Phantom Technology Solutions Blog

Malware can be scary to talk about, but it’s a topic that you should be intimately familiar with, or at least aware of, if you want to keep your business running. These days, you can’t do much of anything online without potentially exposing yourself and your organization to a security risk. Today, we want to explore the different types of malware you might encounter and why it’s so important to take action today to limit their influence on your business.

Long story short: it depends.

As unhelpful as that answer may seem on the surface, it really is the truth. There are just so many variables that different businesses will exhibit that ultimately impact how their budgets should be shaped. For instance, both a small mom-and-pop shop and a massive corporation need cybersecurity, but the scale of their respective investments will vastly differ.

Let’s go over how to budget appropriately for your cybersecurity protections and concerns. 

Even with ransomware making headlines last year, 2024 saw one of the most interesting trends yet: decreased payments. Last year alone, ransomware payments decreased by hundreds of millions of dollars, even with large-scale attacks and a massive $75 million payment by one victim. Progress? Well, maybe.

While social media has given us the capability to communicate beyond anything we’ve seen since the popularization of the Internet itself, this isn’t all a good thing. These platforms have made it easier for people to scam others, after all, making it necessary for everyone to take their personal cybersecurity and that of their company even more seriously.

Let’s talk about how these scams commonly work.

Security is one of the more worrisome parts of running a business, and it doesn’t matter what size your organization is either. Whether you’re a small startup or a large enterprise, security is still going to be paramount. But it doesn’t have to be confusing; in fact, we have three simple strategies you can start implementing today to help you move your security infrastructure in the right direction.

You made it! This is the last part in our five-part series. You are just a few short steps away from drastically improving your overall cybersecurity. We wanted to thank you in advance for going through these steps, and if you are finding this article for the first time, be sure to click on #Password Guide at the bottom of this page to see all of the other posts in the series.

Our last three posts have covered how to create strong passwords, how to secure a primary email account for all of your online accounts, and how to set up multi-factor authentication. In this part, we’re going to discuss setting up a password manager and going through the process of documenting all of your accounts into that password manager with all new, extremely secure passwords.

This is part three of a five-part series on managing your passwords. You can view the other published posts by scrolling down and clicking #Password Guide at the bottom of this page. 

In this part, we’re going to cover setting up Multi-Factor Authentication to add an extra layer of security to your primary email and your other accounts.

In our last blog post, we covered the importance of having good security hygiene and why passwords need to be strong and unique. We also provided some tips for creating unique, strong passwords that are easier to remember. You’ll be using that method to create a couple of strong passwords, but ultimately, you’ll be using a password manager by the time you finish this 5-part guide.

In part two, we’re going to do some general housekeeping to make sure that all of your important online accounts are tied to a single email address, and we’re going to walk you through the steps to secure that email account.

We tend to focus on business technology, but this time, we wanted to put together a guide that would help, well, everybody! It doesn’t matter how low-tech you are, chances are you still have to manage a handful of online accounts and passwords.

As it turns out, there really isn’t a big difference between protecting yourself as an employee working in an office compared to protecting yourself as an individual. Everyone needs to have strong cybersecurity habits because the entire world has built itself around going digital. Like it or not, this is how it is.

The goal of this guide is to walk you through some steps that will make maintaining your security and protecting your identity so much easier. It will take some time and effort at first, but once everything is set up and working, staying safe will become a much easier process.

We encourage you to share this article with everyone you can, from students to those enjoying their retirement. We all have friends and family who scrawl their passwords on a loose ream of paper, or who might even have worse habits that they think are perfectly healthy but are putting them at risk. This guide might help them reduce the risk of expensive, frustrating problems.

If someone sent you this link, hello! Nice to meet you! We hope you find this guide useful, and we’d love to get feedback from you if you have any!

We wanted to switch things up for today’s article and try writing a daytime soap opera instead of our usual blog. Please feel free to read the following with dramatic string music in the background and all dialogue as whispered, bellowed, or forced through clenched teeth by a cast of longstanding characters.

The populace of quiet Oak Falls… so many simply trying to make an honest living, doing their best just to exist. Unfortunately, even the size of this peaceful little coastal town isn’t enough to keep out modern threats, making many of Oak Falls’ residents… The Innocent Targets.

The new year brings exciting opportunities—but unfortunately, it also brings new chances for hackers and cybercriminals to cause trouble. That’s why it’s so important to stay alert and prepared for the cybersecurity threats we might face in 2025.

Imagine one of your employees gets a phishing email. Would they recognize it and report it, or would they fall for it? With phishing training, you don’t have to guess—you can make sure your team knows exactly how to handle these situations.

It’s harder than ever to keep your data safe these days. Everyone needs to be careful online, but the constant security steps can feel exhausting when you’re spending hours on a computer every week. Unfortunately, this is the new normal. If you don’t stay on top of your cybersecurity, it can be really hard to keep your business’ tech safe.

People interact with more organizations and companies online today than ever before. Many of these organizations collect personal information to help them improve their operations or to build an outside revenue stream. These business-first initiatives can put individual data at risk. Today, we’ll discuss what you need to know about data privacy.

Physical security is just as important as cybersecurity, and digital security cameras are a great tool to help maintain spaces. Whether you have an office, a retail space, a warehouse, or any other property, a security camera can help you keep tabs on a place in real-time and reduce liability. Here are three reasons why you might consider ditching an analog camera in favor of a digital camera.

McAfee recently released a list of 15 applications the company identified as “predatory loan apps” available for download from the Google Play Store. While steps have been taken to remove them from the platform, we can now discuss how mobile applications can be weaponized if a user is not careful.

Let’s start by discussing the current issue of SpyLoan apps.

Businesses need tools to help their employees collaborate, and thankfully, there has never been a better time to find the ideal solution that works for your specific needs. Since so many individuals work remotely these days, developers have prioritized collaboration, and all businesses reap the benefits of this trend. One of the keys to effective collaboration is file sharing; nowadays, it’s never been easier to do it easily and efficiently.

Unfortunately, cybersecurity is one of the most important topics to consider in today’s business world. A recent survey has shown that the majority of security leaders—approximately 67% of those surveyed—don’t know what caused a cybersecurity incident at their business. This is a shockingly high number that cannot be ignored, so let’s look at why data breaches are so challenging to identify and address.

Zero-trust, an approach to cybersecurity gaining traction in the industry, is perhaps the most effective way to secure your business’ infrastructure. We want to take some time today to discuss how zero-trust came to be and how it compares to today’s cybersecurity threats.