Blog written by Eide Bailly, a Greater Mankato Growth Bronze Investor

In today’s business environment, understanding your current security risks just makes sense. After all, studies have found that U.S. organizations face the highest costs when a data breach occurs, topping out at at $8.64 million per breach.

A proactive stance on cybersecurity risk can equate to major savings for organizations. A collaborative approach between security and networking has been shown to significantly lower the cost of a breach. In fact, organizations who formed incident response teams and tested their incident response plans were able to reduce the cost of a data breach by almost 40%.

Blog written by Corporate Technologies LLC, a Greater Mankato Growth member

Balancing a Proactive and Reactive Approach to Cyber Incidents

A cyber incident is a type of security event that can harm a business like yours. Ranging from data breaches and system failures to malware attacks and phishing scams, these incidents can hinder productivity, revenue growth, and customer satisfaction.

In most cases, a cyber incident will result in data loss or downtime. This can include loss of
confidential information, customer data, or business records. In some cases, a cyber incident can also cause business interruption or financial loss.

Blog written by Eide Bailly, a Greater Mankato Growth Bronze Investor

From flexible schedules to compensation and benefit packages, the Great Resignation has forced organizations to rethink the way they foster employee satisfaction and maximize staff. One of the simplest answers to talent retention is making sure your employees are satisfied with their jobs. Are they able to focus on higher-value tasks or are they spending hours (or even days) on repetitive or complicated manual processes?

Cyberattacks can cost organizations millions of dollars and 2021 has seen the highest average data breach cost in the last 17 years. While it’s almost inevitable that you’ll someday deal with a cyberattack on some level, organizations who formed incident response teams and tested their incident response plans were able to reduce the cost of a breach by almost 40%.

With the broad nature of cybersecurity and a lot of ground to cover, many companies don’t even know where to begin. Luckily, a comprehensive, in-depth cybersecurity action plan can be broken down into five stages: Foundational Security, Policies and Awareness, Key Processes, Incident Preparedness and Security Monitoring. While each has their own unique benefits, a true culture of security relies on each stage working together for peak efficiency and protection.

The COVID recession isn’t over for everyone. For businesses still struggling to return to 2019 revenue levels, the tax law has a lifeline: a refundable tax credit of up to $7,000 per-employee, per-quarter.

It’s easy to see how $7,000 per quarter, per employee, can add up. For a qualifying company with 50 employees, for example, it could mean as much as $1,400,000 in benefits for 2021.

The Employer Retention Credit was first enacted early in 2020 as a tax credit of up to $5,000 per employee for 2020. It applies to taxpayers who have either:

  1. Had a full or partial suspension of business due to a government order, or
  2. Had a significant decline in gross receipts.
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