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In today’s fast-paced, technology-driven world, your business can’t afford downtime, security breaches, or inefficiencies caused by DIY IT management. While it may be tempting to “handle it in-house,” there are many compelling reasons why partnering with an experienced IT provider like Red Key Solutions is the smarter, safer, and more cost-effective choice.

Here are 12 reasons why companies trust us to handle their IT.

1. Protect Your Time and Focus on Growth

Your time and mental energy are far better spent growing the business—marketing, expanding locations, leading your team, and improving operations—rather than troubleshooting IT problems. Let our experts handle technology while you focus on strategy and success.

2. Your Team’s Time Is Better Spent Elsewhere

While your team may be tech-savvy enough to handle basic issues, not everyone will have the skills—or the time—as your company grows. Networks, firewalls, switches, Wi-Fi systems, and cameras are complex and should be managed by experienced engineers who can solve problems quickly and correctly.

3. Control Admin Permissions for Security

Limiting who has full administrative access to your systems is essential. As you grow, you’ll hire people you may not know personally. Allowing anyone to install software could lead to malware infections, hacking risks, or data breaches—especially if you process payments or store sensitive data. Proper access control and auditing protect your business.

4. Meet Compliance Requirements

If you process credit card payments, you fall under PCI compliance. If you collect personal information in New York, you are regulated by the NYS SHIELD Act (link). A breach without a professional IT plan could lead to liability. Red Key ensures your business is compliant, secure, and audit-ready.

5. Reduce the Risk of Costly Outages

Without professional IT monitoring, issues like power failures, network outages, or malware infections can escalate, causing lost revenue and frustrated customers. We proactively monitor systems to prevent downtime and keep your business running smoothly.

6. Take Vacations Without Worry

If you’re the only one managing IT, vacations and sick days become risky. An IT emergency while you’re unavailable could be disastrous. With Red Key, you have a skilled team ready to handle any issue—so you can take time off with peace of mind.

7. Ensure Business Continuity

Right now, you may be the business. But as it grows, it becomes an independent entity. If you’re ever incapacitated—short-term or long-term—you’ll want operations to continue seamlessly. Partnering with Red Key ensures your business remains functional and valuable, no matter what happens.

8. Access to Enterprise-Grade Tools

We invest in professional-grade IT tools to secure and maintain networks efficiently. These tools are expensive and often not cost-effective for small internal teams. We provide antivirus with active monitoring, patch management, asset tracking, network documentation, and more.

9. Maintain Professional IT Standards

A dedicated IT partner ensures your systems are set up and maintained according to industry best practices—covering security policies, documentation standards, and ongoing improvements to keep your business protected.

10. Avoid “Reinventing the Wheel”

Even the smartest internal IT staff work on a limited number of networks. At Red Key, we work on hundreds. That means faster problem-solving, deeper expertise, and access to specialists in cybersecurity, cloud, automation, and more.

11. Support for Internal IT Teams (Co-Managed IT)

If you have a trusted in-house IT person, we can work alongside them. We provide them with access to our professional tools, resources, and support—empowering them to work more efficiently while we handle the rest.

12. Minimize the Risk of Employee Turnover

Relying solely on one internal IT person is risky—what if they quit, get sick, or become unreliable? With Red Key, your IT support never disappears. We provide stability and continuity regardless of staff changes.

Final Thoughts

Technology is the backbone of your business. The right IT partner not only keeps you secure and compliant but also frees you and your team to focus on what matters most—growth, innovation, and delivering value to your customers.

With Red Key Solutions, you get expertise, stability, and peace of mind—all backed by a dedicated team that works as hard for your business as you do.

Email fraud isn’t just growing… it’s getting smarter, thanks to artificial intelligence (AI). Hackers are now tricking people into giving up security codes and sneaking into business email accounts. Once they’re in, they can run sneaky, sophisticated scams that cost businesses thousands, or even millions, of dollars.

