Interlinked offering IT support, cybersecurity for local businesses

Bill Kay knows a thing or two about cybersecurity. 

Kay launched Interlinked Technology Services in 2019, offering cybersecurity and IT support to local businesses. The company guides businesses through cybersecurity practices, in addition to IT consulting, Kay said. Interlinked has quickly grown, servicing clients from Albany to Plattsburgh, and even reaching out of state into Maine.

“They could be mom and pop shops, with one or two employees, or up to 50 employees or more, that don’t necessarily have the resources or the staff on hand to handle their IT, so they outsource a portion of that to us or all of that to us,” said Kay. 

Kay, an eight-year Air Force veteran, said he gained valuable experience by working in cybersecurity during his military career.

“A bulk of my work was focused on how to secure and lock down IT networks,” said Kay. “How to prevent hackers from getting into our Department of Defense network.”

Kay was stationed in places such as Germany and Portugal, where he “worked on the most secure networks, really, around the world.” He said the experiences opened his eyes to different perspectives, and helped grow his knowledge in the field of IT and cybersecurity.

Now, Kay uses those experiences to help local businesses protect their own data and keep their company running. 

“As I’m meeting with (a client) for the first time, the conversation usually leads toward, ‘Why do I care if I get hacked?,’” said Kay. “Maybe I’m just a shop doing screen printing, I’m just printing t-shirts. I don’t feel like I need to be a Department of Defense-level security in my company.”

And while he acknowledged that many companies do not need “the highest-level security,” Kay stressed that any hacking attempt could have undesirable consequences for a small business. He detailed several ways this could appear, including phishing attempts and ransomware.

“Social engineering or phishing attacks that can happen can cause someone to think that they should be transferring this money to someone that they’re used to dealing with, but perhaps that email that they received, they didn’t realize actually was disguised and came from somebody that was pretending to be someone that they knew,” Kay said, noting that it can lead to an employee or business owner unknowingly sending funds to a hacker.

He described ransomware as when a virus infiltrates a company’s network and encrypts their files to cut off access for employees and owners. 

“The goal of the hacker … is to get them to pay a ransom of usually some kind of crypto to get their data back,” Kay said. “But, in all cases, what happens in that event is the business will deal with downtime.”

This can lead to a company being temporarily cut off from its own production line, he said. 

“Generally, if that happens, that equates to that business missing out on opportunities, or losing money, or falling behind in some way,” said Kay. “You want to secure your data as best you can to make sure that you don’t fall victim to any of these scams, but if it does happen, you can recover and minimize any downtime. At the end of the day, you’re running a business, and you want your business to always stay running.”

Interlinked helps companies avoid these scenarios by offering cybersecurity assessments, cybersecurity awareness training for employees, and more. Kay said his company begins work with a client by running a cybersecurity assessment to “give a baseline understanding of where they’re at.”

“So we try to build an assessment and a general understanding of what’s going on for the company, to help identify where the threats, or where the biggest gaps in defense, may be,” Kay said. “Then we help come up with a plan to resolve those.”

To maintain that security moving forward, Interlinked builds a “layered cybersecurity approach” to protect the company’s data on several levels.

“It’s not as easy as just slapping an antivirus on a computer, there’s a lot more to it that needs to happen,” said Kay. “There’s simulated phishing attacks that we do. With our clients, we’ll actually set up a fake phishing email attack with them, so that it will gauge how well their response is to it. Then we can review those results with the business owners, and help to train the company as a whole.”

Despite all these measures, Kay stressed that “no matter what you do, there’s no magic bullet to stop all hackers.”

“With the progression that has really occurred with hacking over the years, it’s really just not a matter of if, but when you’re going to get hacked,” Kay said. “And if you are going to get hacked, then are you ready enough to come back from it, and do you have a proper response plan in place and IT plans in place for how to recover from that attack?”

Kay described Interlinked as “a managed services company,” and said it is important for businesses today to have an IT service available.

“If you don’t have it, you don’t really have a plan,” Kay said. “If you don’t have a third party helping you to manage your IT and cybersecurity, you’re really at a huge disadvantage.”

And Kay, a native of Hudson Falls, also said the opportunity to assist local businesses with their data and security is “one of the things I love the most about being back here.”

“I really enjoy watching small businesses do better, and be more successful,” said Kay. “A big part of what we do is helping them line up their technology so they can be more successful, and they can have that peace of mind of knowing that they have the support behind them to help keep them secure or to keep their business running when they need it.

“I’m looking forward, as we continue to grow, as we build our footprint in the area even more, to see how that continues.”