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Choosing the Best Small Business Phone System
Get smart about small business phone systems. The first personal point of contact a potential customer has with you might be through the phone. So it's important that you provide a positive and professional experience. And it's not enough to make do with personal phones. If you really want to make your business ready to compete and meet customer demands, you need a dedicated small-business phone system. There are lots of options out there, but many are geared toward businesses with hundreds of employees and multiple locations. While small businesses need to provide the same high-quality interactions as larger businesses, they have smaller budgets. It can feel like a tall order, but it's important that you make the right choice for your business. To help you evaluate your options, here's a brief look at what to consider in today's business phone systems, some common choices for small and medium-sized businesses ( SMBs), and why a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) solution might be the best fit for you. What to look for in a small business phone system,No two business phone systems are the same. There are many options out there to choose from—and often there are huge differences between the quality and capabilities in each. You need a small business phone system that helps advance your specific business goals. Here are a few basics to consider when evaluating small business phone systems:,Take stock of what you have—and what you need. Do you need a solution that only uses desk phones, are you fully mobile or are you a mixture of both? And if you're only using desk phones now, do you have plans to integrate mobile in the future? The system you choose should address your immediate needs, but also be right for where you hope to take your business in the future. Along those same lines of making sure the equipment will be right for your business in the future, you'll want to make sure the phone system you choose will easily grow with you as you want to add new lines. Only you know what your budget is, so you'll want to make sure you choose a solution that fits within it. But it's not enough to just look at the upfront costs of a business phone solution; you'll want to look at the monthly fees and long-term maintenance costs to make sure that you are getting the right value for your investment. With so many advanced calling features available, you'll want to look for the ones that align best with the way you work. If you field a lot of customer calls, you may want a solution that offers a virtual receptionist. If you have field teams working with office-based teams, then you could probably benefit from a solution that makes it possible to easily share screens. Just make sure the business phone system meets all of your needs. If you're a small business with limited IT resources and expertise, you want to make sure that the small-business phone system you choose will be easy for you to deploy, maintain and manage. And if you do run into issues, will you have access to the support you need to get things fixed?,What is a business phone system?,Different than a home phone system, a business phone system is built to:,There are two basic types of networks that you can use to operate your business phone system:,Types of business phone systems for small businessesA landline is what you'd most commonly call plain old telephone service (POTS). If you are looking for a straightforward system that lets you make and receive calls and requires no additional training to use, a POTS system might be worth considering.But for budget-conscious SMBs, the costs for landlines can escalate quickly. In addition to installation costs, there are monthly service fees per line, new-line fees, long-distance fees and more. And because landlines are physically connected by wires, they don't allow for any flexibility; if you want to answer the phone, you must be by the phone, wherever it is plugged in. For growing businesses, flexibility could be the key to growth, so landlines might be too restrictive an option. However, there are limitations to this option. The quality and reliability of your calls is totally dependent on the quality and reliability of your service provider's network. Plus, your provider will have complete control over managing the system, which could make it more difficult for you to customize an experience that's best for your business. While there are pros and cons to each of these options, we think that most small businesses could benefit from a VoIP business phone system. Why VoIP is a versatile option,Not only is VoIP a good first step to creating a more modern business, it also addresses many of the common concerns for growing businesses. First of all, VoIP is budget-friendly. Because it uses public internet, you can get all the calling capabilities you need, without the additional costs of a private network. And as far as equipment goes, you can purchase VoIP phones if your budget allows, or if it doesn't, there are adaptors that can be used to modify your existing phones. Or you could leverage your business computers and employees' mobile devices. When it comes to flexibility, it doesn't get much better than VoIP. You can build your VoIP system using any combination of desk phones, computers and mobile devices. And it's easy to add new lines as needed, so when your business is ready to grow, your VoIP solution scales with you. Your customers keep you in business, so it's important that you be there when they call. But what happens when there's a power outage or other