The year 2022 will soon be on its way out the door. It became a year full of ups and downs for many small businesses, but it still felt more promising than the past few years in the midst of the pandemic. Many small-business owners used this past year to reevaluate their IT services.

If you own or operate a business, you've probably adapted to a number of changes over the years. As you inch closer to year-end, it's time to figure out what still needs to be done. One of those potential changes might be an upgrade to your network infrastructure.

We use passwords for just about everything. Most of us have to enter a password to get into our computers and then enter other passwords to access our e-mail, social media profiles, databases, and other accounts. Even our cell phones and tablets can and should be password protected.

Students are returning to the classroom now that back-to-school season is officially underway. During the first few weeks, teachers will be reteaching their students the topics they learned in the previous school year to help them regain knowledge they may have forgotten during summer break.

Technology has evolved leaps and bounds over the last 20 years. In fact, in the next few years, the first generation to grow up with smartphones and social media, will join the workforce. It might seem like Generation Z will be the most cyber-secure generation, considering they've always had the Internet and other advanced technologies at the tips of their fingers, but reports are starting to show that this is not the case.

If you’re a business owner, there’s probably a good chance you spent time figuring out the IT needs of your business. It’s not as easy as searching online and picking the cheapest option or the company with the best reviews. The cheap option may not provide the services you need to keep your business at the top of its game, and the best-reviewed business may be too expensive or offer services that are completely unnecessary for your business.

All across the world, hackers are targeting and exploiting security weaknesses and holding data hostage. In May, the Colonial Pipeline was hit by a cyber-attack that disrupted fuel supplies along the East Coast for several days. The company - and the FBI - paid hackers $4.4 million in Bitcoin to regain control of the system.

Online shopping has become more popular than ever before. In 2020, more than 2 billion people bought products or services online. Whether they’re shopping online because it’s more convenient or they’re avoiding going to brick-and-mortar retailers during the ongoing pandemic, more people are turning to online retailers every day.

People don’t usually think about small businesses when discussing cyber security. The media covers breaches in governmental and big-business security in excess. These entities usually have lucrative targets that attract the attention of hackers but are often backed up with an extremely protective network security system that’s difficult to crack.

Data is everything to a small business in this day and age – which means if you lose access or control of your data, you lose everything.

As dramatic as that might sound, the data backs that up. According to several sources, 93% of companies, no matter how big they are, are out of business within one year if they suffer a major data disaster without having first formulated a strategy for combating it.