WHAT IF...
What Your Current IT Guy Is Doing To “Protect” You From The Growing Tidal Wave Of Cybercrime Is Grossly Inadequate And Putting Your Company At Serious RISK?

From The Desk of: Cora Park
President, Diamond Business Communications, LLC

SECOND NOTICE: An Urgent Letter To My Fellow NJ CEOs

 

Dear CEO,

As you can see, I’ve enclosed a tiny magnifying glass with this letter. Why have I done this? Two reasons: First, make sure I captured your attention. Second, as an appropriate “grabber” to urge you to take a closer look at what I’m proposing in this letter.

Here’s what this is all about:

A week ago I sent you a letter offering to conduct a Free Cyber Security Risk Assessment and Dark Web Scan of your company’s credentials. We are offering this for free for a limited time to a select group of CEOs to introduce our services and further our mission to stop cybercrime.

We received a flood of positive responses from the other CEO’s we reached out to. Many of them were SHOCKED and deeply disturbed by what we discovered happening right under their nose. Almost all had a current IT guy or company “managing” their computer network. Here’s a comment from one of them, their identity hidden to protect their privacy:

“When Jay showed me the Dark Web report on my company and I saw my personal e-mail and password, I was HORRIFIED. He then asked, ‘Is this the same password you use for your online banking?’ My heart sank to my stomach. It was. I immediately jumped up from my desk, grabbed my cell phone and called my wife, telling her to drop everything and get online to change our banking passwords. Words cannot express how exposed and violated I felt in that moment; we could have lost everything! Thank goodness Jay showed up that day and revealed I was NOT as safe and protected as I thought I was. I honestly just thought our IT guy had us covered!”]

     This is a very serious and real threat; I’m confident our Free Assessment will be beneficial to you, either revealing security gaps that you can then fix AND/OR giving you the peace of mind that you truly ARE prepared and protected from a cyber security attack, whether you hire us or not. However, we haven’t heard from you. That can only be for a few reasons:

Maybe you got busy and set the letter aside to review more carefully later. Maybe you never received it? Or maybe you said to yourself, “We don’t need that because…” and finished the sentence with one of the following three knee-jerk responses we hear CEOs saying over and over again that reveals a blind ignorance to the severity and high probability of getting nailed by a devastating, financially crushing cyber-attack:

Excuse #1: “I’ve got an IT company that’s taking care of us.”
It’s very possible that you are being ill-advised by your current IT company. What have they recently told you about the rising tsunami of cybercrime? Have they recently met with you to discuss new protocols, new protections and new systems you need in place TODAY to stop the NEW threats that have developed over the last few months? Have they EVER urged you to talk to your bank and your insurance company to make sure you’re covered on all fronts? Have you been fully and frankly briefed on what to do IF you get compromised? Have they provided you with a response plan? If not, WHY?

Three Reasons: First, it could be that they simply don’t know how to advise you, or even that they should. Many IT guys know how to keep a computer network running but are completely out of their league when it comes to dealing with the advanced cyber security threats we are seeing in the last 6-12 months.

Second, they may be “too busy” themselves to truly be proactive with your account – or maybe they don’t want to admit the service package they sold you has become OUTDATED and inadequate compared to far SUPERIOR solutions available today.
And finally, NOBODY (particularly IT guys) likes to admit they are out of their depth. They feel compelled to exaggerate their ability to avoid being fired. To be fair, they might actually have you covered and be on top of it all. However…

In my admittedly informal survey, talking to many CEOs who have been hacked or compromised, almost all of them told me they thought their IT guy “had things covered.” I’m also very connected with other IT firms across the country to “talk shop” and can tell you most IT guys have never had to deal with the enormity and severity of attacks happening in the last few months. That’s why it’s VERY likely your IT guy does NOT have you “covered” and you need a pre-emptive, independent risk assessment like the one I’m offering in this letter.
As a CEO myself, I understand that you have to delegate and trust, at some level, that your employees and vendors are doing the right thing – but it never hurts to validate that they are. Remember, it’s YOUR reputation, YOUR money, YOUR business that’s on the line. THEIR mistake is YOUR nightmare.

At a bare minimum, our Free Cyber Security Risk Assessment is a qualified second opinion to know for sure if your IT company or internal team has all the bases covered. Our fresh eyes OFTEN uncover problems others cannot see because they look at it daily. Everyone knows you shouldn’t “proofread” your own work. If they are a true professional with nothing to hide, they will welcome this free validation.