emergency situation? Because it's cloud-based, it's easy for your VoIP service provider to redirect calls to a backup number in the event of a service outage, which can help reduce downtime and keep your business operating as usual. And those are just some of the benefits you could enjoy by choosing VoIP as your business phone system. The full range of advantages depends on the VoIP solution you choose. A solution like Verizon is designed to address many of the concerns of small businesses. If you're looking to improve the user and caller experience, Business Digital Voice comes with more than 30 advanced calling features, such as automatic call forwarding, voicemail to email, seamless call transfer and more. If you're primarily looking for something that's easy to use and manage, Business Digital Voice has a simple app and online dashboard that gives you intuitive control over call management. Whatever your specific goals for your business, the phone system you choose will serve as the foundation to get you where you want to be. It's a big decision, and one that should not be taken lightly. But once you understand your needs—and your options—you'll be able to make the right call when it comes to selecting your small-business phone system. Create better customer experiences with VoIP,Give your customers what they want—and then some—with a VoIP system that lets you:,* Business Digital Voice is available in select areas of nine states and the District of Columbia. Tell us about your business, then meet with our professionals to ask questions, get advice, or obtain a quote. These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information. These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. We use both third party and first party cookies for this purpose. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance. These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then some or all of these services may not function properly. These cookies may be set through our site by Verizon and third parties. They are used to present Verizon advertising on third party sites that you may visit. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising from Verizon. BackClear Filters,All Consent Allowed
Learn moreChoosing the Best Phone System for Your Business
How to choose the best VoIP provider for your business,You've done your research. You know that a business Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) system is an efficient, simple and affordable communications option that can help keep your growing business competitive. And you've decided to make VoIP part of your operations. Now you have another decision to make—which VoIP service provider to partner with. There are many VoIP solutions out there, but not all are created equal. When choosing the best VoIP service for your small business, you want to make sure you're getting a solution that meets more than just your calling needs. Here are a number of things you should consider when evaluating VoIP solutions and providers. Reliable VoIP needs a reliable network. A good VoIP solution starts with a strong foundation. Because VoIP calls are routed through the internet, it's critical that your VoIP solution runs on a network that gives you reliable connectivity and coverage where you need it. You should never have to worry that you're missing important communications because you can't trust your network. Your VoIP system should grow with you. One of the best benefits of a VoIP solution for small businesses is that it is scalable. A complete VoIP solution should be able to easily expand as the number of users changes. Adding new lines or devices—or even locations—should be virtually effortless, and not cause any disruption to your operations. Competitive features can help create better experiences. Your customers have come to expect a certain level of service from the companies they do business with. When they call a business, they expect to reach someone who can help them—and they don't like to wait. So your VoIP solution should come with a rich variety of business features that can help you operate more like a bigger business without costing a lot. Features like automatic call forwarding, seamless call transfer between devices, virtual receptionists and more that make it easier for your callers to quickly connect with the person best suited to help them. Not to mention features like visual voicemail, virtual meeting rooms and personal phone directories that make it easy for your employees to do their jobs. VoIP should make your job easier, not harder. An efficient communications solution should allow you to monitor, fine- tune, streamline and manage your network assets. And you should be able to do it all easily. If you don't have a dedicated IT department, or if your IT resources are just stretched thin, you want to make sure that your VoIP solution won't create a management headache. Look for a solution that comes with an intuitive web-based management system, so you can stay in control of your communications from where you're working. Customer support should be available when you need it. A good VoIP solution should be easy to manage and deploy. But in times when you could use a little extra help, you need a comprehensive VoIP solution that comes with access to professional support throughout the design, implementation and management phases. You need your communications system to work around the clock, so it's only fair to expect that your VoIP customer service does, too. The bottom line. The communications system you choose for your business will play a pivotal role in building relationships with your