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Something Smells Phishy – How to Protect Yourself and Your Customers from Cyberattacks When Working from Home

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You can’t avoid them by social distancing. You can’t kill them with disinfectant wipes. You can’t even see them under a microscope. They’re the cybersecurity threats spawned by malicious hackers taking advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Cyber criminals have long used major news events as prime opportunities to take advantage of society’s collective fear and need for critical information. While it is a necessity under current conditions, and likely to remain a necessity in both the short and long-term future, the work from home dynamic creates a very opportunistic situation for hackers and phishers. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has addressed the significant rise in coronavirus-related phishing attacks.  

The combination of companies rushing to get employees connected,  traditional office workers now working remotely, and businesses not properly protecting themselves with a complete Work-From-Home (WFH) solution has left workers (and their data) more vulnerable than ever. 

Here are some recommendations for those of you wondering ‘how can I protect myself, my organization, and my customers from cyber attacks’:  

Build a Complete Work From Home Deployment  

The urgency to work remotely has caused many decision makers to pull the trigger on “quick fix” partial solutions that enable rapid remote work. Often, an initial work from home setup lacks critical components that leave gaps in connectivity, security, or the physical environment itself. A full work from home solution is comprised of multiple pieces – mobile threat defense, unified endpoint management, email security, multi-factor authentication, identity and access management, and secure VPN. Help your customers consider these areas by asking what their current WFH deployment looks like, and helping them identify the missing pieces. Having these technologies in place lays a solid foundation for securing an entire company, it’s data, and that of it’s employees.  

Lookout for Scam Emails 

Coronavirus-themed phishing emails can take many different forms. Cybercriminals are sending emails designed to look like health advice notifications, workplace policy announcements, and even stimulus check confirmations. During this period, people should take extra care. Encourage your customers to stay alert. Something all your customers can do is to add a header banner alerting the recipient that the email came from outside of their organization. Of course, if you are managing their email services for them, you should do this on their behalf. Here’s a link to a simple process that works with Office 365. Online consumers can stop cybercrime before it happens by checking the email sender’s address and attached links without opening them. Avoid all requests for money transfers or sensitive information without talking to the person to verify it. Be on the lookout for spelling errors, generic greeting like “Good Afternoon Sir,” and urgent requests. 

Keep Work Data on Work Computers 

It can be tempting to use your personal computer for work while you’re home, but this is a risk for both you and your employer. Most likely, your organization has an efficient IT team that’s installing regular updates, running antivirus scans, and blocking malicious sites. It’s uncommon for these same protocols to be followed when using your personal computer and unfortunately common for a loved one or a child to accidentally open or click on a link that they should not have clicked on. For example, if malicious codeforce-installs a key-logging software on your unsecure computer, a hacker can easily obtain passwords to your company’s most sensitive business systems. So, when talking to your customers, be sure to ask them what their physical desktop setup is from home, emphasize the importance of utilizing work computers in place of personal ones, and offer them guidance on the desktop accessories that can help increase productivity. Moreover, a dedicated LTE Connection for an employee’s work computer can help eliminate potential threats from network attacks. If a home network were to be compromised, having a dedicated LTE connection on the work computer would complete mitigate the threat to any corporate data.

As the latest news about COVID-19 evolves, so does the threat of phishing attacks that exploit it. Companies seeking to protect themselves should consider these recommendations to help better spot scams as well as advance phishing defenses that could minimize the number of attacks making their way to inboxes. To take next steps on deploying solutions that can help your customers protect against phishing attacks, reach out to 3Eye.    

3 Do’s and Don’ts of Solution Provider Marketing in a Crisis

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The world is a strange place right now. Solution providers and their customers are being forced to change their behavior. The coronavirus is altering the way we engage with customers, putting a stop to traditional forms of marketing like tradeshows and customer visits. Buyers were already trending toward digital media as their preferred route of communication when making a purchase, but now they have no alternative. Even for us in the IT channel, who live in the digital domain, this is a great challenge.  

