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Microsoft Surface Pro 7. Is it worth the upgrade?

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On October 2nd Microsoft unveiled a series of new devices that covers the gap between a conventional laptop, a tablet PC, and to many’s surprise, a device that crosses the line between a smartphone and tablet. Whilst Microsoft was showing their most innovative products to date, this artile is not about the new products they have launched, it is about a product that we are all familiar with. The Microsoft Surface Pro 7.

Microsoft unveiled the new Surface Pro 7. Which for the last seven years stayed the same in physical design. It was a revolutionary device when it was first released as it was the only tablet PC convertible that received positive remarks from the consumer, but it still had its shortcomings, especially the battery life and constant heating. It was the first product in the Surface family to feature a stylus pen input in which years later, Apple had followed suit with the iPad Pro. It was a brilliant device for someone who loves to take notes, draw, and just someone who loves writing in general. But in 2019, with all the new competition from other brands, is it even relevant?

As per TechRadar’s review, the Surface Pro 7 is, astonishingly, no longer the shining flagship Surface product, that privilege now belongs to the new ARM-based Surface Pro X. And the most impactful of all from their review is that the latest Surface Pro is a refinement – not a revolution.

There might be some loyal fans to the Surface Pro that will still be eager to buy this product or those people who finds the additional USB type C port useful to upgrade. There are a lot of downside to this launch as it was noted that the Type cover and the Surface Pen is still sold separately. There’s also an issue with a major dip in the battery life of the device compared to previous generation. What happened to Surface Pro 7 is the same thing happening to Apple’s iPhone in which innovation is now defined as the refinement of the things that already existed.

In general, the Microsoft Surface Pro 7 is not a bad product. Once again, it is the refinement of years of development all cluttered to this device. To answer my question from the title of this article, I would say that it is worth it if you are a big fan of the line-up. If you are someone who already owns a Surface Pro 6, I do think that you can still live without the upgrade.

The 3 keys to high performance & cost savings with IT

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Efficiency. It’s that ever illustrious goal that every IT professional and leader endeavours toward. But, even with maximum effort and precision planning, efforts in the pursuit of ultimate efficiency can fail to hit their intended targets.

According to Kumar Krishnamurthy, a principal with PwC’s Strategy Consulting Group, we must move our focus toward improving effectiveness and the experience for the user.

Focusing on the needs of the business, not just technology

Merim Becirovic, IT managing director at business and technology consulting firm Accenture, says that businesses can become stuck when making decisions as a result of the sheer number of new capabilities the market has made available.

Becirovic thinks this kind of technology-first approach leads to tools and services being adopted that don’t adapt to user needs.

In our new role, we need to enable businesses and help them uncover new streams of revenue. Concurrently, we must focus on the specific needs of the customer and the growth potential of any technology in alignment with overarching organisational goals.

Relationship building

Director in operations excellence practice at West Monroe Partners, Colleen Campbell, says that in order to achieve maximum potential efficiency, we must connect with business stakeholders.

“If a technology leader can state clearly how their technology choices have impact ROI, business leaders will listen and see the line that is drawn from cost to benefit.”

“This is accomplished through relationship building, stakeholder management, communications strategies, program management, metrics, skill capabilities, cultural alignment to goals, and organisational changes.”

CTO of digital design agency SPR, Matt Mead, says there needs to be a sense that business and IT leaders have worked together in projecting and implementing the IT needs for the upcoming year.

Developing IT plans in a vacuum or simply duplicating the strategy of the previous year can lead to significant inefficiencies and affect the businesses ability to remain competitive.

The Cloud

The cloud offers efficiency like never before. Almost any organisation can become more efficient by leveraging the power of cloud / SaaS / IaaS offerings.

These services are designed with agility in mind and allow businesses to scale up or down as they need while leveraging best-of-breed solutions to fulfil the ever changing needs of an organisation.

Gabe Girodano, chair of the MIS department of Ohio University, says that while data centre to cloud migration costs can be rather high, the medium to long-term cost savings are worth it. The lower physical infrastructure expenses, combined with reduced IT management and user support costs can produce significant cost-savings over time.

“The rapidly increasing cost of IT security will make these savings even more significant in many settings moving forward.”

