We go behind the scenes with Steve Cole, Managing Director of Net Primates, who has been in the IT business for over 20 years. We find out how Net Primates came about, how they help their clients and why they feel passionate about what they do.
How was Net Primates founded?
Net Primates was founded in 2005 with my colleague at the time. We were both working for the same internet company and could see the ever-growing need for IT and Internet Services. We decided to go out on our own and provide business IT and Internet Services to local businesses around the area.
Why should I choose Net Primates?
Net Primates provides a personal level of service. We specialise in supporting small businesses and we understand your needs. Every member of our team is highly knowledgeable in different aspects of all business IT – cloud services, desktop support, Office 365 and cyber security. Our wide-ranging expertise is combined with top quality customer service, that all our team take pride in providing.
What services does Net Primates offer?
Our primary, core business is around business IT support, both remote and on site. We also offer extra levels of service around Office 365, cyber security and connectivity in telecoms. Here are a few examples of what we can help you with:
Multi factor authentication (MFA)
MFA is the added security that protects your data from being hacked. You will have most commonly experienced it when you log in to your online/app banking. You enter a username, maybe a password, a secret key and/or biometrics, then you will possibly be using your mobile phone or a secondary device to enter a code. You may also be asked for MFA on your social media platforms where you will enter a username and password and then be required to enter in a six digit code or confirm a pop up that’s on your phone. We’re seeing it more and more across multiple platforms, where it’s being rolled out to ensure that your platforms and your accounts are secure.
MFA is a powerful deterrent to cyber attack – studies have proved that it has prevented 99% of attacks on certain mailboxes. Imagine if somebody got hold of your username and password to your account. If you didn’t have MFA enabled, then they would have immediate access to your account. The extra step of MFA means that, if they don’t have access to the secondary device needed to input the multi factor authentication, which may be your mobile phone, they are unable to access your account.
MFA keeps your business safe by providing a robust, extra layer of protection on your account. If somebody managed to access your log in details, whether via a phishing email or social engineering, they would be thwarted in their attempts to access your account if MFA was enabled and they didn’t have your secondary device needed for MFA.
Net Primates can help you by reviewing your current MFA set up and identifying which of your current line of business applications and online platforms will allow MFA to be enabled. We will then advise you accordingly, regarding rolling that out across your platforms, to make sure that your company is as secure as it possibly can be.
Managing passwords securely
Why are secure passwords important in a company? Secure passwords are important in every aspect of our lives, be it in a personal setting or a business setting. The more complex you make your password, the harder you make it for somebody to get into your account.
In a business setting, we strongly advise that you create and implement a password policy. Net Primates can give you a master template that you can personalise to suit your business.
A company password policy ensures that, from the outset, your employees understand what you expect from them when they are setting passwords to access their email, online business applications, and any other data that is based online, and even offline.
Regarding sharing passwords within your company, wherever possible we would advise you not to. However, we appreciate that you may have certain applications that only have access through one username and password, which you need to share within your organisation. In this instance, you should use password manager software which means that the password will be randomly generated, nice and long and secure. Fundamentally, people would only be able to get access to that line of business once they’ve got access to the password manager.
A password manager is the best and safest tool to generate, store and manage your passwords, both on a personal level and in your business environment. This gives you a good, secure master password that only you know, which is also then protected by MFA. Then, within that password manager, all the passwords that have been randomly set to all your online and offline applications are safely stored.
Clients often ask us what happens to an employee’s passwords and access when they leave the company. Another great benefit of using a password manager is that, when a member of staff leaves, we can easily revoke their access within seconds. If the member of staff has stored personal passwords or generic passwords in the password manager, we have the ability to transfer them across to another member of staff or completely destroy them. The password manager allows us to easily maintain and operate that process.
One of our expert team at Net Primates can take a look at your current password setup, review your current password policy if you have one, and then provide support and assistance on how to roll out a robust password policy and, wherever possible, a password manager, across your team.
Cyber security
Cyber security is all about how businesses look at reducing their risk of a cyber attack. Why is cyber crime increasing? It’s on the rise because it can be very lucrative, and it can be very easy for criminals to attack other businesses. Cyber security is often overlooked, and not high up on the agenda for a lot of businesses when they’re concentrating on their day-to-day to day operations, and this is where businesses can become vulnerable to attack.
The economic impact of a cyber breach on a business can be huge and devastating. If your systems are shut down by a cyber attack, you wouldn’t be able to send out invoices, your sales team couldn’t function, and therefore you wouldn’t be receiving any money into your business.
The reputational cost of a cyber breach can be equally damaging. As we all know, a reputation takes years to build but only seconds to destroy. Imagine having to contact all of your customers to give them the bad news that you’ve been cyber attacked and that all of their data has been released onto the dark web.
If you are diligent about cyber security and can reassure your customers that you have completed all the relevant checks and are cyber secure, it is beneficial to your reputation and can help you to gain and keep customers. We recommend that you obtain your Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus certifications, and perhaps the ISO certification.
Net Primates can review your current cyber security set up and your password arrangements. We will ensure that you’re following best practice and provide advice on where you could improve things. We can help you with the Cyber Essentials certification process, too.
How can I contact Net Primates?
Our friendly, expert team at Net Primates is available to answer any of your questions, and to talk through all the ways that we can help you and your business.
Call us on 02381 800 800 or email [email protected]
You can also fill out the contact form on our website Contact Us | Net Primates or find us on social media.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Sign up to our newsletter 
