computing continues to spread. This model has allowed organizations to flex their usage up or down as their hiring and operational needs adjusted throughout the pandemic.

Zoom and Teams have become ubiquitous parts of our everyday vernacular due to the increased consolidation of communication and collaboration tools in remote environments. These platforms have both been powerful enablers, yet have bled into our socially distant personal lives as well with “Zoom cocktail hours” and virtual family gatherings becoming regular occurrences.  These tools have also enabled us to be “always available” which has also caused new work/life balance challenges for many individuals and organizations from an HR perspective.

Security Challenges

As part of the WFH shift, several new security challenges came to light. Many organizations suddenly had to deal with a user population working from a wide variety of potentially insecure locations from a mix of corporate and personal devices. Ensuring that employees could securely access services and data properly, regardless of whether they were on a corporate or personal device, became a key issue.

The biggest driver around security for remote workers is the concept of identity and access control. Physical location has become far less critical, but the validation of user identity and subsequent access and permissions that are granted to that identity are much more important than ever. This change has helped to drive the convergence of several key technologies (SDWAN, CASB, FWaaS (firewall as a service), and Zero Trust) into a unified, cloud-delivered service known as Secure Access Service Edge, or SASE. The goal of SASE is to simplify WAN/connectivity deployments, bring improved efficiency and security, and help provide the appropriate amount of bandwidth and performance on a per application basis.

Over the past year, we have also seen and experienced several security challenges related to remote operating models. The biggest challenges, among others, include addressing the security needs of remote workers, how to secure home networks, whether to permit or block employees to connect and work from personal devices, and how to secure corporate data that can be readily downloaded or copied.

Another key area of focus and debate been around vendor security and data integrity. With several high-profile vendor hacks and data breaches, companies of all sizes can be targets and victims of nation-state hackers as displayed by the recent SolarWinds and Microsoft incidents. Companies now need to decide how to balance and distribute their critical services and data across one or many vendors.  This also impacts how organizations think about their disaster recovery and business continuity planning. With key assets residing with a third-party vendor, organizations may need to reevaluate what this means for their business if the vendor suffers an outage.

WFH / Productivity

As we have seen, there has not been a dire “drop” in productivity throughout the Pandemic, and many organizations and employees have been able to adjust with little to no overall impact.

The biggest challenge moving forward is how to effectively continue to manage employees at scale remotely while avoiding tech and connectivity burnout, and managing work/life balance, despite more flexible schedules.

Employers are exploring ways to help monitor usage and productivity for employees without overstepping privacy bounds, making such efforts appear draconian, or interfering with employee morale.

Our “New Normal” and the Future

Looking further into 2021 and beyond, it is hard to envision our society returning 100 percent to the pre-Pandemic model due to these changes. The Pandemic has showcased how organizations can be more agile and remain productive with a distributed workforce and technology stack.

As we move forward, several trends will predictably continue and become even more essential as businesses continue to evolve their working model post-Pandemic:

Vendor Consolidation – As organizations look to manage their security risk, reduce their attack profile, and generally improve efficiency and budget, reducing the number of vendors and products in use will continue to be a large part of the conversation and planning in 2021 and beyond.

AI & ML – Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are becoming more mainstream and are applied to help businesses solve real-world problems at a much faster pace than ever before. This is lending itself towards more automation across many industries and verticals which will also help boost productivity.

Data Management – “Big” data management tools in the cloud are going to enable companies to more rapidly store, process, and manipulate data from multiple sources to help drive more business decisions, customer response, and overall efficiency.

Cloud / SaaS – More services will continue their evolution to a full cloud/Software as a Service (SaaS) model with perpetual subscriptions becoming the norm. Traditional IT asset ownership models will continue to face downward pressure across the board. Public cloud will largely make self-hosting for small- to mid-sized businesses impractical from a cost benefit perspective.

Security – The concept of SASE and a unification of networking and security tools to help drive overall efficiency, performance, and security for users and applications, wherever they are located, will continue throughout 2021 and beyond.