The truth is, a single layer of protection just isn’t enough anymore. To truly protect your inbox (and your money), you need multiple layers working together.

Here are 8 smart, simple ways to protect your business email and stay one step ahead of cybercriminals:

1. Use Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)—but make it stronger
   MFA is when you need more than just a password to log in. But don’t rely on text messages since they can be intercepted. Instead, use an app or special key for stronger protection.

2. Make sure only your trusted devices can log in
   You can set rules so only your company computers and phones can access your email. That way, even if someone steals your password, they still can’t get in.

3. Filter out dangerous emails before they reach you
   Email filters block harmful messages like phishing scams and fake invoices before they hit your inbox. It’s like having a bouncer for your email.

4. Keep an eye on your inbox 24/7
   With round-the-clock monitoring, you’ll get alerted if anything suspicious happens in your account, like someone logging in from a strange location.

5. Train your team to spot scams
   Even the best tech won’t help if someone clicks the wrong link. Regular training teaches your staff what to watch for so they don’t fall into a trap.

6. Back up your emails and files
   If a hacker deletes your emails, calendar, or files, a good backup lets you recover everything quickly without drama or downtime.

7. Stop hackers from pretending to be you
   Tools like DMARC and SPF stop cybercriminals from sending fake emails that look like they’re from your company. It protects your reputation and your clients.

8. Double-check before sending any money
   Wire fraud is one of the biggest scams. Always verify payment details with a quick phone call before sending money. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Bottom Line
Most cyberattacks start with a single email. That means your inbox is the front door to your business and it needs serious protection.

Red Key Solutions provides expert managed IT services to businesses in New York City, Connecticut, Los Angeles, and Florida. We help secure your email systems so you can focus on growing your business with confidence.

Visit us at redkeysolutions.com to get a proposal

Ever had a brilliant idea pop into your head after hours, only to hesitate before hitting "Send" on an email? If you’re like me, some of your best thoughts come outside of typical work hours—when meetings have settled down and the distractions of the day have faded. However, constantly sending emails late at night or over the weekend can make it harder for your team to truly unplug and recharge.

That’s why I’ve made a conscious effort to avoid sending nonessential work emails outside of regular business hours. But what if you still want to write them while the ideas are fresh? That’s where a hidden iPhone feature comes in handy.

How to Schedule an Email on iPhone

If you use the Mail app on your iPhone, you can schedule emails to send at a later time with just a simple trick:

• Long press the "Send" button when composing an email.
• Select a future time for it to be delivered.

It’s as easy as that! This little-known feature has been a game changer for me, helping me stay productive without disrupting my team’s downtime.

Bonus Tip: Outlook Users, You Can Do This Too!

If you primarily use Outlook, you can achieve the same result with the "Delay Delivery" feature. I’ve even customized my Outlook ribbon to include it as a one-click option, making it effortless to schedule messages for later.

So, if you're a “weekend or late-night email catch-up” kind of person, give this tip a try. You’ll maintain your workflow without unintentionally setting an always-on expectation for your team.

Have you used scheduled emails before? Let me know how you manage after-hours productivity while respecting work-life balance!

SERVICE SPOTLIGHT

Red Key is proud to be working with Dialpad.

Dialpad allows you to connect teams, build ROI, and support customers all with one Ai-powered app. Diving deeper, it connects customers to the right person every time. With over 70 integrations, you seamlessly connect all necessary information.

Their Ai Products include customer engagement, sales intelligence and Ai collaboration. Ranging from a wide selection of industries, from small business to enterprise, they have exactly what your business is looking for.

Dialpad helps makes the workday easy. You are connected and set up to reach and support customers all in one app.

To learn more about Dialpad, make sure to click below and check out their website. https://www.dialpad.com/

Red Key is a leading Managed IT firm that is bringing AI to companies in New York City, Westchester County, Fairfield County Connecticut, California & beyond. 

 

 

We have all been there when you are going through life and don't realize you haven’t done a backup of any photos within the last couple of months or even year. For that exact reason, there are methods of automatically backing up you Google Photos Library.

