Cybertron Blog

How much does your business depend on technology to keep running? For most, the honest answer is completely. As that technology gets more complex, more companies want a full IT department to manage it, but a small business rarely has the budget to staff one. That is the gap managed IT fills. Instead of waiting for things to break and paying for emergency fixes, a managed service provider keeps your technology running and heads off problems before they hit. Here are four ways that pays off.

Flexibility You Can Count On

Your needs change. Some months are quiet, others you are growing fast or taking on a big project. A managed provider scales with you, adding support and capacity when you need it and dialing back when you do not, all for a predictable monthly cost. You get the right level of IT for where you are right now, without hiring and firing to match.

Backup for Your In-House Team

If you already have someone handling IT, a managed provider does not replace them, it backs them up. Your internal person gets to focus on the projects that move the business forward while the provider handles the routine monitoring, maintenance, and after-hours coverage. For a one-person IT shop, that is the difference between drowning and getting ahead. And it means the work does not stop when your person is out sick or on vacation.

Dealing With Your Vendors

Anyone who has spent an afternoon on hold with a software or hardware vendor knows how much time it eats. A managed provider takes that off your plate, acting as the single point of contact who deals with your technology vendors for you. One call to us instead of five calls to five companies, and your team gets their day back.

A More Efficient Operation

This is where it all adds up. Systems that are monitored and maintained run faster and break less. Problems get caught early instead of becoming outages. Your people spend their time on real work instead of fighting their tools or waiting for a fix. The cumulative effect is a business that simply runs smoother, which shows up directly in what you get done and what it costs you.

That is the heart of what we do. We give small and midsize businesses the IT muscle of a full department, the flexibility, the coverage, the vendor wrangling, and the day-to-day care, for a fraction of the cost of building it in-house, with security built in. If your technology is more headache than help, book a call and we will show you what managed IT can do.

The password is not the protection it once was. Attackers now use software that guesses thousands of passwords a second, brute-forcing their way into accounts faster than ever, and they buy stolen passwords by the millions from old breaches. Relying on a password alone to guard your business is a losing bet. The fix is two-part: better passwords, and a second factor behind them. Here is how to do both.

Start With Better Passwords

Passwords still matter, so get them right. A strong one is long and complex, a mix of letters, numbers, and symbols, and not a word or date anyone could guess. Just as important, every account needs its own unique password. Reusing one across sites means a single breach hands attackers the keys to everything. Nobody can remember dozens of strong, unique passwords, which is exactly what a password manager is for. It generates and stores them so you only have to remember one.

Then Add a Second Factor

Here is the part that changes the game. Two-factor authentication, also called multifactor authentication, requires a second piece of proof beyond your password, usually a code from your phone or an app. The beauty of it is simple: even if an attacker steals or guesses your password, they still cannot get in without that second factor sitting in your pocket. It turns a stolen password from a disaster into a non-event, and it blocks the overwhelming majority of account-based attacks.

Turn It On Everywhere

The good news is that two-factor authentication is widely available and usually free. Most email, banking, and business apps support it, you just have to switch it on. The few extra seconds it adds to a login are nothing compared to the cleanup after a compromised account. Turn it on everywhere it is offered, starting with email and anything that touches money or sensitive data.

The Easiest Big Win in Security

Of all the things you can do to protect your business, combining strong, unique passwords with two-factor authentication is one of the cheapest and most effective. It closes off the single most common way attackers get in. If you have not turned it on across your accounts yet, that is the move to make this week.

We help businesses roll out strong authentication everywhere it counts, the right way, as part of managed cybersecurity, so it actually gets used instead of skipped. If you want to lock down your accounts before someone tests them, book a call.

Data security is not something to take lightly, as plenty of businesses have learned the hard way. The frustrating part is how many serious breaches trace back to simple, fixable mistakes. They are common enough that not fixing them is genuinely foolish. Let us look at one of the most infamous failures in modern history, then at the handful of fixes that would have prevented it, and most others like it.

The Equifax Disaster

Between May and July of 2017, the credit reporting giant Equifax suffered a breach that exposed roughly 148 million records packed with the most sensitive personal and financial data imaginable. What makes it a cautionary tale rather than just a tragedy is the cause. Attackers got in through a known vulnerability in a piece of software Equifax used, one that already had a patch available. The fix existed. It just had not been applied. A company with the resources to do anything left a documented, patchable hole open, and 148 million people paid for it.

How to Avoid the Same Fate

The Equifax story points straight at the fixes, and they are not exotic.

Patch known vulnerabilities promptly. This is the big one. Industry research has long found that the overwhelming majority of exploited vulnerabilities, by some counts around 99 percent, were already known, with fixes available, when the attack happened. Attackers are not mostly using secret zero-day exploits. They are walking through doors you forgot to lock. Keeping software patched on a schedule closes most of them.

Require multifactor authentication. A stolen password is only useful if it is enough to get in. Multifactor authentication means it is not, blocking the vast majority of account-based attacks for very little effort.