A Framework for identifying and assessing emergent technology

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Emerging technologies introduce challenges and threats to existing organisational competitive advantages, as well as presenting opportunities for organisations to take the lead in completely new areas, long before the competition takes root.

The need to monitor the technological horizon is vitally important. Emerging technology represents a series of potential investments that can have a serious impact on the business. Assessing the technology landscape, making the smart decisions and advocating for the right technology will help secure the organisation’s future.

However, not all emerging technologies are relevant, and not all live up to their promises. In order to choose the right technology for your business, practitioners must evaluate new technologies for their impact, relevance and probability of success. Whether you choose to adopt or ignore a new piece of technology, the wrong choice can be costly.

Each year, organisations of all sizes measure, analyse and plan where they’re investing in technology, however there is still no widely accepted framework for analysing and evaluating emerging technology.

 

Why businesses need a framework for assessing new technology

  • Utilising a framework as a shared understanding, it becomes much easier to discuss technology analysis with customers and other members of the organisation
  • A framework as a shared understanding enables and simplifies communication and education around technology. A framework not only helps you educate someone on a piece of technology, but makes it much easier to learn about technology from others
  • The sharing of information around technology analysis between teams and departments becomes simplified, easier to understand and more efficient
  • A framework helps to identify which aspects of a piece of technology can be included or left out, depending on its application and relevance
  • The framework itself can be improved over time and collect inputs from relevant practitioners

 

The Emerging Technology Analysis Canvas

Similar to Alexander Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas, the ETAC (Emerging Technology Analysis Canvas) is a framework designed to address the need for emerging technologies.

The ETAC is based on a set of questions arranged around a logical narrative that probe technology.

 

Emerging technology must fulfil four conditions:

  • The identification of a problem and related innovation that addresses the problem, in this case called a trigger. (We consider that both the problem and innovation must come in conjunction because often the innovation changes our perception of the problem).
  • The technology needs to have a significant potential impact. Often the impact may extend beyond the initial problem.
  • The technology has to be feasible given the available resources.
  • The technology has to navigate risks related to technology development and adoption. For example, the technology must develop and be adopted quickly enough to justify any investment.

The ETAC is structured around these 4 elements (Opportunity, Impact, Technical Feasibility and Future) and drills down into the details in each subsection.

 

ETAC (Emerging Technology Analysis Canvas)

 

Source: https://github.com/wso2/ETAC/blob/master/ETAC.md

Opportunity

  • Trigger: A problem and a solution that captured broader imagination that later evolved to a broader technology promising to solve broader problems.
  • Players: Organisations or individuals who are actively improving or using the technology to solve problems. For example, Amazon, Microsoft, and IBM are active players in serverless. We do not include the end users of the technology as players. Instead these are discussed under the value chain.
  • Drivers: external forces that positively impact the technology such as legislation. For this analysis, one can use the PESTLE framework [10] which considers the political, economic, socio-cultural, technological, legal, and environmental impacts on a technology. Among examples of drivers are cost saving, agility, productivity, automation, communication, trust, privacy, government policy, and law. Also, current industries and other emerging technologies can also act as drivers.

Impact

It is important to note that impact is analysed with respect to potential future and not limited to the current state of the technology.

Macro Impact
This discusses the impact on the industry under the following three themes.

  • Network effects and Interactions: A technology has network effects if the increased adoption increase the technology’s value for existing users thus creating a positive feedback loop.
  • Distruptees: – What technologies or industries will be affected by the emerging technology? The effects are twofold: the industries that compete with the emerging technology will be challenged, while the industries that complement it will be propelled. For example, AI may improve disease diagnosis, but at the same time that will reduce jobs for doctors. Some of the effects may be disruptive, where the affected technology or domain is significantly transformed by the technology. Furthermore, there are several impact areas we can consider. For example, we can use the PESTLE framework [10] in reverse and consider the political, economic, socio-cultural, technological, legal, and environmental impacts of the technology. We need to consider not only the first level effects but also the nth level effects as described by [7]. Furthermore, it is important to consider the crossover potentials of the technology where it can solve fundamental problems in a different industry or a segment, which in turn unlocks a wave of advance. An example of this is blockchain, where a technology designed to solve problems of decentralised money is being applied to areas such as identity, provenance or smart contracts in many industries.