There are two well known existing options that will backup up your Google Photos automatically.

1. Google Takeout: This is used to create backups and prevent against accidental photo deletion. Where some people deter from this option is the backup frequency is every 2 months and requires a decent amount of space in your Cloud storage service. However, this is a great option for an overall backup of your photos library.
2. Gphotos-sync: This is used for automatic daily backups that occur more frequently. Once it is setup, the process of the backup is relatively smooth. What differs this from Google Takeout is that backups are done daily, and not every two months.

A new method that has been designed is PhotoVaultOne, https://photovaultone.com referred to as a carefree backup-as-a-service solution for your Google Photos Library. There is no app installation needed, and 100% SaaS. PhotosVaultOne is also a authorized Google Photos Partner. How PhotosValutOne works is it will take all you Google Photos that are stored in the Cloud and once you sign up, you are granting a limited-access token to photos and videos that are all un your control and can be changed at any time. Once that is figured out, there will be a daily backup that takes place automatically with no interaction from you required. The service console will restore lost content directly back to your Google Photos Library in a matter of minutes. PhotosVaultOne is secure and private by design, simple and powerful and affordable pricing. You will receive a free evaluation for 3 months.

Key Features:

• Automatic daily backup, with no app or software installation needed
• Multiple regions for data storage to choose from (at the moment US, Ireland and Sweden)
• Strong focus on security and privacy: end-to-end encryption for your content, with per-user encryption keys and object-level encryption for your content.
• A web user interface for browsing, and restoring and/or downloading any content the service has backed up that is no longer present in your library.
• (coming) Vault Mode, where you hold the key for decrypting your content. Without the vault-key, no-one, including us at photovaultone, can decrypt your content.

Red Key is a leading Managed IT firm that is bringing AI to companies in New York City, Westchester County, Fairfield County Connecticut, California & beyond. 

Overall upgrading networks proactively is not just about preventing past issues but:

1. Reducing possible outages
   Each piece of equipment in the network is a point of failure (firewall, switches, wifi, battery backups). If the equipment burns out…. We do have some inventory for true emergencies in our office…. But it can take 2-5 days to ship replacements. With Faust being so dependent on the internet (salesforce, files, phones) it would be very disruptive if the core switch dies, or core firewall etc. If it dies the same week a hurricane hits or a big storm disrupts shipping in the middle of the country…. It could be days of outages. (We have ordered replacement firewalls “overnight priority” with Fedex that took 4 days to get here due to a mega snow storm that hits the middle states for example)Also if the network racks are not done properly and the wires are a mess…. Its much harder to service if something does go down. This is an extreme example…. But servicing a rack and trying to find which piece of equipment failed on the left is infinitely more difficult then when the team does it right from the start. We can swap failed equipment and find it in 15 minutes vs sometimes could involve escalating to a more senior engineer and trial and error, unplugging cables, etc.
   

   Also older equipment is not tied into our central cloud management components and we don’t get alerts for it and cant resolve things remotely. For example if  your firewall fails and its not a modern firewall…. We have to reconfigure it all from scratch. But newer firewalls take a backup of their configurations into our cloud so if it fails we can just order a new one and “flash” all the settings on it.

2. Network speed
   The network itself runs as fast as the slowest component. So if the networks have older firewalls, switches, wifi or internet providers its affecting everyone. Network equipment does not age as fast as cell phones…. But if the networks have not been modernized in 5+ years…. Its essentially like using a 3-4 year old iPhone. It works…. But everyone on that network is for sure not moving as fast as they could be. Every click, webpage load, phone call is moving slower than if it would on a faster network.
3. Security
   If the firewalls in place is not a modern device its missing key security layers where people have a higher chance to go to a bad link. you can read more about it here
   https://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/next-gen-firewall
   (Some of the locations already have some of the newer firewalls, switches and wifi)

At some point every piece of equipment will fail. So its not a matter of if but when. And the goal is trying to time it when you already received all the benefits and used the equipment for its expected life…. And before the equipment becomes a liability for outage or slows people down.

