Meet Mary Borkman, Client Success Manager, UCG Technologies

In 2016 UCG Technologies announced our Enterprise Security Training partnership with KnowBe4. It quickly became obvious that this program was key to the safety and security of our clients' data and indeed, their entire organization. Our clients' data is protected by UCG's Enterprise Cloud Backup, DR, and H/A. 

But when it comes to cyber security, human error is the number one cause of security breach. It’s imperative to ensure that all employees are educated and up to speed on how to spot ransomware attacks BEFORE they click on a dangerous link.

As you know, cyber security attacks are an epidemic; the hackers have a plethora of nefarious methods to steal your data. That is why we made the decision to hire a dedicated Client Success Manager to focus solely on Enterprise Security Training. 

Mary Borkman, Client Success Manager
UCG Technologies

We are pleased to introduce Mary Borkman, Client Success Manager for UCG Technologies.

Please join us in welcoming Mary to the UCG Technologies team! Give her a call or drop her an email for details on how to take advantage of this no-charge added value for existing and new UCG clients. She can be reached at 216.520.1333 #145 or mborkman@ucgtechnologies.com.










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How MSPs Fail Their Clients

Do Your Employees Recognize Phishing Emails?

We recently conducted an email phishing test for one of our clients, a midsize retailer. Employees received an email disguised as coming from their human resources department. It accused them of accessing prohibited sites on the job and threatened them with termination. Employees were instructed to click a link in the email to see a list of prohibited sites they had allegedly accessed.

We were astonished when 48.5 percent of employees clicked on the link, despite the fact that origination address in the email was from an unknown source and the link clearly led to a destination outside the firewall. This may be an extreme example of the susceptibility of companies to the dangers of phishing, but it is by no means unusual. In our experience, between 20% and 45% of employees fall prey to spurious come-ons. And a single click to a malicious site can infect a user’s computer with malware that compromises the entire corporate network.

Many experts believe that breaches are now so common that the issue is no longer whether organizations will be attacked but when. Some data points:

• The Ponemon Institute found that nearly 90 percent of healthcare organizations were hit by a breach in the past two years. Last year’s 80 million-record theft at healthcare insurance provider Anthem reportedly went undetected for nine months.

• Intel’s McAfee Security division reported a nearly eight-fold increase in ransomware attacks over the past year. Ransomware a growing problem; one of our clients was down for four days while they scrambled to pay off an attacker that was holding its servers hostage.

• An analysis of 11 million stolen passwords for cloud services conducted Skyhigh Networks found that just 20 passwords constitute 10.3% of all passwords in use. They include “123456,” which was used by 4.1% of compromised accounts.

• The U.S. Bureau of Labor has estimated that 93% of businesses that suffer data loss from a security breach or disaster within five years.

• Ponemon recently reported that the average consolidated total cost of a data breach is now $4 million.

UCG Adds Cyber Security Training to Cloud Backup

We’ve learned a lot about internal vulnerabilities this year. In January we partnered with KnowBe4, a Clearwater, FL-based security awareness company. The agreement enables us to provide all of our backup and disaster recovery clients with email phishing and exposure tests coupled with online cyber security training for a base number of their employees at no cost. We did this not because it’s profitable be because it’s the right thing to do.

With so many attacks dominating the headlines, we expected that nearly all our clients would jump at the offer of free protection. Surprisingly, only about 20 percent did. We discovered that siloed organizational structures prevented many companies from taking a coordinated approach to security awareness. The people who were in charge of backup and disaster recovery had no responsibility for security. When we were able to tunnel through the organization to find the people who were, they were most receptive to anything that helped increase employee awareness. Unfortunately, finding those people was often like searching for a needle in a haystack.

Technology is Only Part of the Solution

We’ve been in the backup/DR business for nine years, and we compete with many fine companies that provide the best technology: encryption, multisite backup, remote hardware disaster recovery and round-the-clock technical support. But technology is only half the problem. As cartoonist John Klossner pointed out in Computerworld, the finest firewalls, encryption, antivirus software and the like can’t compete against Dave, the accounting clerk whose password is “password.”