Excuse #2: “We’re too small to worry about that. We don’t have anything a hacker would want to steal.”
WRONG. For starters, small businesses are the #1 target for cybercrime groups because of their inability (or unwillingness) to implement proper security protocols. You’re easy prey. Second, not all cyber-attacks are about stealing your data. Ransomware attacks, like the recent WannaCry worm, are about stealing what’s valuable to YOU and extorting money. Hackers corrupt ALL of your customer records and e-mail addresses, ALL of your work files and other data, then ask you to pay to get them back. If you don’t pay, they delete your files. If you DO pay, they delete your files anyway OR come back and demand MORE money because you’ve indicated you’re willing to pay. They’re called cybercriminals for a reason: they’re lawless scumbags who don’t follow the rules.

Can you honestly say your client records and ALL of the history, data and work files on your server are something not worth protecting?!?!
And finally, just like a real virus (common cold), malware spreads without anyone intentionally giving it to you. They are designed to be self-propagating; so claiming “nobody would want to attack us” is akin to saying, “I won’t catch a cold because nobody wants to give me one.” It doesn’t work that way.

Most of the attacks are 100% automated using software programs designed to hammer millions of computers at once, working 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, to find security loopholes on ALL computers connected to the Internet. You’re under attack by highly organized, highly motivated TEAMS of sophisticated coders who attack en masse – not some lone hacker sitting at home selecting his victims. All it takes is to miss ONE critical software update and you’re toast. ONE employee clicking on the wrong link. ONE client or trusted vendor sending you an infected file.

Excuse #3: “I don’t have the budget for that.”

Nothing is COSTLIER than SOLVING A CRISIS AFTER the damage is done. Prevention costs pennies compared to the cure.

One cyber-attack can cost you THOUSANDS of dollars in emergency restoration fees and DAYS of downtime – the average being 10-14 days. If files are corrupt and/or deleted, it can produce HOURS OF EXTRA WORK for your already-overburdened staff to try and restore order.

CLIENTS will be IRATE. If it’s discovered that patient or client data is compromised, you will be investigated and questioned about what you did to prevent this from happening. If the answer is not adequate (and it won’t be if your response is “We were too cheap to put proper cyber security protocols in place”), you can be found liable, facing hefty fines and lawsuits EVEN IF you trusted an outsourced IT support company to protect you.

Sales will be DISRUPTED while you scramble to recover. Employees will blame you. Project DEADLINES WILL BE MISSED, and this giant, expensive and reputation-destroying nightmare will land squarely on YOUR shoulders. But it doesn’t end there…

If money is siphoned from your bank account, your bank will NOT replace the stolen money. (They aren’t required to. Go ask them.) “But I have insurance,” you say? Have you RECENTLY scrutinized the fine print in your policy? If you did, you’d be ill. Unless you have purchased a specific policy that covers cybercrime or fraud, you’re screwed.

Almost no general liability policy will cover losses from cybercrime. Even if you have crime or cyber liability insurance, it’s not uncommon for insurance companies to find some loophole in the policy to get out of paying you. Google it.

Further, insurance cannot undo or restore the reputational damage done, the loss of business from clients who leave you, future sales lost, the work and TIME involved in restoring YEARS of history and work, the downtime, damaged company morale and/or the lost client data and history. The shame, the STRESS and the worry over it all…

Do you still honestly believe you “can’t afford it”?

Please do NOT underestimate the importance of these threats. It is NOT safe to assume your IT company (or guy) is doing everything they should be doing to protect you; in fact, there is a high probability they are NOT, which we can reveal in the Free Cyber Security Risk Assessment we’re offering you today.

Our Free Cyber Security Risk Assessment Will Give You
The Answers You Want, The Certainty You Need

For a limited time, we are offering to give away a Free Cyber Security Risk Assessment to a select group of businesses. This is entirely free and without obligation. EVERYTHING WE FIND AND DISCUSS WILL BE STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL.

This Assessment will provide verification from a qualified third party on whether or not your current IT company is doing everything they should to keep your computer network not only up and running, but SAFE from cybercrime.

Here’s How It Works: At no cost or obligation, one of my lead consultants and I will come to your office and conduct a non-invasive, CONFIDENTIAL investigation of your computer network, backups and security protocols. Your current IT company or guy DOES NOT NEED TO KNOW we are conducting this assessment. Your time investment is minimal: one hour for the initial meeting and one hour in the second meeting to go over our Report Of Findings.

