Category: cybersecurity

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Your Clients Don’t Need More Software. They Need Better Business Outcomes.

Accounting professionals spend a lot of time thinking about technology inside their own firms. They automate repetitive tasks, modernize workflows, and try to help their teams get more done with less friction. That matters. But it is only half the opportunity.

You already understand how our clients’ businesses work. You see the financial information, the reporting gaps, the approval bottlenecks, the internal controls, and the places where people are holding a process together with spreadsheets, email, and sheer memory. That perspective puts accountants in a powerful position—not to become the client’s IT department, but to help connect technology decisions to real business results.

Start With the Problem, Not the Product

Too many technology conversations begin with a product demo. I think that is backwards. Before anyone starts comparing applications, we need to understand what is actually getting in the way.

Where is the same information entered more than once? Which reports take too long to prepare—or arrive too late to be useful? What work depends on manual follow-up, email, spreadsheets, or one employee’s memory? Where do errors, delays, and approval bottlenecks keep showing up?

Those questions open the door to much better conversations. The answer may involve document management, payroll, billing, expense capture, reporting, workflow automation, system integration, cybersecurity, or responsible use of artificial intelligence. But the category of software is not the starting point. The business problem is where you start.

Match the Solution to the Client

A solution can be technically impressive and still be completely wrong for the client. Cost matters. Complexity matters. Existing systems, staff capability, security requirements, available resources, and risk tolerance all matter. The goal is not to recommend the newest tool. It is to recommend an appropriate tool that the client can realistically adopt, manage, and use.

This is also where scope and trust become critical. Accountants should be clear about where advisory guidance ends and implementation begins. When a project requires deeper expertise in integration, cybersecurity, configuration, or deployment, bring in qualified specialists. That is not stepping away from the client relationship. It is protecting it.

Start Small, Assign Ownership, and Measure

Big transformations sound exciting. They also carry big risk. A better approach is to identify one meaningful problem, define the result you want, and create a focused improvement initiative.

Give the initiative an owner, a realistic timeline, an approved budget, appropriate access controls, staff training, and a clear way to measure success. Then look at the results: Did it save time? Reduce errors? Speed up reporting? Improve visibility? Remove a recurring frustration? If it delivered the promised improvement, build from there.

This Is Where Accountants Can Create More Value

Clients need more than efficient accounting. They need better information, stronger processes, fewer handoffs, and technology that helps the business run better. Accountants can help them get there because we understand both the numbers and the operations behind them.

Do not start by shopping for software. Start by asking one client where work consistently slows down, gets duplicated, or depends on manual follow-up. Define what better looks like. Solve that problem well. Measure the result. Then take the next step.

Your clients deserve technology that works as hard as they do. Partner with Noobeh to build an IT foundation they can count on.

Make Sense?

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The Rise of AI in Small Business Operations

Three professionals discussing holographic data displays in an open office environment

AI is no longer just a big-business advantage. Small businesses are adopting it quickly to save time, streamline everyday work, and help their teams get more done, not replace them. For companies trying to do more with less, that appeal is hard to ignore.

Depending on the study, AI adoption among small businesses is estimated anywhere from 58% to 89%. The common thread is clear: business owners are using AI to automate repetitive tasks, boost productivity, and free up employees for higher-value work. Generative AI is especially gaining traction, with usage now nearly double the 2023 rate.

Here’s what the latest research tells us:

  • U.S. Chamber of Commerce: Generative AI is becoming mainstream for small businesses. Nearly 60% now use it (more than twice the 2023 rate) and 82% of AI-using businesses also added employees over the past year.
  • JPMorgan Chase Institute: Newer businesses appear to be moving fastest. The institute found that 2025 startups reached 10% AI adoption within their first six months, showing how quickly AI is becoming part of the modern startup toolkit.
  • Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Voices: Adoption is high, but deep integration is still a work in progress. While 76% of small businesses use AI, only 14% have fully built it into core operations.
  • ICIC Research: The benefits are showing up inside the workplace, too. More than 60% of owners say AI has improved employee productivity and job satisfaction, though data privacy and limited technical expertise remain real hurdles.
  • OECD Discussion Paper: For smaller enterprises, AI can be a practical way to compete, innovate, and stretch limited resources further, especially when adoption is tied to clear business goals.