We are still adapting to the unpredictable nature of the COVID-19 Pandemic, and by some time in the future, these changes and challenges may feel miniscule. Your organization must remain resilient to face any unexpected events, whether they be public health crises, natural disasters, or any other type of loss. If your organization is having trouble adjusting to remote work or is interested in investing in expert-level solutions, contact Coretelligent. We are happy to help you navigate during the remainder of the Pandemic as well as post-Pandemic. Until then, remain positive, perform a regular evaluation of your organization’s IT vendors, security posture and cloud strategy to ensure you are meeting the needs of the business, your workforce, and your customers, and above all, stay safe.

To download our infographic predicting the future of work environments post-Pandemic, fill out the short form here.

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email security

Do You Know the Email Security Essentials?

The COVID-19 Pandemic has shifted the way many organizations operate. Because of this, cyberthreats have continued to rise as many attackers are taking advantage of sneaking through unprotected email servers, Wi-Fi networks, cloud-based storage, among others. Recently, Microsoft’s Exchange email service was a large target of a hack that compromised hundreds of thousands of users around the world. As more details of this specific incident are uncovered, now is an essential time to evaluate your organization’s email security practices.

Another thing to think about is phishing and other social engineering campaigns. These sends have increased to 20,000 to 30,000 daily since the beginning of the pandemic. Social engineering campaigns have used COVID-19 as a message, hoping to target users in a believable way while exploiting the current, worldwide public health crisis. While these statistics are shocking and may not see an immediate decrease, there are solutions available for your organization. The following tips can keep you protected while we fight through record-breaking cyberthreats:

Think Before you Click!

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has responded to recent phishing scams targeting the financial services industry. Hackers were posing as FINRA representatives, communicating via a fake email address, and requesting the recipients respond to an issue of regulatory non-compliance by clicking on the included link or document. Compliance is taken very seriously in this industry, which these hackers knew in advance, but clicking or downloading compromised links or documents from phishing campaigns severely impacts organizations.

One of the most evident, simple email best practices is to think before you click – you should only click links in emails you have properly analyzed after reviewing the sender’s name and address, context of the email, and services or information requested. If it does not seem realistic, it might be a social engineered attack waiting for its next victim.

End-User Awareness Training

Human error can be inevitable, accidental, and unpredictable, but these errors can have significant consequences for business operations. Up to 60 percent of small businesses end up closing after experiencing a data breach or cyberattack. End-user awareness training teaches how to spot social engineering attacks, the need for strong passwords, how to secure workstations, and more. This training can save costs while educating your employees on their individual contributions to protecting your organization. By investing and supporting end-user awareness training, your organization can be at an advantage if or when social engineering campaigns or other breaches strike.

Invest in Email Security Software

A prominent email security software on the market, Mimecast, safeguards organizations and employees against sophisticated email attacks. Their Targeted Threat Solution defends against attackers who are looking to compromise data, steal credentials, demand ransom, or request payment from business accounts. The latest threat landscape requires targeted solutions and advanced security measures, and cybersecurity tools should also extend to your email inboxes. With 40 percent of organizations lacking email security software, investing now can provide you competitive edge while intercepting potential threats.

Multi-Factor Authentication

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) protects your credentials from becoming compromised by layering on an additional verification method, i.e., an alert to a registered smart phone or unique fingerprint identification. With MFA, no login action is completed until the additional verification is accepted. MFA is supported in most major email providers, including Microsoft Exchange, Mac OS, and Gmail. According to Microsoft, 99.9 percent of attacks can be blocked with proper MFA.

Watch out for Unsecured Wi-Fi Networks

Public Wi-Fi networks are not always as secure as your home or office networks, and this may lead to data loss. The convenience is not always worthwhile. Information shared while connected to public Wi-Fi is vulnerable to compromise. Some tips for working while using public or other unsecured networks are to only send information through fully encrypted sites (i.e., SSL-secured sites with the lock icon in the address bar), avoid using apps that require personal or financial information, and use a virtual private network (VPN) on your device. As threats continue to emerge, we must be aware of all vulnerabilities.