vendors, partners and customers—and those are the relationships that will determine how successful your business can be. So you need to partner with a service provider that will help you strengthen those relationships at every turn. Many small businesses have put their trust in Verizon because of our proven ability to deliver effective . We continually invest in our VoIP network, and we have the expansive reach your growing business needs. Verizon ,* our VoIP business solution, offers more than 30 features—including Auto Attendant, Hunt Group, Extension Dialing and more—to help you control your communications, improve customer experiences, streamline your business and simplify your day-to-day. By choosing the right VoIP solution, you're taking the first step toward a productive and competitive future for your business. So you need to make sure you choose a provider that has the experience, reach and range of services that will support your growth. * Business Digital Voice is available in select areas of nine states and the District of Columbia. Tell us about your business, then meet with our professionals to ask questions, get advice, or obtain a quote. These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information. These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. We use both third party and first party cookies for this purpose. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance. These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then some or all of these services may not function properly. These cookies may be set through our site by Verizon and third parties. They are used to present Verizon advertising on third party sites that you may visit. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising from Verizon. BackClear Filters,All Consent Allowed
Learn moreDBIR Report 2023 - Incident Classification - System Intrusion Business
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This pattern largely pertains to attacks perpetrated by more dedicated criminals who utilize their expertise in hacking and ready access to malware to breach and/or impact organizations of different sizes, frequently leveraging Ransomware as their means of getting a payday. Ransomware continues to dominate this pattern as attackers leverage a bevy of different techniques to compromise an organization. 3,966 incidents, 1,944 with confirmed data disclosureExternal (96%), Internal (4%), Multiple (2%), Partner (1%) (breaches)Financial (97%), Espionage (3%) (breaches)Other (42%), Personal (34%), System (31%), Internal (24%) (breaches),Imagine strolling into your office one morning only to discover an alarming desktop image from some criminal group with a cringeworthy name requesting Bitcoin (BTC) in exchange for the return of all your data. Hopefully, being the avid DBIR reader you are, you would have recent and well-tested backups to restore from. However, what if these criminals do not stop at only encrypting your data but also threaten to leak portions of your more sensitive information unless paid? Oftentimes it appears that no matter how fast our defenses and practices evolve, attackers adapt theirs just as quickly. This creates a perpetual arms race, and nowhere is it better represented than in the System Intrusion pattern. We frequently think of the threat actors in this pattern as the "hands on keyboard" type of attackers. While they might leverage automation to gain a foothold, once they are inside the organization, they utilize finely honed skills to bypass controls and achieve their goals. As Figure 28 illustrates, this commonly includes Ransomware. They use a variety of tools to traverse your environment and then pivot, including using phishing and stolen credentials to obtain access and adding backdoors to maintain that access and leverage vulnerabilities to move laterally. We can see these attacks more clearly when we break them into three smaller, more consumable portions. Namely, the initial access phase, the breach escalation and the results. Figure 27 has a breakdown of the Action-Asset combinations that we see during different steps of the attack. When looking at Figure 27, we see the clear leaders for the initial access—a great deal of hacking servers and an almost equal amount of unknown actions. In terms of hacking, 9% of incidents involve Exploiting vulnerabilities and 8% involve the Use of stolen credentials. When we examine only our incidents that contain the exploitation of vulnerabilities, we find those vulnerabilities are largely exploited via Web applications (Figure 29). In addition, we see some User devices being directly targeted, and we also observe Phishing in roughly 6% of cases. Phishing provides just another means of ingress, either to get a set of usable credentials or to deploy a payload on a user system. Malware is largely distributed via email and often comes in the form of Microsoft Office documents (see Figure 30). This makes sense when you consider that most of these documents now have the ability to run code on the client system, which is extremely useful if you're an attacker. Admittedly, there are many cases in which we do not know the exact means of entry the attacker used. However, these pathways of Exploiting vulnerabilities, using stolen credentials and Phishing are very similar to previous years' findings, and let's face it, they are straight out of InfoSec 101. This again demonstrates the importance of the fundamentals. Once attackers have access to your environment, they will typically look for ways to escalate privileges, maintain persistence and locate paths to move across the organization to achieve their