Conversation With Be Co’s Founder
Tell us about yourself and Be Co.
My name is Randall Bellows and I’m the founder of Be Co, a NYC-based MSP (Managed Service Provider). I was born in Colorado, and spent many years traveling and photographing the world before landing in New York City where I caught the entrepreneurial bug. I founded Be Co in 2018, where my passion for technology turned into a business where we support IT needs for small and medium sized companies. While I’ve owned Be Co for 5 years, my roots in tinkering with technology go back to my childhood.
What does computer security mean to you?
Just like you don't leave your house without locking your door (at least in NYC, we don't), computer security is the process of locking your digital front door, and depending on how valuable the assets behind that door, it's also the process of monitoring the front door and additionally the contents inside the house.
In the ever increasingly online work world, what is the most harmful thing people can do to their business?
Not enforcing 2FA (two factor authentication) on important business accounts. Are you familiar with that little 6 or so digit code you input after you type (or auto fill) your password? Almost every hack that I have had to remediate would have been prevented if 2FA had been turned on and enforced. Microsoft receives 300,000,000 fraudulent sign-in attempts every day, and 99.99% of them can be blocked with the simple enforcement of 2FA. It's a simple and inexpensive move that can prevent some serious and expensive damage.
Every couple of days we hear about another company being hacked and people’s information being available on the dark web. What does that actually mean?
It means that if you have ever reused a password, there's a high likelihood that password has been a part of a breach which can be found on the darkweb, and reused on a different account from the one that has been previously breached. It means that your social security number might be public information. And sadly, once your information is out there, it's virtually impossible to remove, and last time I checked, you can't change your social security number. At least you can change your passwords!
When someone finds out that some of their information was stolen, what should they do?
Well, as previously stated, change your passwords, but that's only a start! Using a password manager will help you manage and organize your passwords, as well as enable you to efficiently change them to a password such as "}LVD1aqNbilA0ckv]}<h" and never have to worry about forgetting it, because that's the password manager's whole purpose, is to remember all those stupid passwords for you.
Additionally, I'm not sure why more people haven't frozen their credit! Freezing your credit is the process of disallowing unauthorized people from opening lines of credit in your name. It needs to be done at the 4 (yes four) credit bureaus, including Equifax, Experian, TransUnion, and Innovis.
As a follow-up, what can people do to prevent their information from being stolen?
That's a tough one because often it's typically not us who our information is stolen from, it's the companies we do business with. The Experian credit bureau was a part of a hack where 160 million records were stolen.
In security, we often refer to the term "zero-trust”. While this is a buzz word that is thrown around maybe a bit too much, the philosophy behind it is simple and valuable: "assume your network has been compromised, and limit access to only what is needed for operation." What this means is that you should act like you assume that your information has already been stolen (even if it hasn't). For example, if you freeze your credit, and someone uses your social security number to try and open a line of credit, they will be denied because you've frozen your credit. That's zero trust in action. There's a high likelihood that your social security number has already been stolen, so act like it!
As stated before, applying 2FA to all important accounts (and even the ones that aren't important) will help prevent situations varying from minor headaches to life changing events that could cause you to lose your business, or cause you to go bankrupt. There's a lot of statistics out there indicating that a data breach causes many small businesses to go out of business within the first 6 months after said breach.
This is a question you must be asked a lot. What is a MSP?
Even MSPs think the term "M.S.P." is a bad term for our business haha. It technically means "Managed Service Provider," but think of it as someone who manages your IT, so you don't have to. MSPs will be the way that small and medium businesses handle their tech now and even more so in the future, because when you hire an MSP, you're generally hiring a team of experts for less than the cost of single experienced IT professional. It is a fractional service, so you do share that service with other companies, but this also means that you're hiring a service that comes with a wider variety of experience in more situations. That means that MSPs are typically more proficient at problem solving than your average IT guy. I think hiring an MSP comes with a lot of advantages.
How does an MSP protect their clients?
Well, I don't know how other MSPs protect their clients. Everyone provides security little differently, and some provide it better than others, but Be Co thinks about security through every step of the process, beginning with when we first onboard a client. Personally, I regularly listen to podcasts and read industry news to stay on top of the latest cyber threats and trends, to stay up to date with an extremely dynamic and ever-changing cyber environment.
What services do you provide at Be Co?
We provide managed IT services for small and medium sized companies, including but not limited to IT support, network and computer management, computer- and network-related installations, SaaS (software as a service) and software management, vCIO (fractional Chief Information Officer) consulting.
Honestly though, if any of this sounds confusing, or if you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch with me and I'm happy to walk you through any of these offerings and explain what they mean. I know people don't want to think about tech more than they have to, but that's what we're here for.
Why are relationships with your clients important to you?
At Be Co, we're really big on human interaction. I know, as a founder, that when I have to deal with a company's support chatbot, or overseas customer service representative, it's generally not very helpful… Especially when I'm trying to get back to work so I can focus on the things that really matter to me and my business. I empathize with business owners because I am a business owner. And building a relationship is the foundation of not only supporting a company, but also helping that company build value for itself too.
If people can walk away remembering only one thing from this conversation, what would it be?
If you had to take away one thing from this conversation, it's that Be Co wants not only to support and secure your company's IT needs and build a relationship, but also to help your company figure out ways to create value, efficiency and ultimately growth in the long term.
You can book a free meeting with Randall Bellows to discuss your IT and cyber security here.
