Grapevine MSP Technology Services

Missed calls can mean missed revenue, especially when customers are ready to move on quickly.

If your phone system is making it harder for people to reach you, it may be time to rethink it.

Read our latest blog: https://visit-our.link/47CIDcx

July 24, 2024, 1pm.

A car went off Highway 178 near Democrat Road and caught fire on the embankment. Within hours, the flames had climbed the hillside. Within weeks, the Borel Fire had burned almost 60,000 acres and become the largest wildfire in Kern County's history.

Parts of Havilah were leveled. Lake Isabella businesses sat empty for days under evacuation orders. Some people had under an hour to grab what they could and go.

Business continuity isn't paranoia in this Valley. It's pattern recognition. It means files that live in the cloud rather than on the office server, phone systems that work from anywhere, and a plan written down in plain English for what happens on day one if the office is gone.

The Borel Fire started with one car. There will be another one.

We work in the city the American Lung Association has ranked worst in America for year-round particle pollution six years running.

The Valley's air problem isn't about IT. The bigger drivers sit in oil fields, freight corridors, and almond orchards. They're not getting fixed by anyone moving to Microsoft 365.

But on the list of things a small business controls, IT always shows up. Old servers running 24/7 in an under-cooled closet. Twelve laptops were left on overnight when nobody was working. A pile of replaced hardware that ends up in landfills instead of a refurbishment program.

Small things. The kind of small things that add up across enough small businesses to matter.

Earlier this May, a meteorology student at Mississippi State finished a 2,900-word exam essay. Then a ransom note popped up on her screen.

She hadn't been hacked. Her school hadn't been hacked. The platform her school used, Canvas, had been hit by a group called ShinyHunters. Around 9,000 institutions across three countries were caught in the same breach.

Your CRM is somebody's vendor. So is your payroll provider. So is your accounting platform. Cyber attackers don’t need to know that your business exists.

Vendor risk reviews aren't glamorous, but they're how small businesses stop being collateral damage in someone else's breach.

A small district can face a steady stream of attempted intrusions every month without anyone noticing.

They show up in firewall logs, failed login alerts, and email filter reports, if someone's reading them. Outsourced managed IT changes who's watching, when, and what gets escalated.

Our latest blog includes a full breakdown of the in-house vs outsourced decision for districts in Kern County: https://visit-our.link/XVh6wMD

Cyber response rarely gets the same treatment as fire drills, even though CISA reports more than one incident per school day across K-12 nationally.

Our latest blog compares in-house and outsourced managed IT for schools across the San Joaquin Valley, and what each model is set up to monitor and respond to: https://visit-our.link/XVh6wMD

You know all about grading papers, but have you ever considered grading your school's IT provider?

We put together five warning signs that your current setup might be holding you back and what a better one looks like for schools across the San Joaquin Valley.

Swipe through, then read the full breakdown: https://visit-our.link/0KSFbNL

180 days of school. Up to 9 months of recovery from a ransomware attack. The numbers don't leave much room for looking into it later.

Schools are already on the target list. The question is whether yours is ready if it's next.

Five warning signs your current IT setup is behind where it needs to be: https://visit-our.link/0KSFbNL

Most IT problems build over time, without being noticed until something breaks.

Catching issues early – whether it’s unusual account activity, a failing drive, or a system running behind on updates – means dealing with smaller problems.

If those issues are missed, you’re left dealing with consequences that could have been avoided weeks earlier.
Proactive IT support is about finding the things worth fixing before they become the reason you are calling at 9pm on a Tuesday.

Find out what that looks like for your business: https://visit-our.link/cosM6Pv

World Intellectual Property Day is a reminder that what your business creates has real value, and that value is worth protecting.

Client data, financial records, and proprietary processes are assets, and exactly they are exactly what ransomware, data breaches, and credential theft are designed to reach.

Protecting your intellectual property starts with the security controls sitting between your systems and everyone who wants access to them.

Learn more about how we approach cybersecurity for Bakersfield businesses:

https://visit-our.link/MOAB6iz