Blog Series: Cybersecurity No Longer Only for Large Businesses

From Chipotle to Equifax and from Sony to Staples, the news is riddled with stories of cyberattacks on large businesses.

While it may seem these attacks are common place, what doesn’t always make the headlines are the millions of cyberattacks and data breaches to small and mid-sized businesses.

Yet, there are very critical reasons businesses of all sizes should be paying attention and protecting themselves, as no one is immune. The good news is there are now many options and steps everyone can take that don’t always involve sizeable investments and can be scaled to any size business.

For example, a major study released earlier this year by Verizon noted that 81 percent of all cyber-attacks result from poor passwords & management practices.

Businesses are finding effective competitive advantages in moving to cloud-based and mobile based productivity suites, apps & data repositories, many of our customers included. These moves are in the best interest of most customers for reasons like saving money and competitive advantages, but without a proper Cyber security strategy designed for their business they can be doing themselves a great disservice. Having an IT expert with a proven track record working with a customer is always recommended for businesses regardless their size to ensure they too are protected.

In an effort to save costs, small and medium sized businesses often assume some level of risk, at times handling IT themselves or with staff members who can help with IT as a side function of their main job, but cybersecurity just isn’t one of those risks to take. The integrity of your brand, your operation, sales, the data of your customers, your investment or the future of your business are just not worth the risk.

The damage caused by cybersecurity breaches goes well being the lost dollars in revenue, and although enterprises with massive IT budgets can often overcome an attack, this certainly isn’t the case for small and medium-sized businesses. The U.S’ National Cyber Security Alliance found that 60 percent of small companies are unable to sustain their businesses over six months after a cyber-attack. Thus, the actions taken by all businesses need to be strategic, proactive and as important a priority for the CEO as it is for the IT administrator.

Here are some practical tips for small and mid-sized companies:

• Consider Multi-Factor Authentication in your organization.
• Have this conversation with your entire team, cybersecurity is as much a business conversation as much as it is a technical one.
• Work with a proven IT professional to help design & implement that strategy based on your needs.

For many IT professionals I have the pleasure of working with past or present the topic of Cybersecurity has always been in the forefront of their minds. This is a conversation that business Leaders need to be having with their teams, ultimately this is as big a business risk as it is an IT one. The business will have the responsibility of dealing with the impacts on the business & preserve business relationships impacted in the aftermath of any breach.  It is our responsibility as IT to bring it to the attention of the business leaders & stressing the importance of proactive action. The action or inaction should lie in the hands of the business decision makers. Mr. CEO its costly to have an effective IT resource protecting your business but the cost of doing nothing will be far costlier for your business in the unfortunate case your company is compromised.