Limit access. Give people and systems access only to what they need. When something does get compromised, tight access controls keep the damage contained instead of company-wide.

Bring Your Employees Along

The last piece is your people. Most attacks still start by tricking a person, so a team that can spot a phishing email and knows to verify unusual requests is one of your strongest defenses. Train them, make security part of how things are done, and they go from your weakest point to your first line.

None of this is complicated. The hard part is doing it consistently, which is exactly what falls through the cracks in a busy business. We keep systems patched, accounts protected, and teams trained as part of managed cybersecurity, so the known holes get closed before anyone finds them. If you would rather not become the next headline, book a call.

The cloud is a genuinely useful tool. Anywhere, anytime access to your apps and data, delivered as a service you budget for monthly instead of buying outright, with a lot of the support and security handled for you. It sounds like the perfect setup for businesses of every size. And it often is. But not always. Plenty of businesses have found that the cloud quietly cost them far more than they expected, and the reasons are worth understanding before you assume more cloud is always the answer.

The Cost of Easy Scaling

One of the cloud's best features is also where the bills get away from you. Scaling up is effortless, just a few clicks to add more storage, more users, more capacity. That convenience makes it just as easy to keep adding without anyone watching the total. Services get switched on and never switched off. Capacity gets provisioned for a busy season and left running all year. Little monthly charges pile up into a number that would have made you flinch as a single invoice. The flexibility is real, but so is the meter, and it never stops running.

Going All-In Without Asking the Question

The bigger trap is treating the cloud as the default for everything. For some workloads it is exactly right. For others, the math is different. A system you run constantly and predictably can sometimes cost far less on hardware you own than on a meter that charges every hour. Data that has to stay on-site for compliance reasons may not belong in the cloud at all. Moving everything up by reflex, because that is what everyone seems to do, can leave you paying premium rates for things that would have been cheaper and just as good closer to home.

The Real Answer Is Deliberate

None of this is an argument against the cloud. It is an argument for choosing on purpose. The smart approach is to look at each workload and ask where it actually belongs: in the cloud, on hardware you control, or some mix of both. That deliberate, hybrid approach almost always beats an all-or-nothing reflex on both cost and fit. The businesses that get burned are the ones who never asked the question.

Because we both run cloud environments and build and operate hardware ourselves, we can give you a straight answer on where each part of your setup should live, with no incentive to push you one way. If your cloud bill has crept up and you are not sure it is buying you the right things, book a call and we will help you sort out what belongs where.

There is no question that a small business benefits from the right technology. The trouble starts when a business bites off more than it can chew and watches costs spike for tools it never really needed. The smart move is to resist the shiny-object temptation and prioritize what you need over what you want, building profitability that funds the next improvement. Here are three adoptions that reliably deliver a real return for a smaller business.

Managed IT Services

For a small or midsize business chasing maximum value per dollar, Managed IT Services are one of the best moves available. Instead of waiting for things to break and paying for emergency fixes, you get your systems monitored, maintained, and secured for a predictable cost. That means less downtime, fewer surprises, and access to expertise you could not afford to hire full-time. The return shows up as the problems that never happen and the hours your team gets back.

Hybrid Cloud

You do not have to choose between keeping everything in your own building and moving everything to the cloud. A hybrid approach lets you put each workload where it actually belongs. Things that need speed, control, or have to stay on-site for compliance reasons run on hardware you own. Things that benefit from the flexibility and reach of the cloud go there. Done deliberately, hybrid gives you the strengths of both and the weaknesses of neither, and it is often the most cost-effective answer for a growing business. The key word is deliberate: the right mix is a decision, not a default.

Bring Your Own Device

Letting employees use their own phones and laptops for work, a BYOD setup, can save real money and keep people productive on tools they already know. The catch is security. A personal device with access to company data is a risk if nobody is managing it. Done right, with clear policies and the right controls separating work data from personal, BYOD delivers the savings without opening a hole. Done casually, it is one of the easier ways for data to leak.

Adopt With a Plan

The thread running through all three is intention. Technology pays off when you choose it to serve a real need and implement it properly, not when you chase whatever is new. Pick the moves that fit your business, do them well, and let the returns fund the next step.

Helping small and midsize businesses make exactly these calls, what to adopt, how to deploy it, and how to secure it, is the heart of what we do. We run Managed IT, design the on-prem and cloud mix, and lock down the security around it. If you want technology that earns its keep instead of draining it, book a call.

Social distancing and quarantines are the norm for now, but social isolation does not have to be. Technology makes it easy to stay close to the people who matter, even from the couch. Here are some of our favorite ways to connect online while we are all stuck at home.

1. Gaming

What did you expect from the company behind CLX Gaming rigs? There is a game for every age and every device, and most let you team up or compete with friends near and far. Kids can keep hanging out with their classmates while school is closed, from Fortnite to Words with Friends. If you have kids in your life, jump in and play with them. A quick word on safety: online games mean online strangers, so it is worth reviewing good online-safety basics with younger players. There is no such thing as too much safety info.