ultimate goal, whatever that may be. For those ATT&CK aficionados out there, you may be thinking this sounds like we're talking about a big chunk of that matrix. Well, we are. While we have a higher view of the incidents, we do not always have the telemetry required to find out exactly what techniques were used. However, below we discuss some of the additional hacking techniques and malware capabilities that we can track. Malware that maintains command and control (C2) access to the system was witnessed in about 5% of incidents. Also present are the more typical types of malware that profile hosts, scan networks and (a local favorite) dump passwords. Lastly, just in case you thought the 2010s were behind us, we even found a handful of crypto miners in this dataset. There were not enough for us to confirm that they are back en vogue, but definitely enough to confirm that certain parties still consider compromised servers as free real-estate from which to mine. With such a high reliance upon the installation of malware across this pattern (either in the form of Ransomware, backdoors or payment card skimming malware) we shouldn't be too surprised when we find servers that have illicit software installed as the most common combination of Attribute and Asset. The second most common is the exfiltration of data, and rounding out the trio is the loss of availability, aka rendering your data unreadable. These top three describe the final steps associated with many of these attacks quite well—attackers find a way to install their payload across the organization, steal data and then encrypt the systems on their way out. Ransomware continues to be a major threat for organizations of all sizes and industries and is present in 24% of breaches. Of those cases, 94% fall within System Intrusion. While Ransomware has increased only slightly this year, it is so ubiquitous that it may simply be a threat that we will always have to protect against—91% of our industries have Ransomware as one of their top three actions. To understand how these attacks occur, it is often useful to look at the top Vectors for the actions. In this case, the most common ways in are Email, Desktop sharing software and Web applications (Figure 31). Email as a vector isn't going away any time soon. The convenience of sending your malware and having the user run it for you makes this technique timeless. The next most common vector, Desktop sharing software, makes sense, since these breaches and incidents frequently leverage some means of accessing a system. What better way to do that than by using a built-in tool such as RDP or a third-party version to provide the criminal mastermind a nice GUI?,As we DBIR authors groggily awoke from our hyperbolic slumber to start collecting and writing about all the major happenings in the cybersecurity world, we saw yet another major cybersecurity event had slowly played out after the cutoff of our data collection. This occurred first in 2020, with SolarWinds, and history has repeated itself in 2021 with Log4j, opening what seems to be a Pandora's box of vulnerabilities. However, there is one advantage to waiting—we get to watch as the dust settles and provide an objective analysis as to what actually occurred. There was a great deal of uncertainty and complexity surrounding the incidents involving the Log4j vulnerability. One of which was the fact that no one really understood the full scope of the breach as it was not simply in one software product but was actually in a library used by numerous applications and programs (both purchased and open sourced.),A quick recap of the event is perhaps warranted to refresh everyone's memory. The vulnerability was disclosed in late November 2021, and within a few days the first exploitations began to appear. The vulnerability, given the designation of CVE-2021- 44228, was given a whopping criticality score of 10. By the end of December, 0.003% of the scanning activity captured by honeypots were actively poking and prodding for this specific vulnerability. While that number might seem small, the velocity was rather striking, with more than 32% of all Log4j scanning activity over the course of the year happening within 30 days of its release (the biggest spike of activity occurred within 17 days, as Figure 32 shows). This velocity is an interesting comparison versus organizations' median time to patch, which is currently 49 days for critical vulnerabilities, a number that has stayed relatively consistent over the years. However, it may not have been as big of a disaster as many predicted. When examining the DBIR incident dataset, we actually saw a decrease, we actually saw a decrease of vulnerability exploitation leading to incidents and breaches, with Log4j being mentioned in 0.4% of our incidents (just under a hundred cases). However, when examining these cases, we found that Log4j was used by a variety of actors to achieve an assortment of different objectives, with 73% of our cases involving Espionage and 26% involving Organized crime. Given the nature of the vulnerability, allowing remote code execution, we predictably saw a lot of malware activity associated with it, such as Backdoors and Downloaders to pull in additional hosts. Finally, in about 26% of the cases, we saw the exploit of Log4j being leveraged as part of Ransomware attacks, which only goes to show that attackers will leverage whatever beachhead they can get. Based on some of the vulnerability scanning data we analyzed (as in the good folks scanning for vulnerabilities, not the bad ones) we found that vulnerable Log4j showed up in 8% of organizations. And in other somewhat