Taken together, these findings point to a simple but important conclusion: AI adoption is no longer about whether small businesses should experiment with the technology. It’s about how they can use it thoughtfully, securely, and strategically to create real business value.

Noobeh can help you prepare your systems and data for AI. After all, even the best AI tools can’t deliver meaningful results if your processes are unclear, your workflows are inconsistent, or your data is disorganized.

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J

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The Key to SMB Success: Cloud Adoption for Resilience

Business resilience used to mean backup supplies and emergency plans. Today, it means being able to adapt quickly when supply chains stall, customer expectations shift, staffing needs change, or cyber threats escalate.

For small and midsized businesses, that kind of adaptability can feel out of reach. Resources are limited, and every technology decision has to prove its value.

The good news: resilience does not require enterprise-sized budgets. It starts with creating the flexibility to pivot when circumstances demand it.

Flexibility Is No Longer Optional

SMBs are used to doing more with less, but many still rely on technology built for predictability. Legacy systems, fixed infrastructure, and disconnected applications can turn small changes into major projects.

Cloud services change that equation by helping businesses enable users, migrate workloads, optimize operations, and scale capabilities as needs evolve.

Whether supporting remote work, scaling collaboration tools, or strengthening security, the cloud helps SMBs respond faster without rebuilding their technology foundation each time something changes.

Resilience Starts with Options

Resilience is about preserving the ability to respond. The more options a business has, the easier it becomes to make thoughtful decisions under pressure instead of scrambling for temporary fixes.

  • Scale resources up during busy seasons and back down when demand stabilizes.
  • Enable employees to securely access systems and applications from virtually anywhere.
  • Deploy new tools, applications, and services faster.
  • Strengthen backup, recovery, and continuity strategies.

In practical terms, flexibility creates breathing room. When you are running a business, breathing room matters.

The Human Side of Cloud Adoption

Cloud flexibility isn’t just about infrastructure. It helps employees stay productive, teams continue serving customers, and business owners spend less time reacting to technology constraints.

No one starts their small business with a plan to troubleshoot a server problem at 10 p.m. Technology should support the work that moves the business forward—not compete with it for attention.

Cloud Adoption Doesn’t Have to Happen All at Once

Cloud adoption can happen in phases. The best place to start is where the value is most immediate – maybe in the area of collaboration, security, backup, remote access, or application modernization.

This approach turns cloud adoption from a one-time project into a practical business strategy aligned with real priorities, measurable outcomes, and a realistic pace of change.

A More Resilient Future Starts with the Right Foundation

Cloud flexibility won’t remove uncertainty, but it can change how the business faces it… from reacting under pressure to responding with confidence, agility, and control.

For SMBs, resilience is no longer just about surviving disruption. It’s about building the flexibility to keep serving customers, protecting momentum, and growing stronger no matter what comes next.

Don’t Wait Until Disruption Forces the Decision

If your technology environment is slowing your ability to adapt, act before the next disruption exposes the gap. Identify where flexibility would make the biggest difference first, whether it be for remote access, security, application modernization, backup, or business continuity and recovery.

Do not wait until outdated systems limit your options. Connect with Noobeh’s team today to explore cloud solutions that fit your business goals, budget, and pace of change. Let’s make your business a resilient one, capable of handling whatever comes next.