When this Risk Assessment is complete, you will know:

• If you and your employee’s login credentials are being sold on the Dark Web (I can practically guarantee one or more are… THIS will shock you). Thanks to a new threat intelligence and ID-monitoring service we subscribe to, we can run a report on YOUR company and see what credentials are actively being sold on the Dark Web, which is a part of the World Wide Web accessible only by means of special software, allowing operators to remain completely and totally anonymous and untraceable, used by the most notorious cybercrime rings around the world.
• IF your IT systems and data are truly secured from hackers, cybercriminals, viruses, worms and even sabotage by rogue employees. If you’re not getting weekly security updates from your current IT person, your systems probably aren’t secure. You should also know that antivirus software and most firewalls are grossly inadequate against the sophisticated attacks now happening.
• IF your current backup would allow you to be back up and running again fast if ransomware locked all your files. In 99% of the computer networks we’ve reviewed over the years, the owners were shocked to learn the backup they had would NOT survive a ransomware attack. Ransomware is designed to infect your backups as well, leaving you defenseless. There are only a handful of backup systems that will prevent this from happening.
• DO your employees truly know how to spot a phishing e-mail? We will actually put them to the test. We’ve never seen a company pass 100%. Never.
• Are your IT systems, backups, policies and procedures in sync with compliance requirements for HIPAA/GLBA/SOX/etc.

 If we DO find problems…overlooked security loopholes, inadequate backups, credentials that have been compromised, out-of-date firewall and antivirus software and (often) active malware…on one or more of the PCs in your office, we will propose an Action Plan to remediate the situation that you can have us implement for you if you choose. Again, I want to stress that EVERYTHING WE DISCUSS AND DISCOVER WILL BE STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL.

Why Free? 

     Frankly, we want the opportunity to be your IT company. We know we are the most competent, responsive and trusted IT services provider to small businesses in this area. But you don’t.  We have a stellar reputation for competence and proactive services and want the chance to show you the exposed vulnerabilities you may have an share our capabilities to safeguard your business.

However, I also realize there’s a good chance you’ve been burned, disappointed and frustrated by the complete lack of service and the questionable advice you’ve gotten from other IT companies in the past. In fact, you might be so fed up and disgusted with being “sold” and underserved that you don’t trust anyone. I don’t blame you.

That’s why this assessment is completely and entirely free. Let us earn your trust by demonstrating our expertise. While we would love the opportunity to be your IT company, we will come in with no expectations and only look to provide you with fact-based information so you can make a quality, informed decision – and we’ll ONLY discuss the option of becoming your IT company if the information we share makes sense and you want to move forward. No hard sell. No gimmicks and no tricks.

Who Are We…And Why Trust Us?

Based on the horrific state of most computer networks we are brought in to fix, I feel confident we are better equipped to help clients like you because we are utilizing state of the art technology software and methodologies for cybercrime prevention.

We are currently the ONLY IT firm in your area that uses SentinelOne, an Enterprise-Level cyber security software that stops Ransomware in its tracks. We also have our own help desk and tightly control the access to your company’s network – your account will NEVER be unprotected.

Please…Do NOT Just Shrug This Off
(What To Do Now)

I know you are extremely busy and there is enormous temptation to discard this, shrug it off, worry about it “later” or dismiss it altogether. That is, undoubtedly, the easy choice…but the easy choice is rarely the RIGHT choice. This I can guarantee: At some point, you WILL HAVE TO DEAL WITH A CYBER SECURITY EVENT. Hopefully you’ll be brilliantly prepared for it and experience only a minor inconvenience at most. But if you wait and do NOTHING, I can practically guarantee this will be a far more costly, disruptive and devastating attack that will happen to your business.

You’ve spent a lifetime working hard to get where you are today. Don’t let some lowlife thief operating outside the law in another country get away with taking that from you. And certainly don’t “hope” your IT guy has you covered. Get the facts and be certain you are protected. Contact us and schedule your Free Cyber Security Risk Assessment today:

www.DiamondBusinessCommunications/FreeCyberRiskAssessment

Feel free to also reach out to me direct at the phone number and e-mail address below.

Dedicated to serving you,

Cora Park
Web: www.DiamondBusinessCommuincations.com
E-mail: Cora@DiamondBusinessCommunications.com
Direct: 609-642-9300 x201

Here Are Just A Few Other CEOs We’ve Helped: