Just this past week, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) reported that a federal agency was hit with a malware attack from an unknown source. This proves that even federal agencies can have vulnerabilities. The attack first started with a set of an internal user’s Office 365 credentials.

On Monday, September 21, a number of our i3 employees received a seemingly harmless email from Microsoft. It looked like this:

Mike Ritsema, after seeing the email, forwarded it to our security training professional, Benny, and asked to confirm if it was part of a security test for the week.

We all make mistakes. It’s a fact of life. But as we all know, some mistakes can have serious and lasting consequences – especially when it comes to business, cyber security and the constant cyberthreats that are out there.

While some businesses have invested heavily in cyber security, many have not.

Last week week, the Family Business Alliance featured i3's President and Principal, Mike Ritsema, on their #FamilyFocus podcast. Take a few minutes to listen in on Mike's story today:

0:33 Introduction of i3 Business Solutions

1:53 i3 and working with family

2:40 How COVID-19 has affected i3 Business Solutions

3:48 What types of customers i3 serves

4:11 What types of IT services we provide

5:23 i3's values and community involvement

9:00 Three mandates for business and cybersecurity

13:05 How the i3 team stay connected during COVID-19

15:06 Last thoughts and advice to owning a family business

Family Business Alliance · #Family Focus with i3BusinessSolutions
If you'd like to get to know i3 Business Solutions, reach out to us here to schedule a 15-minute consultation.

The remote office: what i3 Business Solutions has learned
When the pandemic first struck us in March, did your business have a disaster recovery plan? Who would have thought that a physical virus would have interrupted business operations? While everyone's office buildings were completely intact, employees were forced to go remote in a matter of days.

As we enter the reopening phase in Michigan, i3 Business Solutions is offering a simple solution to keep your organization safe and productive through a COVID-19 Health Screening Survey.

This eight (8) question survey meets the CDC, State of Michigan, and OSHA requirements for opening your business or organization.

Recently, there has been an increased number of phishing emails related to COVID-19. To protect yourself and your organization, please follow the following guidelines from our i3 security team lead and CTO.

Please look out for:

Attached files, especially .dll files and .bmp files (photos)
Mobile apps offering COVID-19 tracking maps
Website links offering COVID-19 information
Online stores that sell shortage items
Fraudulent emails that appear to be from the CDC, asking you to "urgently" open a file or click on a link

Cybercriminals are taking advantage of the current situation to catch people with their guard down.

A few days ago...

A regular employee with good intentions went about her day and wired close to $400,000 to a real estate renovation project. Little did she know that she had sent it to a email phishing scammer.

The money belonged to Barbara Corcoran,

New York Real Estate genius and Shark Tank host.

I believe that lifelong learning is a key to fulfillment and joy in life.  We spend our first 18 years of life in some form of structured learning – then how do we continue to grow and learn?

Well, again, I submit that willingness to keep learning and growing is a key to one’s journey and destination in life.

Did you know that 71% of cyberattacks target small businesses? Did you also know it takes hackers just 4 minutes to hack into your network, but it takes 99+ days for typical businesses to even know they’ve been breached? One of the most important layers of defense, then, is a strong password policy for your business.