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J

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AI and Cybersecurity: Don’t Trust, Always Verify

Faster, cheaper and more scalable

The advancements in artificial intelligence are reshaping the landscape of cybersecurity, with AI now the single biggest force in the network. AI can discover vulnerabilities faster, it can execute highly scalable automated attacks, and it can help malware adapt and change to avoid detection or gain new capability. In cybersecurity defense, AI is used for real-time threat detection, and it facilitates automated response and triage capabilities, too. But part of the trouble comes from within, where companies are increasingly deploying AI tools without properly securing them, creating entirely new risks for businesses to consider.

The internet is run by machines

Human users versus hackers is no longer a model that applies when it comes to internet security. AI and bot traffic is growing far faster than human user traffic, and automation has given way to AI-driven fraud, account takeovers, credential stuffing and scraping and more. Large-scale attacks are far easier and cheaper to deploy, allowing a literal explosion of bots and automated traffic – machines running machines – across the internet.

You are the product

Free games aren’t really free. Even what seems to be a harmless activity can become a conduit of valuable data, conducting surveillance and recording information. Individual bits of data may not have great meaning, but in aggregate it might. The telemetry gained from devices and applications provides location information, networking and proximity data and more. The exchange of convenience or enjoyment for security and privacy is a well-known tradeoff that bad actors exploit continuously.

Identity is the new attack surface

It used to be that cybersecurity focused on the devices – the endpoints which represented the way into the network. Endpoint security is essential, yet it is the user identity which is the vulnerable element. It has been said that bad actors aren’t hacking systems any longer, they’re just logging in. This means that stolen credentials drive the majority of system breaches. Breaking into and highjacking active sessions, bypassing MFA challenges, and performing other identity-based attacks is now forcing a shift toward continuous authentication and a completely Zero Trust (never trust, always verify) security model.

Cybersecurity has never been easy, but it is harder than ever now that AI is involved. There’s a market out there for enabling the bad guys, like cybercrime as a business model. It’s organized and scalable and terrifying. More than ever before, cyber risk is tied directly to business risk, making security something far more than just IT.

Make Sense?

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Preparing Your Business for Technology Outages

There is a lot of discussion today about how our children are growing up in a world where high technology is simply part of life and lifestyle.  I even read an article about how people are evolving because of the availability of information; evolving to the point where we no longer store and retrieve information, but store information on how to get information.  The article cited an example of someone who couldn’t recall the name of an actress in a movie they had seen, so the immediate response was to search for the answer on Google.  In the past, people relied upon memory and found various ways to mentally associate and store information so it was able to be recalled.  Now, there’s an app for that.

Are we losing our ability to effectively store and recall information?  Are we forgetting how to do things before we had technology to help us?  It might even make one wonder about how technology-dependent society has become. Consider the ruins of past civilizations where seemingly impossible structures are found. These structures cause questions about the technology available at the time as we wonder how they came to be.  The knowledge was there at some point but is now lost to time.

Is your business at risk from a similar fate?  Loss of business institutional knowledge and operational intelligence is often a problem, especially as a business grows. Too many companies fail to consider critical issues such as knowledge management and sustainability.  Finding ways to capture business knowledge and protect it is essential in every organization, whether small business or large enterprise.

Small businesses are often centered on an owner who started the operation, and who just knows how things are done.  The primary goal in this situation is to capture that knowledge and turn it into process.   Only through this approach may a business begin to reduce its reliance upon a single individual, a critical step in creating both sustainability and continuity in the business. In larger enterprises, process and structure are essential to keep the various parts and participants moving in the same general direction and toward the common goal.

Once those processes are established, generally using technology to support or facilitate them, is that the end of the task? 

Many businesses believe that establishing software-supported workflows and standard processes is sufficient to keep the company operating. If a major system or technology failure occurs, workers are left standing around unable to get their jobs done.  In the worst cases, there isn’t anyone in the business who really understands how to pull things back together or there is no longer access to electronically stored information necessary to continue operations. 

How would you handle things if your systems – your computers and software and systems – were no longer available to you?