Security Training Helps Prevent Phishing Attacks

The good news is that security awareness works. In our experience with KnowBe4, the percentage of employees who are susceptible to phishing emails dropped from 16 percent to 1.3 percent within 12 months after awareness training began. Experts have long agreed that the most serious vulnerability companies’ face is the lack of knowledge of their own people. Security training isn’t difficult or time-consuming. It’s just that many organizations believe its someone else’s responsibility.

Few MSPs are prepared to address this deficit. They have great technology, but they see the security problem as ending at their doorstep. They are failing their customers.

Smart MSPs know that doing business in the cloud is all about partnerships. It’s about taking shared responsibility for customer success and protecting the customer at all levels.

Make Sure You Get the Full Solution

When MSPs come knocking at your door, be prepared to put them through the paces of explaining how their technology protects you. Then ask them what they do about the human side. If you get a blank stare, then proceed with caution. You may be getting only half a solution.

Spreading a Wider IT Net At UCG Technologies - IT Jungle

By Alex Woodie

Selling boxes in the midrange isn't easy. A shrinking customer base, falling margins on hardware sales, and tight IT budgets combine to put the squeeze on even the best-run reseller outfits. For longtime business partner Jim Kandrac, the shift was palpable enough to lead him to rename his Cleveland, Ohio-based company from United Computer Group to UCG Technologies.

It's notable that "computer" is no longer in the name of Kandrac's company. Are computers no longer important to the business? "The word computer is becoming more passé," he says. "They're still important, but they're less important."

In the heyday of the AS/400 and the iSeries, Kandrac's company would make 80 to 90 percent of its revenue from hardware sales. IBM's midrange server was the Golden Goose that kept United Computer Group humming, and put Kandrac's kids through college. But today, hardware sales account for less than half of UCG's revenues. The company still counts on a loyal group of customers in the Great Lakes region, but it's also been forced to broaden its horizons, and today UCG has customers spread across 31 states and Canada.

Serving such a geographically dispersed client base isn't easy. "It's challenging," Kandrac says. "In the old days, when you'd sell, you'd call somebody, make an appointment, and see them face to face. That's fine if they're local, but on a nationwide basis, it's more challenging."

To be sure, the midrange reseller channel has been evolving since the dot-com and Y2K bubbles popped in 2000. UCG has managed to hold its own and maintain share in a stable-to-shrinking market. But competition on hardware deals is fierce, and Kandrac is under no illusion that Power Systems sales will ever be as lucrative as AS/400 and iSeries sales once were, or that UCG will come to dominate the channel.

"We're a boutique firm," he says. "We're not going to be a $200-million business partner. It's not really our market. We're definitely in the midmarket. We've done business with 1,500 companies, and have a core base of 250 or so. We're looking to reach out from that and look at different segments."

As Kandrac looks to the future, he sees new opportunities rising in certain areas. The biggest is cloud-based backup, disaster recovery (DR), and high availability (HA), which today accounts for 35 percent of UCG Technologies' revenues.

Over the past 10 years, UCG Technologies has carved a niche for itself in this market through VAULT400, a backup and DR environment. While the VAULT400 name is going away, the service itself isn't changing. And without the "400" attached to it, perhaps more customers will tap UCG Technologies to protect Windows, Linux, and UNIX servers as well. (The company has supported these platforms with VAULT400 for many years.)

Ten years ago, when you tried to sell a cloud-based solution, people would look at you funny, Kandrac says. But today, people just seem to get it. With that said, the cloud discussion around the IBM i has its particulars.

"The reason for going to the cloud with i is more administrative, and getting it off your plate," he says. "You don't have 10 people in IT anymore. You have four or five, and you want to spend more time on running and supporting your internal applications. If you look at the cost dollar for dollar, it's one thing. But when you start looking at the people and the resources--that's really where the money is saved."

