From Burden to Breakthrough:
When a sudden cyberattack threatened the operations of I&M Industrials, they turned to PTG for a solution that went beyond recovery. Discover how this collaboration not only resolved the immediate crisis but also fortified their IT infrastructure, ensuring long-term resilience against future threats.
You're company files have been encrypted
I&M Industrials, led by President Clay Madre, is a Greenville-based company specializing in industrial solutions. Despite their existing measures, I&M Industrials became the target of a ransomware attack, which left their systems vulnerable and exposed. Before this cyber attack, Clay said "I never thought [ransomware] could happen to little old I&M Industrials." But all of that changed when Clay and company came in one morning to their company data being encrpyted and ransomed.
"The IT provider that we had at the time said you've been hit with ransomware and I'm thinking I'm loosing my business at this point." - Clay Mardre
How did this happen?
While they were doing a ton of things right, I&M had left a forgotten device unpatched. Without patch management in an organization, device updates can be easily overlooked. The bad actors discovered the device and used it to gain access to I&M’s on-premesis servers, which then gave them access to all shared folders.
Fortunately, I&M had robust cyber insurance at the time that provided them with a cyber attorney, a negotiation team, and a company that specialized in data breaches. All in all, I&M’s operations were frozen for a week and a half.
I want to focus on my business, not IT
After the server was finally free from the bad actor's grip and operations were back to a new normal, Clay still didn't feel secure with his current IT. That's when he called PTG.
"I don't want to think about IT, I want to think about selling air compressors and servicing them." - Clay Mardre
To get I&M to a place where they didn't have to think about IT, we needed a full picture of their IT infrastructure and cyber security health, so we performed a comprehensive IT audit. The results of this audit helped us to tailor a roadmap to get I&M as cyber secure as possible.
From burden to breakthrough
With a full picture of I&M’s IT infrastructure and their IT roadmap in hand, we took four key steps.
Step one was getting as much data into cloud servers as made sense.
Step two was setting up advanced security around their endpoints.
Step three was securing their Microsoft 365 environment, emphasizing adding MFA to as many devices as possible.
Step four was initiating a cyber security education training program to equip their workforce with current cyber security trends and best practices.
It can happen to you
The result after PTG's intervention with I&M is that Clay feels as secure as he can be.
After all things said and done, Clay's message to other SMB owners is, "No matter how big or small [your business is], it can happen to you. It's one of the worst feelings you can have."
One of the most important things businesses can do is to connect with your IT company regularly about what is going on inside of your business. That allows us IT companies to give personalized recommendations to keep your business running as efficient and safe as possible.
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