Are you really in charge of your business?
If you’re the boss/owner of your business and you may think that’s a silly question.
Of course you are. You make the decisions. People report to you. You open the doors, sign the checks, and steer the ship.
But let’s back up for a second. Is there one area of your business that you don’t fully understand or control?
For many companies, that area is IT. It’s common for business owners to hand over the keys, often unknowingly, to one person or provider. They hold the passwords. They know how everything works, and if they disappeared tomorrow, no one else could step in without chaos.
It may not feel like a problem when everything is running smoothly, but when things go south, you quickly realize how dependent you became.
What’s even scarier?
That’s only one way you could be being held hostage.
Sometimes, Your IT Provider Holds All the Cards…
This happens more often than you’d think. A managed service provider (MSP) sets up your systems, handles your backups, monitors your cybersecurity, and keeps everything running behind the scenes.
Over time, they become essential.
But if they don’t give you full transparency, shared documentation, or administrative access, they’re not just supporting your business, they’re controlling it.
And here’s the problem:
If you ever need to leave or switch providers, you’re stuck. You don’t know where anything lives. You don’t know what’s been configured. And you don’t have the credentials to take over.
We’ve seen this done out of neglect, and we’ve seen it done on purpose. Either way, it puts your business in a bad spot, one where your own technology feels off-limits.
If you’re relying on a vendor who can’t (or won’t) hand over the reins, that’s not a partnership. That’s them holding your business hostage. But at least there’s no one else in your system… right? Well…
If a hacker was inside your business, chances are you wouldn’t notice for a long time…
Hackers breaking into systems, walls of green text and code, “I’m in” being repeated over and over, just like how it is in the movies!
Not quite, you see, most hackers don’t want you to know they’re in your systems, that way they can continuously siphon out data without being stopped. Instead of locking you out right away and demanding money, they watch, they listen, track behaviors and gather logins.
Then, when the moment is right, they’ll lock you out and use all their stolen data to ransack your business.
But how long is this cycle?
The average data security incident is 241 days from identification to containment (IBM). That’s over 8 MONTHS of time for a hacker to be working behind your back. Just imagine how much data they can use against you in that time.
No Documentation? No Control.
Here’s a good rule of thumb when it comes to IT.
If it isn’t written down, it doesn’t exist.
Too many businesses rely on a “we got a guy who knows it” mentality. When systems are set up without proper documentation that you have access to, you’re relying on someone’s memory and expertise to run the show.
It’s estimated that “75% of small-medium businesses don’t have an incident response plan” (Comcast Business).
What happens when something goes wrong? What happens if they leave? What happens if there’s an incident?
Here’s What You Should Be Asking Yourself Right Now:
- Where are our data backups stored?
- Who has access to them?
- Can we recover if there were a disaster?
- What is on those data backups?
If you can’t answer all of these questions…
Here’s What You Can Do
Start by taking back visibility. Here’s how:
- Request full documentation from your IT person or provider — including passwords, system diagrams, and process checklists
- Test your backups — don’t just assume they work
- Audit who has access to what — and remove outdated or excessive permissions
- Create or update your incident response plan — even a basic version is better than nothing
- Get a third-party IT Health Check — a neutral perspective can reveal risks you can’t see internally
You don’t have to know how to fix everything yourself. But you do need to know what’s in place and what’s missing.
Need A Hand With That?
If you’re not 100% confident in your answers to the questions above, don’t wait for a crisis to find out.
At Attain Technology, we’ve been helped New England businesses with their IT support since 2008. Making sure you get the best IT support possible without the stress.
📞 Give us a call today: 508-459-8845
OR
Visit this link to schedule a call with us: Talk To Attain Technology
