Cybersecurity guidance for small businesses in Rockland, Westchester & Bergen — ransomware protection, compliance, and practical security steps.
Manufacturing led every industry sector IBM tracked for the fifth year straight in 2026, and ransomware showed up in 61% of manufacturing breaches, the highest share Verizon has recorded for any sector. The reason lives on the shop floor, not in the finance department. Ask a manufacturer in Rockland or Bergen County why a ransomware … Read more
Dark web monitoring genuinely works for what it does, flagging your leaked credentials in criminal marketplaces and breach dumps, but it only catches theft after it happens and misses far more than it finds. Most sales pitches for this service use the same image. Somebody in a dark room, watching your data trade hands in … Read more
Most small businesses still need their VPN in 2026, but Zero Trust closes gaps a VPN was never built to cover, and the right call for most companies is layering the two, not picking one. That question has shown up in more IT reviews this year than it did two years ago, mostly because attackers … Read more
Last updated: August 27, 2026. Reviewed by: Mike Stoveken, Vice President, VJNetworks, 20+ years managing IT infrastructure for small businesses across Rockland, Westchester, and Bergen. MFA stops a stolen password from being enough on its own, but it does nothing about what a logged-in account can touch, or how fast a former employee’s access gets … Read more
Business email compromise cost U.S. victims $3 billion in 2025 alone, and it rarely involves malware. Someone impersonates an executive or vendor by email, creates urgency, and asks for a wire transfer. No virus. No exploit. Just a well-timed lie. Every other threat covered in VJNetworks’ cybersecurity work involves some piece of malicious code somewhere. … Read more
A business password manager needs centralized admin controls, MFA enforced on the vault itself, secure team sharing, and an audit trail. Free personal apps skip all four, and that gap is where small teams get hurt. Chrome remembers passwords. So does Safari. Neither one was built for a five-person team where someone gets fired … Read more
The GLBA Safeguards Rule (16 CFR Part 314) requires most state-registered RIAs to run a written information security program, and even the small-firm exception for under 5,000 clients only waives four of ten required elements, not the rule itself. Two different federal regulators enforce cybersecurity rules on investment advisors. Which one has authority over a … Read more
A denied cyber insurance renewal almost always comes down to one of five gaps: unenforced MFA, partial EDR coverage, backups nobody has actually tested, no written incident response plan, or proof an underwriter can’t verify. Fix those, then reapply. Insurers never used to check much. A short form, an honest “yes” next to multi-factor authentication, … Read more
Cyber insurers don’t treat all MFA the same in 2026. “Enforced” means every account that touches email, remote access, or admin systems requires it, no exceptions, and CISA itself ranks the method you use from phishing-resistant down to SMS, the weakest option on the list. Two different questions get collapsed into one on most … Read more
New York’s 23 NYCRR 500 cybersecurity regulation names insurance agents and brokers directly as covered entities, and even agencies small enough to qualify for the limited exemption still have to file an annual compliance certification, run a risk assessment, and enforce MFA. Most agency owners I talk to have heard of this regulation in … Read more
