At Valley Techlogic we believe educating our community on internet safety and providing concrete goals for businesses in our area to help improve their cybersecurity measures whether or not they’re covered by a Valley Techlogic plan is a valuable resource our company can provide to make us all a little safer online.
We’ve provided quite a few free resources and reports over the years, and we couldn’t help but notice which ones really have struck a cord with our audience.
Here are our top five free resources and reports, ranked by popularity. Bonus, you can grab all of these right from this page, still absolutely free.?
#5 The Data Contingency Planning Report
Our Data Contingency Report tells you EXACTLY what you need to have a solid plan for backing up your business’s files. Click to grab the report now instantly.
#4 The New IT Provider Checklist
Our New IT Provider Checklist lets you check off the MUST have for your new IT provider. If they don’t cover one or more of these items, you should keep looking.
#3 Our Section 179 Guide
Our Section 179 helps you get the best tax benefits from the tech purchases you make for your business. We’ll have the updated 2022 version available later this year.
#2 Our Cyber Security Framework Overview Report
Our Cyber Security Framework Overview Report goes over in plain text a number of popular frameworks, CMMC, HIPAA and more.
#1 Our Cyber Security Checklist
By far our most popular resource, this no nonsense checklist gets straight to the point on what you need to be fully covered from cyber threats.
Not you specifically, but the data that makes up your online activities and private details? What about your various web accounts, for example did you know a hacked Netflix account with 12 months of service is worth $44 on the Dark Web as of 2021?
We know the Dark Web is a nebulous concept and most of the people we talk to really don’t feel as though it has much to do with them. There’s even those that have resigned themselves to the fact their data is just “out there”, but take solace that in the flux of so many people who experience identify theft (1, 387, 615 reported cases in 2020) there’s just no way a hacker would ever reach them personally.
If you’re a business owner this is of course, a crock of baloney. While there are many business owners in the US, their numbers pale in comparison to the vast swafts of people who don’t own a business and thereby don’t have valuable employee and financial data within their purview. The fact is by simply owning a business, you’re more vulnerable to being a target of identity theft.
Business identity theft and consumer identity theft typically occur with the same goal in mind, financial gain for the bad actor. However, business identity theft carries a much larger trickle-down effect. It’s not only your own data that’s at risk, there’s also that of your employees and your business itself.
This all leads us back to what hackers hope to gain and what your financial data and other pertinent details and accounts are really worth on the dark web, we’ve created this chart with some notable items, but you can find the whole list for 2021 here:
Click to grab the full size version.
As the website above states, the quantity of these items found on the dark web also has grown considerably in the last year. It’s predicted cyber theft will cost the world $10.5 trillion annually by 2025. Cyber crime is more profitable than the global drug trade at this point in time.
So instead of thinking “it won’t happen to me” you should begin considering what you will do when it does happen to you, or even better – what you can do to stop it.
For instance, at Valley Techlogic we provide all of our customers with Dark Web Monitoring as a routine part of their services with us.
Dark web monitoring won’t stop your details from being leaked but it will help you monitor and prevent further damage. If your credentials are made available to hackers and you’re aware of it, it’s a lot easier to change them ahead of any damage being done to your accounts and systems.
You can also partner with an IT provider who has a cyber security stack that exceeds what you could procure on your own. This allows you to take advantage of a robust cyber security package without trying to manage and absorb the cost yourself, allowing you to protect your business and even save money.
Finally, your provider can help you comply with a cybersecurity framework recommended by the US government, such as NIST or CMMC. This will offer you the best most comprehensive protection from business identity theft.