Micro Impact
This discusses the impact on the organisation under the following four themes.

  • Competitive Advantage: how does the emerging technology affect competition between organisations? For example, AI enables organisations to automate decisions and make better decisions, thereby helping them out-compete their competitors.
  • Financial Benefits: How would the technology affect the bottom line of organisations. The benefits come in two forms. The technology might make the organisation efficient saving some costs or the technology might enable new revenue sources. For example, AI is being used to automate expensive human tasks, thus reducing costs significantly.
  • Supply Chain: this represent activities that are carried out starting from raw materials and skills until the product or a service is delivered and consumed by the end user. This section discussed how the technology affects the supply chain.

 

Feasibility

  • Technical Merit – This discusses technology breakthroughs the technology has made as well as any technical limitations. For example, AI has achieved several breakthroughs such as deep learning, which has helped in surpassing human accuracy with many problems. However, there are multiple technical challenges including algorithmic attacks, the need for expert knowledge while tuning and applying the AI, and the significant time required for data cleanup.
  • Tools, Ecosystem, & Skills – This discuss the availability of required skills, tools and best practices, and a community. An example of a community is an open source user forum. As the technology matures, tools and ecosystems will get better, which improve the odds of success. For example, blockchains have built a healthy developer community and tools.
  • Friction – What kind of friction will the emerging technology face in its deployment? Here we only consider technical friction, and nontechnical considerations are discussed under Risks. As an example, blockchains are seeing concerns over the transaction rates and power consumption costs.

 

Future

  • Timeline: What are the key possible milestones in the technology development? For example, how long will it take for the core technology to be ready? How fast will the adoption be? For example, blockchains may need further breakthroughs before they are adopted widely and it might take at least 5-10 years to reach those milestones.
  • Risks: What are risks that might limit the technology deployment? This includes non-technical risks as well. We can think of these as the inverse of drivers. Just like with drivers, we can use the PESTLE framework [10] in reverse to find drivers. An example of a risk is that regulators may restrict blockchains based on taxes or money laundering legislation, even when those blockchains are designed to resolve other aspects than digital cash. Among other risks to be considered are the need for standards, privacy concerns, business models, current law and policy frameworks, lack of skills, complexity, security risks, monopoly and vendor lock-in.

 

Summary

The summary section discusses possible technology development and deployment scenarios while weighing other parts of the ETAC. In the opportunity section, we discussed drivers. In the impact and feasibility sections we explore the potential of the technology and technical reality. The future section discusses risks and potential key milestones. The summary section explores the tension between the potential of the technology and environment in which it has to operate to understand potential scenarios and associated likelihoods.

What we can learn from the Baltimore services hack

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The Situation

On May 7th 2019, hackers digitally seized roughly 10,000 Baltimore government computers and demanded payment of 13 Bitcoins ($148,151 AUD) to free them back up. Using a ransomsware called RobbinHood, hackers have made it impossible to access servers without a digital key that only they possess.

What is a ransomware attack?
A ransomware attack is where hackers deploy malicious software to block access and take control over computer systems—in this case Baltimore city services and processes.

For three weeks city employees have been locked out of their accounts, while citizens have been unable to access vital services such as sites to pay water bills, property taxes and parking tickets.

A leaked N.S.A. tool, EternalBlue, was also used to exploit a vulnerability in unpatched software that allowed hackers to spread their malware faster and farther than they otherwise would have been able to.

This comes just 15 months after the attack on Baltimore’s 911 system, where hackers were able to disable the city’s 911 system for a day.

The Baltimore hackers ransom note demanded payment of 3 bitcoins per system unlocked, which totalled 13 bitcoins to unlock all seized systems. The note also threatened to increase the ransom if it were not paid within four days, as well as stating that information would be lost forever if it wasn’t paid within 10 days.

Government email systems and payment platforms remain offline, as well as affecting Baltimore’s property market as officials aren’t able to access systems needed to complete real estate sales.

Over 20 municipalities in the US have been hit by cyberattacks in 2019 alone, with an attack on Atlanta costing upwards of $17 million to fix.