Red Key is a leading Managed IT firm that is bringing AI to companies in New York City, Westchester County, Fairfield County Connecticut, California & beyond. 

Frauds come in all shapes and sizes. Humans may experience this one way or another in their lifetime, whether it is directly affecting them or someone they know. Learning how to catch these common frauds is key. Knowing what to look for when receiving an email or text can save you from having personal information shared. While there are many methods, the most common is deception. The scammers will manipulate trust to achieve their goal. This can happen in both personal and professional realms but the first step to avoiding this is to learn about the most common scams that can occur.

1. Phishing Scams: These involve fraudulent communications that appear to come from legitimate institutions to steal sensitive data like login credentials and credit card numbers.
2. Investment Scams: Promises of high returns with little risk, often involving pyramid schemes, binary options, and too-good-to-be-true business ventures.
3. Romance Scams: Scammers create fake profiles on dating sites or social media to form relationships and eventually convince their victims to send money under false pretenses.
4. Identity Theft: Thieves steal personal information to commit fraud, such as opening accounts or making purchases in someone else's name.
5. Lottery or Sweepstakes Scams: Victims are told they’ve won a prize but must pay a fee or taxes to claim it, only to receive nothing.
6. Tech Support Scams: Fraudsters claim to offer help for computer issues, tricking victims into paying for unnecessary services or installing malware.
7. Job Scams: Fake job offers that solicit personal information or money from candidates, purportedly for application fees, equipment, or training.
8. IRS/CRA Impersonation: Scammers impersonate tax officials, demanding immediate tax payment under threat of arrest or other penalties.
9. Charity Scams: Fake charities solicit donations, especially during times of crisis or after disasters, exploiting the generosity of unsuspecting donors.
10. Rental Scams: Scammers pose as landlords or property managers, advertising nonexistent rentals to collect deposits and rental fees.
11. Gift Card Scams: Scammers trick victims into purchasing gift cards under the guise of resolving debts or legal issues, then demand the gift card codes.
12. Debt Collection Scams: Fraudulent claims of unpaid debts are used to extort money from individuals who may not owe anything.
13. Advance Fee Scams: Victims pay upfront fees to receive loans, prizes, or other services that never materialize.
14. Healthcare Scams: Scammers pose as insurance providers or doctors to obtain health information or sell fake insurance plans.
15. Overpayment Scams: In these scenarios, the scammer sends a fake check to the victim, who deposits it and sends the excess amount back, only to find out later that the check was counterfeit.

It’s crucial to remain vigilant and skeptical of unsolicited or unexpected offers and requests, especially those requiring upfront payments or personal information. Always verify the authenticity of the request through independent sources.

Red Key is a leading Managed IT firm that is bringing AI to companies in New York City, Westchester County, Fairfield County Connecticut, California & beyond. 

Check out Microsoft Copilot. Copilot acts as your AI companion that will make your life easier by boosting creativity and staying connected with all things in life. You can use Copilot individually or have it become a part of your business.

To learn more click here!

Red Key is a leading Managed IT firm that is bringing AI to companies in New York City, Westchester County, Fairfield County Connecticut, California & beyond. 

To learn more, click here

Red Key is a leading Managed IT firm that is bringing AI to companies in New York City, Westchester County, Fairfield County Connecticut, California & beyond. 

Microsoft 365 Copilot is a new AI tool that has been introduced by Microsoft to increase user productivity on the apps we use daily. With Copilot, large language models work with the data we save throughout apps such as Word, PowerPoint, Teams, Excel and even Outlook. Copilot can create drafts, ask questions, create presentations, write emails, and help users communicate with others.

Check out this video to learn more!

 

Red Key is a leading Managed IT firm that is bringing AI to companies in New York City, Westchester County, Fairfield County Connecticut, California & beyond.