surprising news, we also found that there was a greater percentage of Log4j installations that were end of life (EOL) with 14% of organizations, even if they weren't actually vulnerable to Log4j explicitly. Lastly, 22% of the organizations had multiple (i.e. more than one) instances of the Log4j vulnerability in their systems. This underlying vulnerability in a dependency has brought back the discussion around having a software bill of materials (SBOM). You may think that SBOM is a term kids are throwing around in between their "no caps" and "bussin," but its goal is to help organizations understand all the ingredients (software packages and libraries) that go into making the software their organization relies upon. Having a mature SBOM process across their ecosystem enables organizations to quickly identify vulnerabilities within the underlying libraries and help with future remediation processes for something like Log4j. Bearing in mind the breadth of activity found within this pattern and how actors leverage a wide collection of techniques and tactics, there are a lot of safeguards that organizations should consider implementing. A small subset—including the CIS Control Number—is below, which should serve as a starting point for building out your own risk assessments to determine what controls are appropriate to your organization's risk profile. Secure Configuration of Enterprise Assets and Software [4] – Establish and Maintain a Secure Configuration Process [4.1] – Establish and Maintain a Secure Configuration Process for Network Infrastructure [4.2] – Implement and Manage a Firewall on Servers [4.4] – Implement and Manage a Firewall on End-User Devices [4.5],Email and Web Browser Protection [9] – Use DNS Filtering Services [9.2],Malware Defenses [10] – Deploy and Maintain Anti-Malware Software [10.1] – Configure Automatic Anti-Malware Signature Updates [10.2],Continuous Vulnerability Management [7] – Establish and Maintain a Vulnerability Management Process [7.1] – Establish and Maintain a Remediation Process [7.2],Data Recovery [11] – Establish and Maintain a Data Recovery Process [11.1] – Perform Automated Backups [11.2] – Protect Recovery Data [11.3] – Establish and Maintain an Isolated Instance of Recovery Data [11.4]Account Management [5] – Establish and Maintain an Inventory of Accounts [5.1] – Disable Dormant Accounts [5.3],Access Control Management [6] – Establish an Access Granting/ Revoking Protocol [6.1] – Require MFA for Externally- Exposed Applications [6.3] – Require MFA for Remote Network Access [6.4]Security Awareness and Skills Training [14],Since we are hot on the subject of ransomware, we thought it would be interesting to revisit the breach impact data provided by our partner, the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). When we last reviewed this data in the 2021 DBIR, we found that 90% of the incidents reported to the IC3 had no financial loss result, but for the remaining 10%, the median amount lost was $11,500, and the range of losses in 95% of the cases were between $70 and $1.2 million. In reviewing Figure 33, of the incidents with loss, the calculated median more than doubled to $26,000, and the 95% range of losses expanded to sit between $1 and $2.25 million, putting that upper bound in scarier territory if you are a small business. The FBI did find that only 7% of the incidents had losses in this case, so it's not all bad news. Now, before any one of you makes a snarky quip about inflation and the base rate of the economy, here is the unusual part: When combining the paid-out transactions to the threat actors on the same time period, we get a much smaller median—$10,000 (Figure 34), and this median is actually less than the two previous years when the DBIR team has had access to this dataset. What this suggests is that the overall costs of recovering from a ransomware incident are increasing even as the ransom amounts are lower. This fact could be suggesting that the overall company size of ransomware victims is trending down. Even though the amounts requested by the threat actors would be smaller for those smaller companies—they want to get any money they can—the added costs of recovering their IT infrastructure under a backdrop of likely technical debt would spike their overall losses. This is conjecture, as we don't have the company size data and not all complaints have the associated transaction value data in this specific dataset. Even so, this is a result we have been expecting to see due to the increase of automation and efficiency of ransomware operators. Regardless, it's fair to say that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, so we cannot emphasize enough the need of having a plan and/or incident response resources at the ready ahead of your next unscheduled encryption event. Though insiders have indicated that it could have gone up to 11. Feel free to make that inflation joke now. This sentence was famously said by a man who flew a kite with a key in a thunderstorm. Makes you think. If you are already a Verizon customer, we have several options to help you get the support you need. Choose your country to view contact details. Existing customers, to your business account or . These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information. These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. We use both third party and first party cookies for this purpose. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance. These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then some or all of these services may not function properly. 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