As the normalcy of working from home settles in day by day, solution providers must attempt to strike the right chord with their customers if they choose to venture into digital marketing in a quarantined world. I am sure everyone has received their fair share of cringeworthy, tone-deaf emails throughout the last few months. I have also seen creative, unique promotions that genuinely entertained me or helped me solve a problem that otherwise would have been ignored. The channel can be a difficult medium to navigate digitally as a marketer in general, but now it is more complicated than ever. Here are some tips on what to do (and not do) when marketing during the coronavirus outbreak: 

1. Do: Be helpful and supportive 

The best thing a solution provider can do right now is provide something of substance to help their customers who are in need. This could come in many forms: identifying which of your vendors offer extended no-cost licensing during this crisis, providing critical solutions that are essential to healthcare institutions or improve one’s ability to work from home, or just being educational and informative when messaging to customers. Make sure you first identify what your company innately can do to help, then allow that answer to influence your tone and overall digital presence.   

2. Do Not:  SELL! SELL! SELL! 

Now is not the time for aggressive selling. Offers that ignore the present circumstances entirely and go straight to all-caps promotional offers come across as completely tone-deaf and inhumane. Customers are more likely to respond to a message that acknowledges the world we are all currently living in, as opposed to one that ignores it entirely to push a product. 

3. Do: Build a sense of community 

There is one thing that all of us have in common right now – our everyday lives are much different than they were two months ago. Solution providers have an opportunity to relate to customers by embracing our collective change. We can learn from consumer brands like NIKE and IKEA, they have been successful in creating a feeling of togetherness by acknowledging the circumstances and incorporating personality into the content they produce during quarantine. This is one area that the IT channel is uniquely positioned for. For many solution providers, there is no shortage of “partners” out there to work with – hardware and software vendors, distributors, and customers across a vast variety of industries. Lean on this network of channel partners for collaboration in videos or highlight specific individuals to give your promotions a more personal feel.    

4. Do Not:  Schedule ahead and forget 

The easiest mistake to make when content planning is now more critical to avoid than ever before. With how rapidly things are changing, it is important for solution providers to be flexible and adapt to the environment around them. Content plans that were made pre-2020 must be altered and traditional activities must be replaced. Do not hesitate to make proactive changes – you may have allocated MDF and Co-Op from your top vendors to support tradeshows, tabletops or lunch & learns that have now been cancelled. Instead of losing those funds entirely, prepare creative ideas for reallocation – video podcasts, online happy-hours with giveaways, or product donations for front-line workers.  

5. Do: Be different and (try to) entertain 

Unique circumstances call for unique ideas. Standing out is rarely a bad thing when it comes to digital marketing. Knowing that the majority of customers are spending hours of every day at home on their phones, scrolling social media or checking email, it’s not a bad thing to try to give them something to smile at and pass the time. Finding the right mix between normal and fun could be the key to unlocking a new audience that could become customers in the long-term. 

6. Do not:  Be cliché 

I have received countless versions of the “Our Response to the Coronavirus” email, and after the first two or three I just started deleting them one by one. They typically all have the same common characteristics: too corporate-sounding, too bleak or negative, too many buzzwords and not enough substance. Solution providers should not feel pressured into producing digital content unless they are confident and comfortable in the message they send. Be personable, thoughtful and avoid generic messaging – we’re all bored enough already.   

Solution providers now have a unique opportunity to strengthen customer relationships through creativity. As time passes, digital marketing will play an important role in restoring normalcy to our everyday lives. There is not just one perfect way to do it, but by spending some extra time honing in on what you can do to help, entertain, or bring people together, you can still have an impactful presence in the lives of your quarantined customers.   

A New Normal – Dealing with Disruption at Work

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Disruption. A word commonly used in the tech world that carries a positive connotation regarding the change in status quo. Fail Fast. An expression commonly used in the tech world that embraces failure as a guiding direction, allowing navigation towards success. Pivot. Yet another word commonly used to describe a change in business direction, usually followed by Fail Fast. The above-mentioned have been used for years to help encourage risk-taking and spur innovation but it’s been used as a directive from leadership in organizations that focus on such things. Now, globally, companies are being forced to do so without first having the opportunity to prepare themselves for such a journey. Disruption, in this case, is seemingly terrible. Even moreso, it’s nearly impossible to Fail Fast if you weren’t prepared and never planned for a secondary or even tertiary strategy. It just feels like failure. So, how do you pivot and in what direction do you do so? 