Coretelligent’s Recommendation:

It is essential for your organization to have comprehensive solutions for cybersecurity designed by a trustworthy, proactive provider. Our CoreArmor solution offers 24/7 intrusion detection and monitoring, in-depth assessment to identify vulnerabilities, best-in-class phishing testing and end-user awareness training, and more. Your organization must be protected against emerging email threats in 2021 and beyond. For strategic guidance on what steps to take to ensure your organization is email safe, contact us today.

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Compare and Contrast: Egnyte and SharePoint

If your organization does not currently use tools that implement collaboration and content sharing, you may be missing out on imperative enhancements for business processes. Two of these tools are Egnyte and SharePoint. Both platforms have their own leading features and qualities, but as you are reviewing what is best for your organization, you may want to consider:

  • How will either platform integrate with our current systems and operations?
  • Which platform seems to have larger strengths for our industry?
  • What will appear to be the most user-friendly for our team?

Egnyte and SharePoint are considered to be two of the most distinguished cloud and content management solutions available on the market. This blog stacks each against each other comparatively to highlight their strengths, weaknesses, and their overall benefits to your organization’s structure.

Egnyte – Trustworthy, Secure, Compliant

Egnyte is a content management and file sharing cloud platform trusted to secure files, online and offline. Your organization can access company files via access points including secure web, desktop, tablet, and mobile applications or within third-party services like Slack, Salesforce, Gmail, and Microsoft Teams. Egnyte offers a “work from anywhere on any device” approach while ensuring security and compliance are top priorities.

SharePoint – Transformative, Scalable, Collaborative

Powered by Microsoft, SharePoint is a web-based, cloud content management and collaborative platform. There are many ways within SharePoint your organization can transform business processes by communicating as a team and integrating seamlessly with other existing, operating Microsoft 365 programs. SharePoint allows your organization to create a personalized, connected Intranet where your team can share files, data, and resources.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Because SharePoint is powered by Microsoft, all other programs will easily integrate. On the other hand, even though Egnyte also can be integrated with Microsoft products, it would act as a third-party integration, which is not as seamless as integrating two products built by the same company.

With the Microsoft 365 suite, your organization may already have SharePoint even if you are not actively using the platform. If this is the case, ensure there is enough base storage for your organization’s data. Requiring additional TBs of storage can become expensive, and SharePoint’s costs are higher.

Egnyte has anomaly detection and will alert your organization about insider threat risks proactively. With automated ransomware protection, your data will remain secure and protected against incoming threats. SharePoint also has major security features like access control based on user permission levels, two-factor or multi-factor authentication, data backup, and anti-malware protection.

For more information regarding Egnyte and SharePoint for your organization, download our guide here.

The Coretelligent Recommendation

Before your organization invests in any new technology, system, or content management and collaboration platform, Coretelligent recommends comparing all features, benefits, and costs. Your organization’s security should be the first thing assessed. If you have questions about which platform may be best for your organization, Coretelligent can offer supportive advice to help your team work more efficiently. Contact us today to learn more.

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Business Continuity Plan Disaster Recovery Plan

The Differences Between a Business Continuity Plan and a Disaster Recovery Plan

Though these terms appear together frequently, there are differences between a business continuity plan and a disaster recovery plan. Both are critical for ensuring your organization can survive a disaster incident, and it is important to understand the roles they both play.

At a high level, a business continuity plan is broad in scope and details how an organization will continue operations should an outage occur, while a disaster recovery plan details the technical aspects of how an organization will restore data and services. Learn more about both plans and their differences below:

What is a Business Continuity Plan?

A business continuity plan is designed to ensure critical operations continue as normal during a disaster incident. This plan broadly addresses the business as a whole and paints a picture of its essential operations. It should include details such as the following:

  • Priority assignments for critical business services and operations
  • Identified disaster risks and how the business will respond to each
  • Contact details for business stakeholders
  • Protocols for communication during a disaster incident
  • Details for contingency locations (workspace and datacenter)
  • Any essential supplies or vendors
  • Cybersecurity insurance details

While technology services are certainly a key element in a business continuity plan, this plan should go beyond IT to address all aspects of how a business operates. Crafted properly, this plan will ensure resiliency to any possible disruption to operations.