 

The Takeaway

It’s important to note that ransomware attacks aren’t new. In 2017, a ransomware called WannaCry target tens of thousands of computers using Microsoft Windows operating systems in more than 100 countries. This attack included corporations in the UK, France, Russia, Israel and Ukraine as well as attacks on hospitals.

Ransomware schemes have become more effective since the invention of Bitcoin in 2009. Conventional payment networks make it difficult to accept payments without revealing your identity. Some ransomware schemes are so elaborate that customer service agents are hired to help victims obtain bitcoin and pay their ransom.

Since WannaCry, many organisations and sectors have made improvements to their security and security practices.

eStorm recommends taking stock of your networks to understand your exposure, assess the potential risks and patch vulnerable areas. We also recommend a multi-layered approach to security that includes:

 

If you have any questions about your business security, feel free to contact us at any time on (07) 3120 0640, email [email protected] or use the live-chat feature on our website between the hours of 9am and 5pm Monday to Friday.

The 5 Key Areas of Efficient Cloud Management

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With more and more enterprises seeing the benefits in, and establishing, long-term cloud computing strategies, the consumption of cloud services has begun trending towards the omnivorous.

According to the International Data Corporation, over 85% of enterprises are starting to adopt multi-cloud architectures that include a mix and match of public cloud services, community clouds, hosted clouds and private clouds.

Likewise, IDC research shows that 50% of enterprises are likely to subscribe to over 5 different public cloud services while adding, expanding and dropping subscriptions based on specific organisational needs. These figures highlight the fact that getting cloud management right from the start is ever more important.

A mistake that more and more organisations seem to be making is how they think of and treat services like the public cloud. Treating public cloud services like a Netflix subscription, where you use the service and pay the bill at the end of each month isn’t quite right. In fact, many businesses are finding that on-premise services were costing them less than what they’re spending now. Of course, public cloud providers won’t tell you there are significantly more efficient ways to use their services. Your public cloud services need to be managed in a similar fashion to how you would manage on-premise infrastructure. Learning to manage these cloud systems, in regard to cost, planning, capacity and security is paramount.

In order to take charge of this complex environment, enterprises should focus on the following 5 key areas.

Cost and optimisation

Managing cloud costs can be significantly challenging for many enterprises and CIOs, especially if they’re new to cloud adoption.

In most cases, enterprises and CIOs are accustomed to buying and setting up equipment as and when it’s needed—but it’s not that simple with cloud services.

For example, developers running application tests might forget to turn off their VMs before leaving work on Friday afternoon and accidentally leave them running all weekend. As a result, an enterprise ends up burning through their entire month’s allocation for particular cloud services.

That’s why it’s vitally important that enterprises consistently track their cloud service consumption while aligning with their budgets. The importance of cloud service budgeting lead Microsoft to the acquisition of an organisation that helps enterprises track consumption while forecasting future spending.

Resource planning

Clearly identifying how much of a service is needed and when it is needed is significantly important in achieving operational efficiency.

Security

Key security functionalities to consider for your cloud computing environment include, but are not limited to:

  • Risk management
  • Appropriate segmentation of duties
  • Single sign-on
  • Key management

It’s also important to conduct a review of your current security systems and consult with a specialist for the implementation of appropriate, up-to-date and robust security systems tailored to your specific needs.

Secure-Files-and-Data-Optimised

Governance

It’s important to create policies that establish which staff or departments require access to what applications and services, how and when they can gain access to them and for how long.

Orchestration and provisioning

Automation, orchestration and provisioning are vital for managing complex cloud environments.  Blueprinting the connections and inter-dependencies involved in cloud and on-premise systems is vital.

Google plans new browser tools on privacy and ad transparency

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Google recently announced plans to introduce new internet browser tools in the coming months that limit how a users’ web activity is tracked by advertising companies while delivering greater insight into why they are targeted by certain ads.

“Our experience shows that people prefer ads that are personalised to their needs and interests—but only if those ads offer transparency, choice and control,” said Prabhakar Raghavn, Google’s senior vice president for ads and commerce, in a recent blog post.