2. Online Chess

Great for ages four and up. Several services let you play chess with friends online, with voice and text chat so you can talk while you play, and many offer free trials. Do not know how? There are lessons built right in. No better time to learn.

3. Tour a Virtual Museum

Plenty of world-class museums offer virtual tours for free. Start a voice or video call, pull up the same museum, and wander the galleries together, discussing the art with none of the crowds. It is a surprisingly nice way to spend an afternoon with someone far away.

4. Take a Class Together

From chemistry to art, free and low-cost online courses cover just about everything. For the kids, several education sites have launched free at-home learning programs with daily lessons while schools are closed. Sign up for the same course as a friend and keep each other on track.

5. Learn a Language

Languages stick when you actually speak them, so grab a friend and practice together. Many public libraries, including the Wichita Public Library, offer free online language courses with a library card, and there are free apps and communities of native speakers you can practice with from anywhere.

6. Volunteer Virtually

You can help a good cause without leaving home. Lots of non-profits need remote help, and doing it with a friend or a small team keeps everyone motivated. Plenty of sites list virtual volunteer opportunities you can browse and sign up for together.

7. Work Out With a Buddy

Turn on a video call, pick a free workout video, and sweat through it together. A workout buddy on screen is still a workout buddy, and it makes it a lot harder to skip.

Stay Close From a Distance

We may be apart for a while, but staying connected is easier than it has ever been. Pick an idea, reach out to someone, and make a plan. Have a favorite of your own? Drop it in the comments. Stay safe out there.

Cameron Tredway knew about collegiate Esports powers such as the University of North Texas and the University of California, Irvine. He didn’t plan on competing against them. Tredway’s place in the world of competitive Esports changed quickly last semester, and he is pleased to see Wichita State jumping in to a growing fusion of sports

Cybertron attended the Kansas State Fair, dubbed The Largest Classroom in Kansas, for the second year in a row to assist students from all over the state in The Scholastic Press Corps. The Scholastic Press Corps was developed to provide high school students with an opportunity to put their journalism and video production skills to

The Golden Age of Radio is approaching its centennial, so it may not surprise you to learn radio reaches 93% of Americans today according to News Generation. Radio’s continued impact depends on one element that has driven the success of radio broadcasting for over one-hundred years: technology. Of course, today’s computer-driven digital radio technology is…

KMUW Technology Fund was established by Cybertron with a generous gift of top quality technology to support expanded news coverage

We had a blast at the “Science Saturday – A Fundraiser for Science Friday Live!” out at the WSU Experiential Engineering Building on June 25th. We hosted a VR station with a couple Oculus systems in the CybertronPC Lab where guests had fun riding virtual roller coasters. Best of all though was the custom KMUW

Check this walk through of our CLX Ra system! HotHardware said “The CLX Ra is Cybertron’s biggest and baddest (in a good way) Egyptian-themed, CLX full tower gaming system.” Read more at http://hothardware.com/revie…/cybertron-clx-ra-system-revie…

CybertronPC donates $2.5 million to Wichita State The local computer maker on Tuesday donated to the university’s school of engineering hundreds of computers and five years of tech support. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. WSU President John Bardo described the gift as “phenomenal” and said it gives the school’s engineering students “the best computing capacity anywhere in the United…

By: Dan Ackerman While not as well-known among deep-pocketed PC gaming enthusiasts as brands such as Alienware or Origin PC, CybertronPC has been knocking out highly customizable gaming PCs for years, and was best known as a place to get a real a la carte gaming desktop built from exactly the case and components you…

We are proud to announce that CybertronPC is a finalist in the running for Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce Small Business of the Year!

Plugging high-end gaming desktop hardware into a laptop may seem like a crazy idea, but CybertronPC has pulled it off. It’s hard to believe the CLX Osiris 17 and 17x PCs from CybertronPC are actually laptops when you read the basic specifications. Don’t expect much battery life from these desktop-replacement laptops, which have 17-inch screens.…

Marco Chiappetta ,  Forbes Contributor I am the longtime Managing Editor at HotHardware.com. I am also a freelance writer whose work has been published worldwide, in a number of PC and tech-related print publications. I have been a computing and technology buff since my early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later…

A special thanks to the Wichita Regional Chamber of Commerce Exposure 2015 team for voting Cybertron’s booth “Best Technology”.

Daniel McCoy Cybertron International Inc. of Wichita on Tuesday announced it will buy another local technology firm, The Bill Guy Technology Solutions. The deal will be completed in February. A purchase price was not released. And Cybertron may not be done with its purchases, either. Company CFO Shadi Marcos says in a news release that…

By Bill Wilson The Wichita Eagle A 13-year-old Wichita computer company is growing, moving into a new 30,000-square-foot South City location as its custom PC business expands. CybertronPC, a Wichita company since 1997, has moved to 4747 S. Emporia, just off 47th Street South near Braum’s, with an eye toward a larger market share, said…