What is a Disaster Recovery Plan?

A disaster recovery (DR) plan is a more focused part of the wider business continuity plan. Its scope is primarily the data and information systems that enable the business to function. This plan is developed to ensure technology assets are protected and available for recovery when an outage occurs. Depending on the disaster scenario, the plan may involve anything from recovering specifics subsets of data to the entire datacenter or cloud infrastructure. As such, it will typically cover details including:

  • Data backup solutions and procedures
  • RTO and RPO requirements for each technology asset
  • Restoration and failover procedures
  • Contact details for key personnel
  • Any third-party contacts critical to data recovery
  • DR testing to confirm restoration works as expected

With a comprehensive DR plan, your organization will not have to worry about the challenges of losing valuable assets. In a world reliant on digital technology, it is essential to complete regular backups and have solutions catered to protecting your organization’s assets in the event of a disaster.

What are their key differences?

A major difference between these plans are their scope and intent. A DR plan is a crucial component of a broader business continuity plan. Disaster recovery refers to the way data and services are restored following an outage incident. In contrast, business continuity refers holistically to the way a business maintains operations during such an incident.

As your organization develops these plans, it is important to conduct risk assessments of disaster scenarios, their likelihood, and their impact. Ask questions such as:

  • Which of our systems are critical to maintaining business operations as normal?
  • What natural disasters are at stake based on our location?
  • What controls will prevent cyber risks to our critical systems?

Overall, it is best for your organization to be prepared for anything. Developing these plans and implementing the accompanying technology solutions requires experience and expertise. This is especially true if you operate in a highly regulated industry such as financial services or life sciences. If your organization is in need of a helping hand, or you would prefer to fully outsource your data protection services, Coretelligent is here to help.

Coretelligent’s CoreBDR solution: Delivering resiliency for your organization

CoreBDR is a fully managed cloud-based data protection and disaster recovery solution built on the power of Veeam software combined with Coretelligent expertise. Our experts are here to handle all your data protection needs, from developing strategy and documentation to implementing technology solutions. With CoreBDR you can minimize downtime, ensure compliance requirements are satisfied, offload the overhead of managing backups, and rest easy knowing your data is safe no matter how severe the disaster.

Coretelligent has over 15 years of experience providing IT solutions to financial services, life sciences, and other industries. Schedule your complimentary, initial consultation today to discuss CoreBDR and how it can protect your business operations.

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Think About IT with Chris Messer, CTO | Coretelligent Blog

Think About IT: BDR and the Latest Veeam v11 Features

With the new year off to a busy start, it is important for organizations to stay focused on management and testing of their backup and disaster recovery (BDR) solutions. Natural or manmade disasters can strike at any point, and while we continue to navigate the unexpected impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic, BDR planning can keep your business prepared for anything.

Coretelligent’s CoreBDR solution, powered by Veeam, is leveraged by many of our clients to handle a wide variety of backup challenges, including workstation backups, server backups, offsite replication, disaster recovery failover, and more.

As we look forward for 2021, there are several common customer requirements that can be solved by a robust BDR solution, including the following:

  • Zero tolerance policies for downtime and data loss
  • Safeguarding backup data from ransomware
  • Meeting compliance and retention goals
  • Recovery despite storage and staff constraints
  • Protecting company data while remote
  • Keeping costs within budget

We frequently hear from customers that they are focusing on these areas for their overall BDR policy for 2021 and beyond, especially with remote and WFH workflows expected to continue for a good part of this year:

  • Infrastructure Protection: Customers are interested in dedicating their backup solutions to protect their existing onsite or private cloud hosted resources.
  • Off-site Backup & Disaster Recovery: Another thought our customers have had is the process of replicating backup data away from their primary site(s) and creating a clear, thorough disaster recovery strategy.
  • Public Cloud Protection: With more services and applications moving to Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Service (AWS), or Google Cloud Platform (GCP), many organizations require additional levels of protection for these cloud-based resources as part of their overall business continuity and BDR planning.