Many companies are now struggling with a directive that forces employees to work remotely when there was not a cohesive plan in place to execute this and there are many items that need to be addressed before being able to do this well. How do your employees remote into a secure connection to transmit sensitive company data? Should everyone have the same access once they do remote in? What’s the best physical setup for an employee to work from home? How do you manage BYOD devices? What do you do about external threats? How do you protect company data? How do you protect against internal data exfiltration? This could all seem very daunting if you’ve never before looked into these topics but there are specific steps you can take to deliver a comprehensive and safe work from home solution. 

According to the Information Technology Laboratory (ITL) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), guidelines have already been established. And while the Guide to Enterprise Telework and Remote Access Security was created nearly a decade ago, these standards still hold true today. Any business can use this guidance as a roadmap to getting their workforce fully functioning while remotely deployed. This publication covers various topics of the remote working environments and remote access, such as VPN, Remote Desktop, Virtual Machines, Authentication, Access Control, Client Device Security, Data Encryption and a summary of recommendations per topic. Failing isn’t foreign to anyone or any company and it’s never a bad thing as long as we use it as a teaching moment, treating it like a tuition payment for future preparedness. Collectively, we can use our failures and misses to push us towards a picture of what success should be. Ultimately, if you’re certain of where you don’t want to be then you’ll have a better idea of where you want to end up.

6 Factors of Channel Success

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The most frequently asked question I hear from vendors is:

What do I need to do to be successful in the channel?

First, some background on what has shaped my perspective. I spent eight years at CDW, with exposure to channel programs from vendors of all sizes. I then started 3Eye, where our focus is on vendors who fall into one of these two categories:

1. “Emerging” – what I define as new or relatively new to selling through indirect channels
2. “Mid-market” – what I define as less than ~$50M in annual channel revenue.

Disclaimer: I’m not going to go into detail on the pros and cons of selling through the channel in this post, rather I’m just going to focus on the characteristics demonstrated by successful emerging and mid-market vendors. For now, if you’re interested in a brief read on the pros and cons of the channel, check out this write-up and stay tuned to this blog a future posting on the topic.

Whether you are selling hardware, software, or cloud services, you need a critical mass of customers who have already bought your product. You’ll need some customers to go on record stating that your product helped them achieve a better business outcome. Before you engage with the channel, you’ll also need a well-defined sales process that is clear and straightforward….and you must be able to translate it into something your channel can easily digest and repeat.

According to CompTIA, “Estimates suggest that 65-75% of IT products and services sold to businesses in the United States are delivered through or influenced by the indirect channel…Channel-influenced sales then equate to $350-400 billion of IT product and service sales in the United States.”

If you focus on the customer experience, many customers prefer to purchase through a channel partner. There is often less friction for your customers to buy through a channel partner, perhaps due to contracts, supplier consolidation, the difficulty of new vendor setup, pricing, or relationships. The channel helps you meet your customers where they are.

With that said, channel partners are not market makers. They are best viewed as demand amplifiers. You have to be able to generate demand that your channel partners can fulfill. Channel partners want to work with established technologies that have defined markets. Many vendors think they don’t need to market through partners, but they are mistaken. You’re going to have to invest in through-partner marketing and demand gen activities. Which leads nicely to my next point…

Like any go-to-market, selling through the channel takes time and money. Signing up resellers is the easy part (and signing up resellers is no small feat). Activating those resellers takes time, money, and a focused strategy. In addition to margin for your channel, you’ll need to invest in programs, to-partner and through-partner marketing, content development, and staffing. If you want to check out our approach, here’s a page that shows how we funnel programs to our partner community.

This should be obvious. However, there are a lot of ambitious sales and business development execs who try to build their own partner networks without executive buy-in. Your executive leadership needs to be aligned with your channel strategy, plain and simple.

Companies that are serious about succeeding in the channel take the time to get their sales compensation plan aligned to a pro-channel model. This is often referred to as “comp neutral” when your sales rep is paid the same commission no matter which channel the deal is sold through. Many channel leaders even create a “channel uplift” where their sales force is paid a higher commission for partner sales.

