There is an ongoing myth regarding cyber security and cyber criminals, and it is not doing small- and medium-sized businesses any favors. It’s that cyber criminals are only interested in large companies, therefore smaller organizations don’t have to worry about a data breach affecting their organization. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Data breaches have reached epidemic proportions and everyone is fair game in the eyes of cyber criminals. It’s not uncommon to read headlines about larger companies paying ransom to regain control of their data, which is part of the reason why the myth has legs. But smaller companies are also targeted by ransomware and other attacks that can significantly impact day-to-day operations, even shutter businesses for good if they aren’t able to regain momentum within a few months.
Identifying the Threats
In most cases, the cyber criminals are indiscriminately sending out threats via malicious links in emails that employees unwittingly open and unleash upon their network. These phishing emails can be quite convincing, allowing the criminals to have their malware, ransomware, and other types of trouble running rampant in places they aren’t welcome.
Education is the best defense against these types of attacks as an informed employee is less likely to make the mistakes that lead to a data breach. Employees also need to be held accountable for what they bring into the workplace. For example, to drastically reduce risk, the only devices that should be allowed on the work network are work-owned devices, which means no unencrypted devices will be open to hackers who sit and wait for their opportunity to weasel into your network.
Responding to Attacks
If you’ve taken precautions yet still become the victim of an attack, time is of the essence. The best strategies involve a step-by-step outline for what everyone is to do following the discovery of a breach. While you are reacting to a situation, you’ve taken proactive steps to limit the damage, secure your network, and get back to work as usual.
Disaster recovery strategies also need to be established in advance. Not only will these plans keep your data safe during catastrophic events such as natural disasters, but they will also have you covered should you experience a cyber security breach.
At Cloud Source, we offer access to disaster recovery as a service. We give our clients the ability to offload the burden of having to deal with disaster recovery and maintain backups for them. This guarantees uptime and business continuity, which few businesses can operate efficiently without. Contact us and let’s talk about our recommendations for cyber security solutions that will work perfectly for your business.