The new feature would allow Chrome browser users to delete cookies, which are the virtual trackers that websites and businesses use to document your browsing behaviour for data collection and re-marketing purposes, without also removing the cookies that remember passwords and enable easy login for websites, Google said. This announcement comes amid a time where increased public scrutiny is forcing Silicon Valley to be more transparent.

Google also mentioned a separate add-on, which will work across multiple browsers, that lists businesses involved in delivering ads to users, which also included intermediaries who are between the advertisers the publishers.

 

 

4 things to look for in an outsourced IT support provider

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We can’t do everything ourselves. Onboarding partners and team members that have more knowledge, as well as specialised skill sets, is particularly vital when we want to provide the best service, remain competitive and grow our business. This is where we can leverage the power of outsourcing.

Outsourcing helps businesses to reduce costs while reaping the benefits of specialised and strategic expertise in a particular area of the business.

That sounds fantastic! We’d all love to reduce overheads, increase workplace efficiency, gain flexible staffing, deliver faster turnaround times and generate more profit. But how can we make sure we’re getting the most from outsourcing? And what are the key factors to consider when looking to outsource vital areas of your business like IT support services?

1. Ability to Deliver 

For an outsourcing relationship to be successful, you need to ensure that the company you’re outsourcing to can not only deliver what you need, but when you need it. You’re looking to lessen the burden on your resources, so the ability to deliver consistently is a key factor in having a successful relationship.

Sounds obvious, right? But how do we know what someone is like to work with when we’ve never actually worked with them before? The quickest and easiest way to understand what someone is like to work with is to review their previous work—case studies or even news articles, if relevant, can provide a lot insight into previous work.

What do their customers have to say about them?—client testimonials are great for this, but so is a quick Google or social media search. Do they keep their own technology up-to-date? Are they easily contactable and reliable? Do you know who to talk to if there is an issue?

Consider these points when looking to outsource your IT support and business functions.

You can learn about eStorm’s previous work here & see what our customers are saying about us here.

2. Experienced Professionals

Another important factor worth considering is how much access the outsourcing company has to knowledgeable and experienced professionals. Everyone is claiming to be the “leading expert” these days, but are their staff properly qualified or certified? Do they have prior experience doing what you need them to do? Do they invest in professional development and training?

While it’s important to ensure current needs can be met, it pays to look to the future. As your business grows and changes, your outsourcing relationship will need to grow and change too—can your outsourced partner quickly change and move to accommodate your growing needs?

These are important questions to ask as they not only ensure you’re getting the right people for the job, but also that your growth potential isn’t limited by your outsourced provider.

3. Clear Service Agreements

As with any business relationship, you need to ensure that there are clear service agreements in place that outline exactly what will be provided and when.

Consider what’s important. What systems and applications matter and ensure these are covered in the service level agreement.

This ensures all parties are on the same page, are clear on what is expected, what is most important and how the relationship will work.

4. Leverage

Look for an outsourcing company that utilises a leveraged infrastructure model. This is when the company uses shared infrastructure assets across multiple clients, which leads to improved flexibility and reduced costs without sacrificing security. You’ll also share in capital and operational costs, which can add further savings back into your business.

Outsourcing your IT business functions is a great way to free up valuable internal resources and get access to the latest technology and expert skill base.


If you’d like to learn more about outsourcing your IT or Managed Services, feel free to get in touch today by emailing [email protected] or calling (07) 3120 0640 for a no obligation chat about creating an outsourcing relationship that will meet your specific needs.

What is an IT Managed Service Provider? (IT Support as a Subscription)

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Managed service provider, managed IT services, IT service management, MSP—what does it all mean exactly?

It’s easy to get caught up in your own industry that you forget—no one knows what you’re talking about!

Have you ever had someone explain to you what they do and you walk away still having absolutely no idea what they do?!

what did you say
This post really is only the tip of the iceberg—get the full insight on all the services and benefits provided by an expert IT Managed Service Provider here.

So… What is an MSP?

An MSP (Managed Service Provider) is like an outsourced subscription based IT department for your business. We take over the management of your business IT systems with the goal of reducing costs and improving the effectiveness of your business operations.

Think of an MSP or IT service management as “IT Support as a Subscription.” Similar to your Netflix or Spotify subscription, you pay a fixed monthly fee and gain access to a wide range of expert IT services designed to help your business.