With these challenges and areas of focus, Coretelligent is striving to ensure the CoreBDR service and platform is equipped to help our customers solve their challenges and achieve their BDR goals.

New Release: Veeam Backup & Recovery v11

On February 24, 2021, Veeam is poised to release v11 of their Backup & Replication product, and this new version brings many key enhancements and features we will be including within our CoreBDR solution offering.

Continuous Data Protection

With v11, Veeam has added a real-time replication feature, Continuous Data Protection (CDP) that enables a more rapid replication and failover workflow, with drastically reduced recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO) times compared to regular Veeam backup replication jobs. This enables Coretelligent to again provide more options for customers for mission-critical workloads without relying on third party CDP solutions such as Zerto or VMware SRM.

Archive Tier (Cloud)

This new feature grants the ability to tier archived data out to public cloud storage for cheaper long-term archive storage. Offering AWS Glacier and Azure Archive storage support, this builds off existing support for AWS S3 and Azure Blob storage for primary backup storage targeting.

Security Enhancements

Veeam has introduced additional storage and repository configurations to better protect against service providers being targeted by ransomware and/or malware attacks. This ensures that customer data is always protected and available even if the primary production resources fall victim to ransomware.

Mac Support

With the v11 release, Veeam has released a dedicated backup agent for macOS. This will enable Coretelligent to offer a truly unified backup experience for all endpoints and platforms, eliminating the need for secondary backup vendors or products for Mac workstations.

These are merely a few of the highlights that the new Veeam v11 release brings to the table and that Coretelligent is excited to introduce to our customers later in 2021.

Please stay tuned for further updates as we work to upgrade to this new version and bring these new enhancements to the CoreBDR service. Read more about the v11 release here.

Coretelligent’s CoreBDR offers Managed Protection and Recovery

The Coretelligent solution CoreBDR is a fully managed, cloud-based data protection and disaster recovery solution. Your organization’s most important data will be safe and sound with our solution powered by the enterprise-level Veeam platform. CoreBDR completes fast and efficient, cloud-based backups and data encryption to protect at the source. It is essential for your small- to mid-sized business to invest in BDR solutions to be prepared for anything inevitable.

Our expert team has over a decade of experience providing solutions to financial services, life sciences, and other industries. Schedule your complimentary, initial consultation today to discuss CoreBDR and how it can impact your business operations.

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HFM US Tech Summit Event Recap

On January 26, we sponsored and attended the 2021 HFM US Technology Summit. The event brought together key technology leaders from the US hedge fund and financial services industries to comment on critical themes for the new year. Coretelligent’s Chief Technology Officer Chris Messer participated in a discussion about technology and data migrations.

Messer was joined by experts from investment management firms. They debated about how technology can be cost effective and improve business processes by using state-of-the-art products. Technology continues to advance, and now there are more resources and systems available many financial services organizations may not be aware of. The overall message behind their discussion was to “think big.”

This “think big” message was applied throughout their topics. One topic was about questions organizations should be asking their vendors during due diligence about investing in new technologies. The speakers all agreed that organizations should not be chained to old legacy processes, workflows, or systems and should instead look ahead at room for big improvements. Organizations should depend on their vendors to guide them forward as they navigate the complex and ever-evolving technology landscape.

“Our job is to act as an advocate and to help educate. Technology will change every five minutes with new developments we didn’t know about. Our job as consultants is to help inform and keep customers abreast of the rapidly increasing changes occurring out in the technology landscape,” said Messer.

Big how and why questions during the due diligence process can help lead organizations down the path to success. These may include:

  • How are our current systems meeting security and compliance requirements?
  • How are they meeting our performance requirements?
  • Why are our current systems’ capabilities and features benefitting our organization? How can updates and improvements provide more of a competitive advantage?
  • Why are we timid of investing in new technology?
  • Is our technology properly aligned with our business drivers?

Messer said taking these answers and wrapping them into a consistent, repeatable review and conversation around technology is the right approach regardless of the firm’s size.