Kandrac is also keen to sell business software--in particular the IBM i-based ERP software from his partner, VAI. The combination of industry-specific software for apparel, durable goods, retail, food, and pharmaceutical companies and cloud-based backup, DR, and HA and VAI's applications gives UCG Technologies an edge, Kandrac says.

Jim Kandrac, President
UCG Technologies

Security training is a new thing for UCG Technologies. Last fall, the company announced that all subscribers to its cloud backup solutions would automatically receive ransomware awareness training from its partner, KnowBe4.

The ransomware epidemic is rampant at the moment, and several of UCG Technologies customers have fallen victim to cyber criminals who trick unsuspecting employees into clicking on links that then encrypt the contents of hard drives. 

"Do we make a lot of money? Not really," Kandrac says. "But I feel it's so critical to protect the data, so we include it. It's a cost. I get it. But there's no magic dust out here we can sprinkle to take care of data."

Kandrac ran into IBM CEO Ginny Rometty at the recent PartnerWorld conference, and came away believing that things like Watson and analytics could have a real future. Whether or not it plays with the IBM i platform has yet to be seen, but the pervasiveness of data is certainly getting to a point where it might.

"I think people have to be creative and ultimately come up with new ideas," Kandrac says. "When big data and analytics and Watson first came out, I wondered if this was new term for business intelligence and whether you run it on spreadsheets or Cognos. I'm starting to sink my teeth more into Watson and the cognitive era, and my eyes are starting to open. I'm a conservative person so I don't jump on the bandwagon, but I see how it can potentially help."

There's nothing on the drawing board at this point, but Kandrac recognizes the importance of being nimble. The stress and toil of the rebranding exercise ("It's like December 8, 1987--the day I started the business--all over again") was a potent reminder that creation and recreation is a never-ending process.

"I need to sink my teeth into something, and sink my teeth into things that are valuable for my client base, and how I can do more with less," Kandrac says. "Our eyes and ears are open."

Reprinted with permission from Guild Companies. Copyright 1996-2016 Guild Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Is Your Network Safe?

Cyber criminals are coming up with more and more sophisticated ways to threaten your security. Your network is only as strong as its weakest link and that is why training your employees in security awareness is crucial. 

Train Your Employees. Protect Your Network.

We have your data protected, but not from "human error”. It’s imperative to ensure all employees are educated and up to speed on how to spot ransomware attacks BEFORE they click on a dangerous link.

UCG now provides the following base value-added service at no additional cost to current and new UCG Enterprise Cloud Backup & DR (formerly VAULT400) subscribers.

1. Phishing test for all active email users.
2. List of users whose email addresses are exposed.
3. Twenty-five users will receive online cyber security training. (Additional training may be purchased for $10 per user plus $2 every six months for maintenance, updates and support. This is a complete managed service.
4. UCG will schedule ongoing phishing tests and training on your behalf.
5. Quarterly reports will be emailed to bring your attention to violators who can then be scheduled for additional online training.

Bottom Line: Your organization is 20 to 40%+ risk of being hit with ransomware. With this training, it will reduce to negligible single digits or eliminate it completely.

Get started with a free phishing test or security awareness training quote! 

800.211.8798 | info@ucgtechnologies.com

Announcing UCG Technologies!

April 2016

Dear Valued Clients and Partners,

One lesson I’ve learned in the 29 years since I founded UCG is that your brand says a lot about not only who you are but also what you want to be. That’s why I’m pleased to announce that:

United Computer Group, Inc. is now

UCG Technologies! 

No new owners or a sale or merger, just the same top quality personnel and engineers our clients have worked with since 1987.

Why the change? And why now?

Well, we’re not just a computer company any more. In the early years, 80% of our sales were hardware related. While we’re still one of the largest independent IBM hardware business partners, our business has grown and diversified.

Today, computers account for less than 40% of our revenues. Most of our business is derived from UCG i Cloud, VAI’s S2K ERP solutions, UCG enterprise cloud backup, disaster recovery, and high availability offerings. And now enterprise security training, but more about that in a moment.

Our rebranding prepares us for the future.