Some companies transition to a 100% channel model, where all sales flow through their partner network. The bottom line: if you compensate your sales reps more for deals they take direct, it will add a lot of friction to your channel engagement, and often create conflict between your channel and your direct sellers. Your channel partners have a long memory – the perception that you compete with them is a very tough one to overcome. Take the time to plan your sales compensation model now, with the channel in mind.

Just like the 50/50 raffle at the Friday night ballgame, you must be present to win. You have to engage with your partner network. Capturing mindshare is an ongoing battle. Like Woody Allen said, 80% of success is showing up. Of course, aligning with your channel partners’ strategies, bringing the right enablement tools and knowing how to engage across the organization all helps too. But it starts with being around.


In Summary
These strategies have been used by channel leaders both large and small to grow their business. Channel success, while not easy, is not a mystery – embracing these concepts will increase your probability of success.

I hope you found some helpful advice and/or inspiration! I’ll be back with another post soon.

References
CompTIA. (2016, October). 5th Annual State of the Channel. Retrieved from CompTIA: https://www.comptia.org/resources/5th-annual-state-of-the-channel

Why 3Eye?

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When I was asked to write “Why 3Eye?” I really had to think and then collect my thoughts. Not because there wasn’t enough to say, but because there are SO many reasons why I love to work here and why I think others should want to work here too. How do I get all those things down and make it into one cohesive piece for people to read? Well…. I narrowed it down to my top 3.


#1 – Culture
When you think of what you want to find in a new job, culture may not be the first thing on your mind but in truth it can make or break your experience at a company. Culture is defined as the sum of attitudes, customs, and beliefs that distinguishes one group of people from another. The culture makes the company. The culture at 3Eye is unlike any that I have been a part of in my working life history. It is a culture built on hard work, caring about one another, and fun. It is unique, it is special, and it is something that we pride ourselves on and work to preserve with each passing day.

How do we do this? Well, we focus on teamwork, Team Fun, and family. The teamwork comes from collaboration between all departments and transparent and timely feedback in all situations. The Team Fun comes from activities and potlucks that are planned by E2, AKA myself and my awesome co-chair, Frosty. Potlucks take place in our cafeteria and are often themed with the time of year or national holidays. They are known for way too much food and maybe a game or two. The activities have been things like trivia night, bowling, and visiting local attractions, such as the bird sanctuary. And then we have family; family may be mentioned last here but it doesn’t come last to anyone at 3Eye. We believe that there should be a balance between work and family. Family is important and should be treated as such. 3Eye is a place that is excited about your child’s soccer game, your significant other’s promotion ceremony, and even your dog’s visit to the vet…and we don’t want you to miss those things. You don’t find that outlook everywhere.


#2 – Industry
3Eye is a value-added distributor of mobility and cloud solutions. Confused? I was too at first. What does that even mean? Mobility is the quality of being mobile or moving around. We don’t sell the computer, tablet, or phone that you or your company uses but we do sell all the other parts that make it awesome. Hardware to mount and protect it, antennas to enhance the connection, software to keep it connected and programs to keep your information safe. What good is any of that equipment nowadays if you can’t move around with it? One of the things you can guarantee with technology is that it is ALWAYS changing. So why not work in an industry that is always working with the next best thing? It is never dull, it is growing rapidly, and there is always something new and exciting around the corner.


#3 – Growth
3Eye is growing, rapidly year over year. You should work here because you would be joining a company that is still small but does BIG things. There is a chance for upward mobility and the ability to try new things. We focus on not just the job, but career development. We want to train you to do your job the very best that you can and if you set your sites on another job here we want to help you attain that too. We see your success as our success and your happiness as ours. Our team is our most valued asset and we strive to have our actions show that.

I really could keep going, and if you decide to apply for one of our openings now or in the future I would be glad to share even more with you. You should go to our careers page and check out the positions we have open right now. We would love to hear from you!

Beadle Lake Road

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The first time I came across 3Eye, I wanted to be the next Eminem.  No kidding.  It was May of 2015, I had just graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in Advertising and I was looking for my first real job in my field.  But more importantly to the 2015 version of me, I had just finished my third live performance in three months as a rapper, and I was having a blast.  

