The Datamax Thinking Blog

Educating, collaborating, and sparking ideas for maximizing the technology that matters.


Close Your Business Cybersecurity Gaps With These 9 Action Items

80% of organizations have seen an increase in email phishing attacks since remote working began.

The massive shift to remote and hybrid work environments didn't just open up new flexibilities for where employees spend their workday. It initiated an open season for cybercriminals. Security teams today face an uphill battle as the attack surface has increased.

Topics: Managed Network Services Network Management Microsoft Gold Partner Network Security Cybersecurity Managed Services Provider Managed IT Services

4 Advanced IT Security Tools You Should Consider in 2023

As you plan for 2023, we invite you to consider what’s worked for you before, what might not be working moving forward, and then consider these advanced IT security layers of protection.

Business trends come and go, along with blog spaces just like this that purport to know the ones we should be watching for in the coming year. Here’s a safe bet, though. One trend that stands immune to whatever else comes our way in 2023 (inflation, staffing issues, remote work, etc.) and won’t be going anywhere anytime soon? Security vigilance.

Topics: Managed Network Services Network Management Cloud Network Security

How Businesses Can Help Employees Securely Work From Home

With the likely increase in remote work, companies will have to prepare in various ways to avoid cybersecurity risks or interruptions to business.

As the coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to spread uncertainty regarding routine business operations, employee safety stands as a top concern for employers ... as does network management and IT security.

Topics: Managed Network Services Network Management IT Consulting Business Continuity Network Security Cybersecurity Coronavirus Remote Workforce Planning Managed Services Provider

Lessons from the Big Bend: Achieve Balance in Your Cybersecurity Approach

The risks associated with traveling the vast cybersecurity landscape unprepared? It’s bound to be overwhelming. Achieving balance is essential. 

Traversing a national park bigger than the state of Rhode Island? It can be awe-inspiring, if not a bit overwhelming.

Rugged yet beautiful landscapes greeted us everywhere we turned, including, notably, Balanced Rock in Big Bend National Park. The trail leading to to the rock formation was filled with scarce,  dusty desert floor surrounded by piles of boulders; the path was difficult to follow if you weren’t paying attention. But the rewards are worth the careful navigation – a huge boulder balanced and suspended overhead by two others, but also, just underneath it, a beautifully framed window into the distant mountains.

Topics: Information Technology Managed Network Services IT Consulting Cybersecurity

5 Checkpoints that Any Managed IT Services Partner Should Clear

Before proceeding with a Managed IT partner, it's important to set up checkpoints that ultimately secure your return on technology investment.

In the process of securing a competitive business advantage, organizations are moving fast toward the growing trend of outsourcing.

It stands to reason. Finding a trusted team in any particular business function – be it finance, technology or other – gives companies the opportunity to reduce costs, focus more on core business goals and planning, and also benefit from the specific expertise of these professional service organizations.

Topics: Information Technology Managed Network Services Network Management

Recent Lawsuit Builds Even Bigger Case for Cybersecurity Education

Organizations must be accountable for guarding against cybersecurity, they must be fully aware of current risks, and they must be proactive about Cybersecurity education.

As cybersecurity increasingly becomes an agenda item inside the executive boardroom, organizations continue to recognize their own accountability in guarding against cyberattack.

But what about end users? How accountable are they?

It’s an interesting question raised in a recent news article published in KnowBe4’s Security Awareness Training Blog.

Topics: Managed Network Services Network Management Network Security Cybersecurity

Managed Network Services: You Are Now Free to Move About Your Business

Managed Network Services (MNS), more than anything else, offers freedom. Freedom to focus on your business. Freedom to become strategic and forward thinking about technology – how it can actually become performance enhancing.

Small to medium-sized businesses, in rising numbers, have heeded the call to make cybersecurity a top priority for their organization.

After years of preaching/pleading from Managed Service Providers, coupled with thousands (millions?) of blog posts devoted to the topic, most SMBs today recognize that when it comes to data breaches, “it can happen to me.”

Topics: Information Technology Managed Network Services Network Management Microsoft Gold Partner Cybersecurity

7 Trustworthy Steps in Avoiding Ransomware, Phishing Scams

Organizations today need an IT strategy that acts as a belayer, a trusted entity of support to prevent malicious attack. 

Rock climbing is an endeavor built entirely around trust: Trust in your belayer.  Trust in your equipment.  Trust in the terrain surrounding you. And, of course, trust in yourself.

Likewise, your organization’s online security often comes down to a matter of trust. But trust in this manner should never be earned without scrutiny, verification and due diligence.

Topics: Managed Network Services Network Management Network Security Cybersecurity

Release Your IT Beast of Burden with Managed Network Services

A Managed Network Services program fine tunes and establishes control over all the moving components of your network. 

Your business's network steadily hums along, serving its intended purpose with what seems like relative ease. That is, until an unexpected breakdown occurs and you begin to feel the weight of every IT issue bearing down on your office's productivity.

What seems effortless can quickly become overwhelming. What traditionally seemed like a routine method for handling IT could today be more a beast of burden for your business.

Topics: Information Technology Managed Network Services Security Network Management Network Security

Three Tactics to Thwart Office 365 Ransomware Threats

So, consider this bit of recent history ... 29% of IT professionals report their clients have encountered ransomware that specifically targeted Office 365.

I must say, I love history. For humanity's sake, I deeply hope it’s never rewritten.  I’m not entirely sure whether my interest lies in the fun and fascination of discovery, or the fear of repeating failures it documents.  One thing’s for sure, as summed up by Edmund Burke, Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.”  

No doubt, a truth proven over and over again.

So here’s a bit of history (2,000 years in the making) every business should consider as it prepares to compete and/or to defend its resources — the focus of this blog.

Topics: Managed Network Services Network Management Document Security IT Consulting Technology Pain Business Continuity Disaster Recovery Network Security