What are some of the key benefits of using outside IT Consulting vs in-house staff? • Increased flexibility is helpful for small businesses – for many SMBs it is inefficient and cost prohibitive to hire full–time staff when implementing new technology initiatives. Given the fact that many IT teams are overwhelmed and understaffed they tend to operate reactively rather than proactively to new IT initiatives. Solution: Hiring experienced cybersecurity consultants allows you to only pay for what you need and avoid the overhead costs associated with having in-house IT staff. This increased flexibility can be critical to addressing the growth pangs of start-ups and SMBs. • Ensures access to proven expertise – in order to stay relevant in a highly competitive industry, iQ-Cyber has invested heavily in Azure Cloud certifications for all technical staff. We can also provide SMBs with a range of services, including advice, estimation, competitive analysis, development of an IT corporate strategy and implementation of cloud and IT on-premise systems • Continuously tracking government and industry standards and regulations – iQ-cyber consultants can also help your business keep up with recent developments in your industry. For example, if there are any changes being made to government regulations or industry standards that affect how they operate their business. This array of things can have a major impact on how well an organization performs overall; but only if your employees are aware of them in time and are able to adapt accordingly. • Highly cost-effective - SMBs can save money and time by hiring an IT consulting service. SMBs might not have the overhead costs to support a full-time IT department to conduct long-term strategic IT planning or complete projects necessary to stay level with changing technologies. In contrast, iQ-Cyber complements your in-house IT team by providing the bandwidth and expertise necessary to appropriately devise a strategic IT plan that jumpstarts or enhances your organization’s digital transformation journey.

What’s Your Desired Cybersecurity Posture? To answer that question, you must first assess your risk to vulnerabilities and threats and then decide the level of cybersecurity protection needed for the risk you’re willing to accept. As new security risks, vulnerabilities, and threats emerge, it’s important to create a holistic process of regularly monitoring and maintaining your cybersecurity posture. Adopting a more holistic approach that takes items like existing policies or systems, risk-analysis programs, workplace culture, and employee education into consideration is highly recommended. Identifying all points of vulnerability will help the organization to be proactive rather than reactive to cybersecurity threats. By understanding the gaps that create weaknesses in your organization’s current cybersecurity state, you can begin to establish a plan to harden and secure your environment. Awareness of your cybersecurity posture is vital because that posture affects security-related decisions. Without understanding your posture, you may end up making security investments that are unnecessarily expensive, ineffective, or not required at all. Additionally, choosing not to establish a plan can lead to a major breach which can cause a loss in revenue and important data, and equally critical, it can ruin your reputation with the public which can be almost impossible to get back.