The cloud presents dramatic new opportunities for us to solve customers’ problems in ways that would have been impossible just a few years ago.

For example, I recently had a chance to hear IBM CEO Ginni Rometty describe a vision that IBM calls “cognitive computing.” The presentation energized me because it outlined a new vision of computing powered by the intelligence of technologies like Watson to discover insights and relationships that are too complex for human beings to see.

IBM expects half of all software applications developed three years from now to have cognitive capabilities, up from just 10% today. The possibilities for us to apply cognitive reasoning to make our customers’ enterprise applications more efficient is exciting. Its potential to open up whole new areas of analytical insight is astonishing.

Our new name reflects our bigger goal of being a provider of integrated services that help our customers and manage their IT operations and their businesses more effectively. One example of how we’re making this transition is our new Enterprise Security Awareness Training.

Why Enterprise Security Awareness Training is integral to an organizations success.

Over the past 18 months, several of our clients have been hit with cyber-attacks. Phishing and Ransomware have become some of their most worrisome vulnerabilities. So UCG Technologies has partnered with KnowBe4 to offer free phishing and email exposure tests to our cloud clients. In addition, each Enterprise Cloud Backup & DR client will also receive a 25-user license for Kevin Mitnick’s superb nine course Cyber Security Training program. 

One client that recently took the phishing exposure test got an incredible 48% click rate on the malicious messages sent to employees. Thanks to the free training we’re providing, I believe they can reduce that vulnerability to negligible single digits. 

We want to be your full-service IT partner.

We’re expanding not only our product line but also our geographic scope. In fact, UCG Technologies now has corporate clients in 31 states, Canada, and in Europe. Our phones are ringing and our business is growing in excess of 20% annually, but that doesn’t change the principle that got us here: a firm commitment to complete customer satisfaction.

I’m proud of the team that has guided our growth, but most of all I’m grateful to our customers for showing their faith in us.

Thanks, and here’s to new opportunities ahead!   

Jim Kandrac, President

Power Systems Tech Showcase: The Rising Cost of Security Breaches

by Margarette Burnette 

"If your company faced a cyber attack this year, it could cost $3.8 million. That's according to a new study from the Ponemon Institute, a cybersecurity company based in Traverse City, Michigan. 

The recently released “Cost of Data Breach Study: Global Analysis,” sponsored by IBM, found that cyber attacks are also increasing in frequency."

Read article online here or download PDF. 





What can you do to help protect your company from cybercrime?

The recent Ponemon Institute report states that "Malicious or criminal attacks continue to be the primary cause of data breach. Forty-nine percent of incidents involved a malicious or criminal attack, 19 percent concerned negligent employees, and 32 percent involved system glitches that includes both IT and business process failures."

The importance of a security-minded culture across your business cannot be overstated.

As the result of our recent partnership with KnowBe4, UCG’s VAULT400 BaaS will now include a turnkey managed solution version of their cybersecurity solution suite via remote implementation in less than 90 minutes. The KB4 team has built, deployed, and supported market leading e-learning applications and has deep roots in IT Security.

Scheduled simulated phishing attacks and monthly reports will provide executives the insight they need to maximize training ROI and track security compliance. As an added value, a base number of KB4 users will be included at no additional charge to current and new VAULT400 subscribers.

Free Phishing Security Test

It's important to remember that it's not a matter of IF you'll be hacked, but WHEN.

Sign up for our complimentary Phishing Security Test to find out the level of risk to your business, and how security awareness training can lessen the chances that you'll be the victim of ransomware.

Visit ucgrp.com, call 800.211.8798, or email info@ucgrp.com to learn more.

Nine States with the Most Dangerous Weather

Despite a historically slow start to tornado season in 2015, more than 400 tornadoes were reported in May alone, roughly double the average in recent years. May was also the second most active tornado month since 1950. While some states are more susceptible to violent weather than others, all states could be struck by a natural disaster at any time.

