[i3 Newsletter] Cybersecurity and Microsoft Office Price Increase Extension

2 min read

Mar 14, 2022 7:00:41 AM

At i3, Cybersecurity is our highest priority.

You may have heard in the news recently that there is a heightened cybersecurity alert status due to the events taking place in Ukraine (a notice was issued from CISA to assume a “ Shields Up” posture).  We want to make sure that our clients are aware of this increased risk state so you can be extra vigilant in recognizing phishing emails, avoiding suspicious links/attachments or other anomalous activities.

Among the current attacks taking place is one that impacts firewall equipment that many of our customers use.  The attack was reported on Feb 23 and is identified as “ Cyclops Blink”.  This was reported to affect WatchGuard firewalls which had their administrative management policies open to the outside internet.  Our standard deployment configuration does not allow open management to the outside internet, so the firewalls we have deployed and configured as such are not vulnerable.

As a precaution, we have performed the recommended audit of all firewalls (under our management) to check for the vulnerability/breach condition and have found that none were affected.  Additionally, we are rolling out the new firewall patches which were released this week that introduce some additional security checks to better protect these devices and your networks.

If you purchased your WatchGuard firewall from i3 Business Solutions – and we’re not actively managing it – you should engage with our team to confirm its risk posture.

Please reach out to us or your account manager with any questions relating to this.

Microsoft Office Price Increase Extension

Secondly, the Microsoft Office 365 March 1 Price Increase delivered via the New Commerce Experience (NCE) has been extended to March 14 due to Microsoft’s internal processing challenges.

Why i3 for Microsoft licensing?

Productivity assistance & integration
Cybersecurity best practices including:
- 2-Factor authentication
- Defender ATP – Advanced Threat Protection
- Fundamental cybersecurity best practices settings

Lastly, i3 Business Solutions is vigilant:

We know, from our 2022 survey that over 30 of you responded to, that your highest priority is “keep our technology running – up time & help me when I call in for help.”
We have a responsibility to you for technology risk & vulnerability management.
- Although, to be clear, you, our client, the business owner, CEO, or executive OWN the technology risk & vulnerability.
- We, i3, are the stewards of your technology risk & vulnerability.

Our Fortress Cybersecurity Services is the extension of our Reliability R3 services.

We implore you:

2-Factor / Multi-factor authentication on all M365 accounts + Cloud Services.
Defender 365 / Advance Threat Protection enabled with best practices on all accounts