What does an MSP do?

The managed service provider is responsible for either all or part of your day-to-day technology and IT needs, maintenance and management.

  • Minimises downtime
  • Improves business continuity
  • Increases overall productivity
  • Improves security
  • Operational cost reductions
  • Remote and On-site IT support
  • 24×7 monitoring
  • Scheduled maintenance

Why use an MSP?

Oftentimes, businesses of all sizes find the hiring, training and maintaining of internal IT staff both ineffective and cost prohibitive. Likewise, even businesses with someone handling IT internally find that a single person or small team simply cannot provide the same level of knowledge and expertise that a qualified and trusted MSP can.

MSPs develop key industry partnerships with major distributors like Apple and Microsoft. This allows them to provide hardware and software at the best possible price.

Security

With over 43% of cyber attacks targeting small to medium businesses, it’s vital that vulnerability assessments, threat management and secure user access and verification become commonplace for your business.

Peace of mind

With a reliable IT managed service provider you can rest easy knowing that, no matter where you are or what issue arises, you have skilled professional IT experts in your corner who are prepared and ready to help you.

Minimised downtime

Computer systems crashing, software not functioning properly, computers running slowly—you know what this can do to productivity. With fully qualified expert IT technicians just a click or call away, and response times within the hour, your staff are no longer spending valuable work hours searching for fixes to IT problems.

Click here to learn more about eStorm’s IT Managed Service Brisbane.

If you’d like to learn more about Managed Services in Brisbane, feel free to get in touch by emailing [email protected] or calling (07) 3120 0640 for a no obligation chat about your IT needs.

How to Identify & Address Network Vulnerabilities

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It goes without saying that keeping your business network and data safe should be a top priority—and for most businesses it is. But with the rapid advancement of technology and accessibility, there a growing number of businesses leaving themselves vulnerable.

Data breaches and network infections can cause massive financial loss and reputational damage. In 2017, 53,308 security incidents were reported where over 2,216 involved data breaches, and over three-quarters were financially motivated.

As businesses grow and more technology is added to your stack, it’s now more important than even to find the security vulnerabilities in your network before others can exploit them and your business.

How can I identify security vulnerabilities

We obviously recommend hiring an external IT provider with the required expertise and proven track record for identifying and resolving network and security vulnerability issues. However, there are key things your internal team can do.

Email

A 2017 Internet Security Threat Report revealed that one in 131 emails contains potentially  harmful and dangerous malware. Ensuring employees are proficient in identifying malware and other email attacks is vital for maintaining network security.

You can learn more about how to identify malware and how to protect yourself against email attacks here.

Software Updates

The bane of every computer users existence—the dreaded update. While most people put off updates, attackers can gain access to your network via outdated software, programs, antivirus, device drivers, firmware and operating systems.

Software updates are there to not only help the programs function more effectively, but to address potentially exploitable vulnerabilities.

Access

Probably one of the most important, yet often overlooked, aspects of business network security is access. Establishing who can access your network and assigning levels of access are vital in protecting your network.

By establishing network policies, you protect your vital business assets through compliance parameters, assess associated risks, limit vulnerability points and develop a recovery plan.

Password

It goes without saying that a strong password is important for your on and offline security—both at home and at work—as it is often your first and only line of defence. This is why we recommend organisations use Two-factor Authentication (2FA).

A good password should contain at least 10 characters with an un-guessable combination of words. Using a phrase with multiple words helps memorisation but remains difficult to guess or crack.

A simple rule of thumb is the longer the password the harder it is to hack. Likewise, it goes without saying that you should never share your passwords, or use the same password across multiple accounts, because if one gets hacked the rest become vulnerable.

You can learn more about how to create a strong password that’s easy to remember here.

Vulnerability Assessment

A full vulnerability assessment reviews your entire network, including on-premise equipment like computers, drivers and servers, along with cloud applications, storage and services used by the organisation. The goal of the vulnerability assessment is to identify weaknesses in your current infrastructure while reviewing security measures to ensure a robust and secure environment.

If you’d like assistance with your IT network and security, feel free to get in touch by emailing [email protected] or calling (07) 3120 0640 for a no obligation chat about your network and security needs.