Using data from the National Weather Service (NWS), 24/7 Wall St. reviewed weather-related fatalities from 2010 through 2014. Nationally, 2,950 people died from natural disasters over that time, or fewer than two people per million residents in each of the five years reviewed. In Alabama, 12 people died per one million residents over that time, the most of any state. These are the states with the most dangerous weather.

Tornadoes are some of the most fatal natural disasters. From 2010 through

2014, twisters killed 723 people nationally, or 25% of all weather-related deaths. Oklahoma, the state with the seventh most weather-related fatalities, lies in the heart of Tornado Alley, which runs north from Texas to North Dakota and is the most active tornado region in the world. At least 57 Oklahomans died from tornadoes from 2010 through 2014, 49 of them in 2013 alone.

States outside of Tornado Alley are also susceptible to twisters. Alabama, the state with by far the most weather-related fatalities over the period reviewed, was hit in 2011 with 62 tornadoes in a single day, killing 250 people and causing roughly $3 billion in insured losses. This was the second most costly tornado in U.S. history.

Extreme temperatures — both hot and cold — are another major contributor to weather-related fatalities across the country. Nationally, nearly 600 people died from heat stroke over the five-year period reviewed. Nevada, the majority of which is covered in desert, accounted for a substantial share of heat-related deaths across the country.

Flooding can also cause many fatalities. Flooding particularly impacts northern states such as Wyoming and Montana, where warmer spring temperatures can cause snow to melt faster and overrun riverbanks and levees. Heavy rainfall can also cause floods.

In addition to being deadly, natural disasters are also responsible for billions of dollars in crop and property damage each year. From 2010 through 2014, severe weather resulted in more than $93 billion of damage, the bulk of which was to properties.

In each year from 2010 through 2014, fewer than 600 people died as a result of severe weather. Often, a single, extremely deadly storm can have an outsized effect on a state’s weather-related fatality rate. This was likely the case in Tennessee and Mississippi, which were each hit hard by a single storm over that time, despite having relatively few weather-related deaths during most of the period.

To determine the states with the most dangerous weather, 24/7 Wall St. compiled data from the National Weather Service on total weather-related fatalities for each year from 2010 through 2014. Because many of the numbers are small and susceptible to large fluctuations, our rank is based on the annual average number of weather-related deaths over the five-year period reviewed. Using population figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, we calculated severe weather fatalities per 1 million residents. Also from the National Weather Service we reviewed the total value of damage caused by natural disasters, as well as breakdowns of the kind of weather responsible for the death: extreme temperature, flooding, lightening, tornados, wind, and winter storms.

Do you live in one of the nine most dangerous weather states? 

Find out by downloading the PDF:

 Nine states with the most dangerous weather.  

Source: Alexander Kent, 24/7 Wall Street

Keeping Ransomware Out of the VAULT

by Alex Woodie, IT Jungle

Cyber-criminals are increasingly targeting small and midsize American businesses with ransomware that encrypts the contents of a PC or a server until the victim pays $500, $1,000, or more in untraceable Bitcoin. After several of United Computer Group's VAULT400 customers were hit with ransomware scams, the company decided to team up with the security training company KnowBe4 to teach VAULT400 customers how to avoid falling victim to a ransomware scam.

A ransomware epidemic is spreading across the country, impacting organizations of all shapes and sizes. "Never before in the history of human kind have people across the world been subjected to extortion on a massive scale as they are today," the security software company Symantec says in its recent whitepaper on ransomware.

UCG chief executive Jim Kandrac tells IT Jungle that several VAULT400 customers succumbed to ransomware attacks recently--mostly by clicking on malicious emails sent as part of a spear phishing attack. The compromises didn't involve the IBM i servers or data. Instead, the attacks resulted in the hard drives of Windows PCs and servers being encrypted.

While UCG could have helped the customers by recovering their data from backups stored by VAULT400 (the company backs up up data from Windows servers and other platforms too), most of the victims choose to pay the ransom rather than recover their data. According to Kandrac, the problem comes down to lost time, which is lost money in the business world.

