Month: December 2021

GameOver | Tech Time Warp | SmarterMSP
Tech Time Warp: Game Over for GameOver Zeus

Tech Time Warp: Game Over for GameOver Zeus

On Dec. 30, 2016, President Barack Obama announced sanctions related to Russian state-sponsored hacking of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. An individual believed to be involved was already on the FBI’s most wanted list of cybercriminals—one Evgeniy Bogachev, leader of...

/ December 31, 2021
MSPs need to place their 2022 digital business transformation bets now

MSPs need to place their 2022 digital business transformation bets now

This past year will be remembered as a time when many managed service providers (MSPs) moved beyond simply being trusted advisors to their clients to become full-fledged strategic partners.

/ December 30, 2021
Smarter MSP's top posts of 2021
Smarter MSP’s top 12 posts of 2021

Smarter MSP’s top 12 posts of 2021

When reflecting on 2021, one thing is for certain: It was not a boring year. From new cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities identified, to a ramp in digital transformation projects for MSPs, not to mention a continued global pandemic, and much...

/ December 30, 2021 / 9 Comments
2022 Cybersecurity Outlook, Part 2: Talent Gap, Ransomware, Healthcare

2022 Cybersecurity Outlook, Part 2: Talent Gap, Ransomware, Healthcare

This week, Smarter MSP continues our discussion with Dr. Nur Zincir-Heywood, a cybersecurity specialist and computer science faculty at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Key discussion points include specific cybersecurity challenges Canadian businesses need to be paying attention to...

/ December 29, 2021
Savvy MSPs never let a crisis go to waste

Savvy MSPs never let a crisis go to waste

As Winston Churchill once wryly noted, a good crisis should never be wasted. A zero-day Log4j vulnerability that has roiled enterprise IT organizations, is only the latest in a series of cybersecurity incidents in the last year, that have left...

/ December 28, 2021
Partner Spotlight: Barracuda partnership drives MSP efficiency

Partner Spotlight: Barracuda partnership drives MSP efficiency

CMIT Solutions of the Northeast Valley has been serving the Scottsdale, Arizona community for over 13 years as Scottsdale’s premier managed IT services provider. Bruce Newman, the MSP’s President, and his team bring decades of knowledge and experience to small...

/ December 27, 2021
Tech Time Warp: Santy worm brings unwelcome gifts

Tech Time Warp: Santy worm brings unwelcome gifts

Network administrators had to deal with an unfriendly visitor during the 2004 holiday season: the Santy worm. Written in Perl, this malware targeted servers that hosted online bulletin boards running on the free phpBB software.

/ December 23, 2021
IT asset disposal
Getting smart about IT asset disposal and security

Getting smart about IT asset disposal and security

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed a lot about the current state of corporate IT. One of those lessons was that many employees required new endpoint hardware. This was especially true in cases where older computers were no longer operational or...

/ December 22, 2021
Changing Attitude Cloud Services
MSPs need to monitor changing attitudes toward cloud service providers

MSPs need to monitor changing attitudes toward cloud service providers

A survey of 1,000 IT leaders suggests that going into 2022 managed service providers (MSPs) will soon find themselves caught between their loyalty to the major cloud service providers and end customers that believe they are being overcharged for services...

/ December 21, 2021 / 1 Comment
Cybersecurity Threat Advisory
Cybersecurity Threat Advisory: Microsoft Patch Tuesday, December 2021

Cybersecurity Threat Advisory: Microsoft Patch Tuesday, December 2021

Threat Update Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday release for December 2021 comes with a Windows update that will apply patches for 67 different vulnerabilities. This update includes fixes for 7 critical vulnerabilities, and included fixes that prevented Denial of Service, Remote Code...

/ December 20, 2021