Author Archives: Kristen Latimer

Co-Managed IT for Growing Teams: When to Bring in Reinforcements

Co-managed IT

Your IT team was built for the business you had two years ago. Now you have more employees, more devices, more compliance requirements, and the same headcount holding it all together. If that sounds familiar, you are not alone, and you are not failing. You are simply outgrowing your current support model faster than your […]

The Real Cost of a Data Breach for a 20-50 Person Business

Real Cost of a Small Business Data Breach

When business owners picture a data breach, they usually picture a ransom note on a screen. Maybe a headline. What they don’t picture is the six-figure bill that shows up over the following twelve months, or the client who quietly stops returning calls. For a 20-50 person business, a breach isn’t necessarily a one-time event […]

Wildfire and Earthquake Preparedness: Disaster Recovery for Southern California Businesses

Wildfire and Earthquake Preparedness

If you run a business in Orange County, San Diego, or the Inland Empire, you already know the drill. Red flag warnings. Rolling blackouts. That first jolt that makes you check if it’s “just a truck” or something bigger. Southern California’s natural disaster risks aren’t hypothetical, they’re seasonal, and they’re recurring. Yet a surprising number […]

The IT Offboarding Checklist: Closing Every Digital Door When Someone Leaves

IT Offboarding

Every business owner knows the drill when an employee resigns: exit interview, final paycheck, maybe a farewell lunch. But long after the handshake, that person’s digital footprint often lingers — an active login here, a forgotten SaaS seat there, a shared drive folder nobody thought to lock down. That gap is bigger, and riskier, than […]

Vendor Risk Management: Why Your MSP Should Vet Your Software Vendors Too

Vendor Risk Management

You’ve locked down your endpoints, trained your team to spot phishing emails, and maybe even started prepping for CMMC certification. Your own house is in order. But what about the dozen (or two dozen) software vendors your business relies on every day — the CRM, the accounting platform, the file-sharing tool, the HR system? If […]

Helixstorm Named Best Information Technology in the Global 100 — 2026

Helixstorm Named Global 100 Winner

We are proud to announce that Helixstorm has been recognized as Best Information Technology in the Global 100 — 2026 Awards. This recognition is a reflection of what our team shows up to do every single day: deliver technology that works, support that’s actually there when you need it, and IT strategy that moves businesses […]

What Happens in the First 24 Hours After a Cyberattack?

Cyberattack

Most business owners think about cyberattacks in terms of the aftermath — the recovery, the headlines, the cost. What rarely gets discussed is the window that determines all of it: the first 24 hours. What happens — or doesn’t happen — in those hours is often the difference between a contained incident and a business-defining […]

Cybersecurity for Remote and Hybrid Teams: The Gaps Most Businesses Miss

Remote Cybersecurity

Remote and hybrid work is no longer a pandemic-era accommodation — it’s the permanent operating model for most businesses. Over half of U.S. knowledge workers now work remotely at least part of the week, and that number isn’t going back down. For most business owners, that flexibility has been a win. For cybercriminals, it’s been […]

What Orange County SMB’s Need to Know About Social Engineering

Social Engineering 2026

Social engineering in 2026 goes way beyond phishing emails If you run a small business in Orange County — a professional services firm in Irvine, a specialty manufacturer in Anaheim, a healthcare practice in Newport Beach — cybercriminals are not ignoring you. In fact, they’re specifically looking for you. The assumption that attackers only go […]

Co-Managed IT vs. Fully Managed IT: Which Model Is Right for Your Business?

Co-managed vs Fully managed

If you’ve been exploring managed IT services, you’ve probably run into this question quickly: do you want someone to handle everything, or do you want to keep your internal team in the game? It sounds simple, but the answer has real implications for your budget, your operations, and your long-term technology strategy. The two primary […]