As long as I can remember, I’ve always loved music.  I grew up in a music-obsessed household – some of the fondest memories of my childhood include listening to the Beatles with my dad or singing my lungs out to Kelly Clarkson in the car with my mom.  American Idol was a weekly holiday in my household.  I started writing songs when I was in middle school, and the habit continued into high school and beyond.  When I got to college, some of my friends started making hip hop beats and my rap career began.  It was never my main focus in life, but it was an absolute blast to be up on stage with a microphone and a room full of family, friends and strangers.

So back to 2015.  I’m fresh out of college, not entirely sure where the road of life is going to take me.  I loved music, but I wanted to get into Marketing.  I had a job offer waiting in Chicago, but I wanted to move to the Kalamazoo area to be close to family.  That’s when I came across 3Eye, and I was invited to interview at their office in Battle Creek for a part-time position.

My first impression of 3Eye was: “This office is small and these people are awesome”.  They had around 8 employees at the time, and a small office space they affectionately called “The Wolf Den”.  But after a short conversation with Conor, our CEO and Danielle, the Marketing Coordinator at the time, I was hooked.  They talked about the fun work environment, the family atmosphere their employees felt, and the incredible opportunity for growth both as a company and as an individual at 3Eye.  I left the interview hoping two things – that I made a good impression and that I could talk my way into a potential extension into a full-time offer.

I went 1 for 2.  A few days later, I was offered a 3-month long contracted position as a Marketing Coordinator at 3Eye.  As much as I wanted to work here, I wasn’t comfortable moving across the state for a job that could have me interviewing again in a few short months.  So I turned it down.  I applied for more jobs.  I did more interviews.  I recorded new songs.  I played more shows.  Shortly after, I accepted a full-time marketing position at a different company.  I moved to Kalamazoo.  But I didn’t forget about 3Eye, and in the back of my mind, I hoped our roads would cross again.  

A year and a half later, a friend of mine sent me a text.  “Hey, didn’t you interview here?”  It was a screenshot of a job listing at 3Eye.  

Marketing Coordinator.  3Eye.  Battle Creek, MI.  

Full-time.

I jumped on it.  A couple phone calls and a few weeks later, I was offered the position, and I happily accepted.  Now, I’m a lot different than the 2015 version of me they had met.  I no longer want to be the next Eminem, but I do still write songs and jam with friends when I have the time.  I have more experience and better skills that a good Marketing Coordinator needs.  I know where my road is taking me.  

But the new 3Eye is a lot different different than the company I was introduced to in 2015 too.  The staff has more than doubled in size.  They said goodbye to The Wolf Den and just moved into a gorgeous new facility on Beadle Lake Road.  They have brand new offices and desks, a cafeteria and a workout room.  They have a Wellness Committee that plans healthy potlucks and team fitness activities.  They even have a new website and logo that I was lucky enough to work on.  

But the best part about 3Eye isn’t the place itself.  It’s the people.  Everyone takes the time to get to know you.  Conversations are genuine and everyone treats each other like family.  You don’t have to hide your personality, and if there’s something you have an interest in, whether it’s professional or personal you are encouraged to go after it.  And as it turns out, I’m not the only employee at 3Eye who loves music.  That’s why when you open up your calendar to book a conference room or reserve the workout stations, your choices are:

  • Push It (the workout room)
  • Purple Haze (our purple-walled conference room)
  • November Rain
  • Dire Straits

If you walk through the halls, you can find a mural of Jimi Hendrix hanging in Purple Haze.  You might hear music coming from the speakers in Conor’s office.  That’s how this blog that you’re reading came to be called Channel Orange.  

Outside the new office, there’s yellow caution tape tied to a bunch of trees alongside the river that runs nearby.  Our Wellness Committee has been working on marking a path for a walking trail that we are all going to help clear this Spring.  We have some walkers, some runners and some bikers and we’re hoping it will be used by everyone.  It starts right at this bridge that crosses the river, and it loops around to the left before making a full circle and winding all the way back to the start.  I imagine it’s not much different than my personal path or 3Eye’s path as a company these past few years.  And they all lead back to Beadle Lake Road.