While GPS and autopilot systems can bring tremendous efficiencies to the process of flying, they also can give a false sense of security that encourages complacency. If something goes wrong, the autopilot will adjust and the computer will tell you where to go, won’t it?

Here is where technology has the ability to distract pilots–and entrepreneurs–from asking themselves if they’re both focused on and capable of solving the right problems. inc.com

Every business must consider how they would address a severe information technology outage and should take steps to protect and preserve business knowledge so that there is some hope of recovery from such an event. 

Mendelson Consulting and the Noobeh cloud services teams help businesses implement efficient workflows, consistent and effective processes, and technology to secure, support and maintain operational readiness. No matter how redundant the tech is or how thorough the planning is, there is always a possibility of an outage. Owners and managers should understand how to continue operations and handle business in the event the technology fails unexpectedly.

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J

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Phishing, Cybersecurity and Your Small Business

Phishing can have a significant and often devastating impact on small businesses. Unlike larger organizations, small businesses typically have fewer resources to dedicate to cybersecurity, making them an attractive target for cybercriminals.

Small businesses can be impacted by phishing and other types of attacks in ways that might not have been considered before. Here are some of the more common ways that phishing attacks can impact the business:

Financial Loss
Phishing attacks often result in direct financial losses due to funds being stolen, fraudulent payments being made, and ransoms being paid. Cybercriminals often use phishing emails to trick employees into transferring money to fraudulent bank accounts, and attackers may impersonate legitimate vendors or clients to request fake payments. Worse, phishing emails can be used to deliver ransomware, locking up or encrypting critical systems or data until a ransom is paid.

For small businesses, even a single financial loss can be catastrophic.

Data Breaches
Phishing can lead to the compromise of sensitive business information or customer data, such as customer personal information or payment details, employee credentials or other private information of the employee, or business trade secrets and other proprietary business data. Data breaches can easily result in legal liabilities, fines, and damage to the business reputation.

Reputational Damage
When a phishing attack exposes sensitive customer information or disrupts services, it erodes customer trust. This can lead to clients taking their business elsewhere and makes attracting new customers harder. It could also impact vendor relationships, causing partners to view the business as a weak link in the supply chain.

Operational Disruption
Cyber-attacks, including phishing attacks, can disrupt business operations and cause numerous problems. Ransomware or malware delivered through phishing emails can render IT systems unusable, causing loss of productivity. If employees lose access to critical tools, files, or data, there will be delays in work and projects. Businesses also must divert time and resources to recover from attacks, taking away from regular business operations and revenue-generating activities.

Why Small Businesses Are Often Targeted
Small businesses are rich targets for cyber-attacks, especially phishing, because they often have weaker defenses compared to larger enterprises. Often made up of a few trusted employees, small businesses are attacked in ways that exploit trust and personal familiarity. Due to many small businesses having weaker cyber-defenses, attackers can find high payoffs in financial rewards or valuable data with a single successful phishing attack.

Noobeh Helps Businesses Protect Themselves
Every business should teach their employees how to recognize and report phishing emails, and MFA (multi-factor authentication) should protect all accounts, but human beings can only do so much, so it makes sense to implement tools that can put additional intelligence behind your services and defend your systems to help keep the problem from ever getting to your users.

Our team at Noobeh recommends and provisions Microsoft Defender for Office 365 to block phishing emails and messages with malicious links and content. Advanced email security helps reduce inbox spam and blocks messages from spoofed senders, which helps prevent users from interacting with bad emails and potentially exposing protected information.

Email protection is only part of the needed coverage. Noobeh also recommends having strong endpoint protection solutions to detect and prevent phishing-related malware and other attacks. Microsoft Defender for Endpoints does this, working seamlessly with our remote monitoring and management and your other Microsoft services to provide a higher level of protection for the business.

By understanding the risks and taking proactive measures, small businesses can minimize the impact of phishing attacks and protect their operations, reputation, and customers.

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J