Another way financial services organizations can “think big” about technology is simply by having frequent conversations about new technology trends and products. Vendors can only push so far if there is lacking internal support of new systems, but executive buy-in will increase if more users are open and accepting to change. Each organization may have different views and mindsets around technology, but Messer said, “Technology is an enabler; it helps grow and scale the business, it helps empower your employees to be dynamic, and it helps them do great work on behalf of the organization.”

Technology does not have to be scary or intimidating. The discussion highlighted the importance of having these big conversations to address any fears before embracing change. Organizations should feel accepting to new technology and develop a roadmap to transition efficiently and securely. When management buys in early and supports new technology, it sets a new culture and tone and prevents frustration from new users. The discussion suggested introducing new technology in a positive environment.

Technology concepts can sound overwhelming and complicated, but it is possible to break this fixed mindset and move forward with a growth mindset. Financial services organizations can learn new computing language, new technology, and aid users to adapt to changes. The larger vision, or what is on the other side, is worth discovering. The discussion concluded by saying that all areas within the front, back, and middle offices of a business should be educated on change and how it will benefit everyone as technology continues to advance in 2021 and beyond.

“There’s always going to be innovation. There’s always going to be competition. That’s the fantastic part of technology and the enablement it brings to the organization,” Messer said.

Coretelligent is honored to attend and sponsor events about technology and benefits for financial services organizations. We were also shortlisted for the award of Best Cybersecurity Provider by HFM. To learn how Coretelligent provides white-glove IT and cybersecurity solutions for financial services organizations, click here.

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BioNJ Cybersecurity Briefing Event Recap

On January 28, 2021, Coretelligent sponsored and attended BioNJ’s Cybersecurity Briefing. The topics of discussion included security challenges and internal and external cyber threats facing life sciences organizations. Cybercrimes are at a high across all industries, and it is an important time for organizations to invest in comprehensive solutions.

Coretelligent’s Chief Technology Officer Chris Messer said, “Today’s security landscape requires even more communication and collaboration than ever before… As recent headlines have shown us, organizations of all sizes may suffer from security blind spots, and a good proactive security posture requires continuous evaluation, education, and refinement.” Cyber risks can target organizations from a wide range of sources. According to this briefing presented by employees from the FBI and DHS, the biotechnology industry has witnessed an increase in recent cyber threats.

When it comes to cybersecurity, Messer said there is no effective “set it and forget it” solution. To remain protected, organizations must have frequent and open communication and collaboration with trustworthy vendors and partners. “In [Coretelligent’s] opinion, a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy requires strong fundamentals. As we’ve seen from current events, there are many common examples where the blocking and tackling of IT operations and cybersecurity policies has been lost or misaligned and has potentially led to some of these breaches,” said Messer.

“The role of protecting an organization frankly starts with individual employees,” Messer said. There is human risk in cybersecurity which could be behind potential cyberattacks, and it can be addressed with proper awareness training, testing, simulations, and more. The briefing highlighted the importance of learning how to prevent threats from inside sources before they are brought to the surface.

Before the discussion with other cybersecurity experts ended, the BioNJ team presented a Q&A session moderated by Messer. Questions asked referenced current events, like the Solar Winds data breach, as well as how to remain protected against potential incoming cyberattacks. For more information about the Solar Winds breach, read here. Threats can come from any direction, so experts recommended listeners to always stay in the know about cyber news. Confidential data and intellectual property should always be stored in protected, monitored locations, and encryption should be used where available. Access control policies, outreach, and an improved security posture also make a huge difference.

We were honored to attend and learn from cybersecurity experts in the biopharmaceutical sector. The Coretelligent Team attends events to expand knowledge, network with other experts in the industry, and keep up to date with new trends and discoveries.

If your life sciences organization is hoping to increase its cybersecurity posture in 2021, consider Coretelligent’s CoreArmor solution. Our cybersecurity solutions provide 24/7 intrusion detection monitoring, behavioral analysis, asset discovery and management, best-in-class phishing testing, and comprehensive cybersecurity training. Download our white paper to learn more.

