Update, October 2026: Windows 10 support ended on October 14, 2025, and paid Extended Security Updates Year 1 for business PCs ends October 13, 2026. For current dates, costs, and a store-by-store plan, read our Windows 10 Extended Security Updates action plan for dealerships. Microsoft has announced that support for Windows 10 will end on … Read more
Dealerships face challenges when it comes to securely receiving customer files. Often, employees ask customers to send files via text, email, or other unsecured methods. This will violate the new FTC Safeguards Rule’s regulations regarding the secure transfer, storage, and restricted access of Personally Identifiable Information (PII). However, there’s an easy solution to this problem … Read more
As the incidence, severity, and sophistication of today’s cyber threats continues to grow, the appropriate use of multi-factor authentication (MFA) is becoming increasingly important. Add to this that new government regulations – like the FTC Safeguards Rule – now requires that businesses implement MFA. The result is a lot of confusion, inefficiency, and quite frankly … Read more
The cyber liability insurance market is in turmoil. Insurers found themselves exposed to a significant increase in the volume and severity of ransomware attacks that they didn’t foresee. As a result, cyber insurers have experienced record losses. This has led to a hardening of the cyber liability insurance market where insurers are now providing less … Read more
For businesses of all sizes, the threat and financial impact of a cyberattack is rising. Many businesses are looking to cyber liability insurance to help. But the increasing demand for cyber liability insurance, and a tightening supply, has resulted in soaring premiums and a stricter approval/renewal process. For instance, according to Marsh’s November 2021 Cyber … Read more
A recent Marsh & McLennan report states that cyber insurance rates could rise as much as 50% in the next 3-4 years. They also report that since 2018 the number of cyber events has grown 150% and there have been more than $20 billion in ransomware claims. Ransomware frequency and severity is leading to an … Read more
Before we get into what a SOC (pronounced sock) is and why every dealer should have one, it’s important to first consider the following which was reported in IBM’s 2020 Cost of a Data Breach Report: On average, from the time a breach begins, it takes about 207 days just to detect the breach. It … Read more
According to a study by the International Data Group, 69% of businesses are already using cloud technology in one capacity or another. Is your dealership one of these businesses? The cost of purchasing, owning and operating on-premise software applications can be a major drain on a dealership’s IT budget. Most significant are the costs associated … Read more
Coronavirus has heightened our need to rethink and retool the way we operate our businesses. The reality is that things are very different – and they are unlikely to ever return to the way they were in the past. We can either do something about our new reality or we can stick our heads in … Read more