"We can wipe their system and restore the data, but it takes a bit of time--two to three days if they don't have high availability," Kandrac says. "The other thing is, they can pay the ransomware, but if they don't have a Bitcoin account, that can take up to three days to set up."

Kandrac was hesitant at first to get involved. "This isn't our marketplace," he said. "This isn't what we do. But more and more it affected us, and we genuinely felt bad because we've got the data protected, but these guys are getting hit."

The FBI shut down a big CryptoLocker server last year but other ransomware scams remain.

So UCG turned to KnowBe4, a Tampa, Florida, company that specializes in training employees how to identify and not fall victim to the various cyber-scams circulating on the Net. Today, all VAULT400 customers get access to KnowBe4's ransomware awareness training for 25 to 50 users as part of the base subscription.  

Read full article in IT Jungle.

Sign up for a Free Phishing SecurityTest at ucgrp.com/KB4

Related blog post: UCG Partners with Leading Cyber Security Firm KnowBe4

Listen to webinar replay: 2015 State of IBM POWER8 Backup, Disaster Recovery & Cyber Security Webinar, from UCG and IBM Systems Magazine. 

Download PDF: Why Security Awareness Training? Ransomware. That's Why.

Download PDF: Which email addresses are exposed on the internet and are a target for phishing attacks?

Download PDF: Find Out What Percentage of Your Employees is Phish-prone 

Download PDF: Social Engineering Red Flags.

UCG Partners with Leading Cyber Security Firm KnowBe4, LLC

Managed Service cyber security training now included with UCG’s VAULT400 BaaS and DR program

United Computer Group, Inc. (UCG), a global information technology services firm, is pleased to announce a partnership with KnowBe4 LLC (KB4) Tampa Bay, FL, the world’s most popular integrated Security Training and Simulated Phishing platform.

KB4’s solution suite provides both pre- and post-phishing security tests that show the percentage of end-users that are phish-prone. Scheduled security tests keep employees on their toes with security top of mind, and can provide remedial online training in case an employee falls for a simulated phishing attack. The solution suite is based on Kevin Mitnick’s 30+ year unique first-hand hacking experience, and provides tools to better manage IT security problems of social engineering, spear-phishing and ransomware attacks.  

KnowBe4’s CEO, Stu Sjouwerman stated, “We are very pleased to be partnering with UCG and are looking forward to helping manage the problem created by cybercriminals.”

James A. Kandrac, Founder & President of UCG said, “We continuously listen to client needs and cyber security has been on the forefront for quite some time. UCG’s VAULT400 BaaS will now include a turnkey managed solution version of KB4’s cyber security solution suite via remote implementation in less than 90 minutes.”

Scheduled simulated phishing attacks and monthly reports will provide executives the insight they need to maximize training ROI and track security compliance. As an added value, a base number of KB4 users will be included at no additional charge to current and new VAULT400 subscribers. UCG is very selective when adding a new partner. What impressed UCG the most was the experience, focus, continual product updates and unbridled passion for cyber security that KB4 brings to the table. 

Kandrac added, “We have done our due diligence and are pleased to bring this exciting solution suite into the UCG fold. We look forward to a long term partnership with KnowBe4, Stu Sjouwerman and his valued team.”

About KnowBe4

knowbe4.com

The KnowBe4 team has built, deployed, and supported market leading e-learning applications and has deep roots in IT Security. KnowBe4 was founded by Stu Sjouwerman (pronounced “shower-man”), formerly co-founder of Sunbelt Software, developer of VIPRE Antivirus, which in 2010 was acquired by GFI Software, a portfolio company of the Insight Venture Partners Venture Capital Fund in New York and Boston.

Listen to webinar replay: 2015 State of IBM POWER8 Backup, Disaster Recovery & Cyber Security Webinar, from UCG and IBM Systems Magazine. 

Download PDF: Why Security Awareness Training? Ransomware. That's Why.

Download PDF: Which email addresses are exposed on the internet and are a target for phishing attacks?

Download PDF: Find Out What Percentage of Your Employees is Phish-prone

Download PDF: Social Engineering Red Flags.