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Coretelligent’s Response to the Mimecast Certificate Security Incident

During the week of January 11, 2021, it was brought to our attention there was a security incident involving a Mimecast SSL certificate that is used to secure communications between Mimecast services and Microsoft 365 programs. It has been estimated that about 10% of Mimecast customers run using this certificate, but only a single digit number of customers experienced impacts due to this security incident. Mimecast has since resolved the certificate and has identified the small number of M365 domains and tenants potentially impacted. Their team has delivered proactive remediation steps for accounts or tenants who may have been potentially impacted.

We believe there is no active threat to Coretelligent nor our customers at large following this incident disclosure. We have identified only two customer accounts that were proactively flagged by Mimecast, but after thorough monitoring via our CoreArmor solution, we have determined no anomalies or indicators of compromise (IOCs) were detected. Our Remote Support Team has worked with Mimecast to implement necessary steps recommended by Mimecast to protect these flagged accounts and remove the compromised certificate.

The compromised certificate allowed customers to authenticate Mimecast Sync and Recover, Continuity Monitor, and connected to Microsoft Exchange Web Services. Potentially impacted customers were immediately contacted to remediate the issue and Mimecast provided necessary steps. These customers were recommended to delete their existing certificate-based connection with their M365 tenant and re-establish a new certificate with Mimecast. These actions would not impact inbound or outbound mail flow or associated security scanning. Other customers were not instructed to take any action because there is zero chance they were impacted.

Mimecast has expressed their gratitude for supportive customers as they are working tirelessly to remediate the issue and keep their accounts safe. For a full and more in-depth statement, you may reference Mimecast’s response here.

Coretelligent is actively monitoring the incident and staying up to date as new information may emerge. One of our core values is transparency, and we always aim to keep our clients aware of major or minor security hacks as they are brought to our attention. We hope you understand Coretelligent was not negatively impacted by the Mimecast certificate hack. If you have any questions or concerns, we are happy to address them. Our security and support teams are available to help. You can reach us here.

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Coretelligent’s Response to the 2020 SolarWinds Orion Software Compromise

As many of you may have read, this past December, there was a major hack targeting the SolarWinds Orion software suite. It was estimated that about 18,000 out of their 300,000 customers were impacted. Many of the customers targeted were U.S. government agencies and large Fortune 500 customers.

The following SolarWinds Orion versions 2019.4 HF5 and 2020.2HF1 were identified as impacted or susceptible to compromise. Newer versions of the platform were not affected and were designed to protect against major hacks like this incident. SolarWinds has strongly suggested all users update to the latest release if they have not.

We want to ensure you that Coretelligent’s data and systems were not impacted and have addressed your following concerns.

For more details about the SolarWinds Orion event, you may reference their security advisory here.

Frequently Asked Questions

To address any client concerns, below are some frequently asked questions we have prepared regarding the SolarWinds cyberattack. We strive to remain transparent when any major outage or hack happens, and our support staff is available to answer any questions you may have.

Q: How was Coretelligent impacted by this security event? Has our organization and/or our personal data experienced any risk?

A: Coretelligent was not impacted by this security event. None of our networks, systems, nor vendors were included in this event, and we have continued to monitor the situation and provide updates to our client base. Your organization and/or personal data remains safe and secure.

Q: Has Coretelligent, at any time, run a compromised version of SolarWinds Orion platform? (This includes versions 2019.4HF5 through 2020.2HF1.)

A: No, Coretelligent does not, and has never, run the SolarWinds Orion platform in our environment.

Q: Have you run a recent security audit of the platforms you utilize using public tools? Did recent audits indicate compromised data?

A: As of January 6, 2021, both the CrowdStrike CRT and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Sparrow tools have been run against the Coretelligent environment. No indicators were found with either tool.

Coretelligent also employs continuous security monitoring for all internal systems and platforms to detect any potential security or anomalous events.

Q: Are we at risk of a cyberattack or attacks from Microsoft and/or the government as part of this event?

A: Based on available information, Coretelligent does not believe there are or have been any specific active threats or risks to customer environments. Neither Coretelligent nor any customer environments were identified to be accessed or compromised as a part of this specific incident. We are continuing to monitor the situation and will communicate additional information as it is received. Microsoft has also released statements saying they have found zero indications customer data was accessed by actors responsible for the SolarWinds cyberattack.

Clients that have concerns regarding their Azure or Microsoft 365 environments can contact our security team to perform additional scans and analysis as needed. Both DHS/CISA and CrowdStrike have free tools designed to detect unusual and potentially malicious activity that could be threatening users and applications in an Azure/Microsoft 365 environment.

We will continue to provide updates as they are received, but we hope you understand Coretelligent was not impacted by the SolarWinds Orion platform cyberattack. If you have any additional questions, we are happy to address them. Our security and support teams are available to help. You can reach us here.

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Experience the Positives of Dedicated Remote Support Solutions

In a remote environment, there are still enhanced ways to receive IT support. Your MSP partner has the tools necessary to remotely assist your personnel and resolve issues that may arise with your systems. A solution known as dedicated remote support is customized, personal, proactive, and comprehensive; because of its dedicated nature, this support solution offers support from someone who is familiar with your account and infrastructure. This relationship allows recommendations to be made more easily to keep business operations smooth and dynamic.

Your organization can benefit by investing in dedicated remote support solutions for a multitude of reasons, including familiarity with the resource assigned to your account and the resource being familiar with your organization, successful fulfilment, and awareness. Engineers and technicians can complete services to software applications, affected networks, cloud solutions, and more, and they are also available for program installations and setup and to offer IT guidance. Organizations, partnered with their MSPs, should be flexible to continue operating even if disasters or disconnections from services hit, and dedicated remote support offers successful assistance to serve you best.

To ensure a smooth, remote support experience, dedicated remote support compliments general support services proactively. A dedicated support team is available to offer advice on workflow improvements and can also offer suggestions for new technology which will enable your organization to work more efficiently. Rather than providing strictly tactical support for issues, a dedicated support team will determine the root of a problem and strategically develop a plan to remediate the issue.

Here are three additional great ways dedicated remote support ensures productivity and satisfaction:

        1) Familiarity

Familiarity is a huge piece of dedicated remote support because it establishes comfort in your relationship with your MSP partner. Through scheduled check-in meetings, emails, or phone calls, you can communicate with a familiar, dedicated engineer, who will pay clear attention to detail. This solution is called dedicated remote support for a reason, and by establishing a familiar connection with a technician or engineer, you can trust they will perform your service accurately and carefully to get you back to work seamlessly.

        2) Successful Fulfilment

As remote support continues to evolve as a service, more tools are designed and available, and engineers or technicians can fulfill requests independently. Through cloud-based solutions, technicians have abilities to improve security on internet databases for laptops, computers, and even smartphones. This creates a positive service experience for IT requests.

If dedicated remote support is a concern for your organization because of the fear of fulfilment, know between 70 to 90 percent of all hardware issues and 99 percent of all software issues can be solved remotely due to advanced capabilities.

        3) Knowledge and Awareness

Dedicated remote support can also be an educational experience. While a technician or engineer is actively working on your system, you can visualize the problem through advanced programs that offer screen sharing. Your organization can communicate with your MSP partner to discuss and create a solution to resolve the IT issue or issues at hand. Your technician or engineer will act as a resource for you to learn from, and this promotes a workforce well-educated in technology.

Invest in Dedicated Support for Your Organization

IT support should be tailored to your organization, platform, and employees. You should receive a positive experience as a client, and these services should promise and deliver optimal performance. Dedicated remote support has evolved in ways that allow service to be personalized, informative, and trustworthy.

As your organization is planning for the upcoming Q1 in 2021, remember Coretelligent offers dedicated remote support to serve you quickly, successfully, and productively. Coretelligent’s team of bright experts can equip your organization’s IT roadmap with our 360 Support solution.

Coretelligent’s dedicated remote support replaces the feel of an on-site engineer while still servicing your needs the same. In addition to the benefits available through our dedicated remote support, our broader 360 platform offers end-to-end IT support 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year either on-site or remote, but all services will be offered and completed remotely until post-Covid-19.

To learn more about how 360 Support works and can benefit your organization, download our product sheet here.

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