Rarely does a day pass without news of a cybersecurity breach that is wreaking havoc on an organization and its customers or constituents. Equifax is the latest high-profile newsmaker, reporting that a recent cyberattack may have affected 143 million American consumers.
Given the growing threat of cyberattacks on business of all sizes, and in the spirit of Cyber Security Awareness Month, we offer five of the most common misconceptions about cybersecurity.
Myth 1: Our organization is too small for cyber criminals to target.
Reality: For years the average American small business was an unlikely target for a sophisticated cyberattack. Fewer financial resources and a relatively unknown brand worked in their favor to deflect hackers. But today no business is too small to be hacked. In fact, smaller organizations are much easier to hack, which is why nowadays nearly three quarters of attacks target smaller companies. And the threat is growing fast, according to the 2017 SonicWall Annual Threat report.
Myth 2: We’re safe because our virus detection software is up to date.
Reality: Virus detection software only identifies known virus signatures. New or self-mutating viruses often escape detection. During its October 2017 patch alone, for example, Microsoft released security updates for multiple vulnerabilities and patched 62 security flaws that affected the Windows OS, the Office package, Skype for Business, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge. Two security vulnerabilities were marked as “important” and with a high risk of affecting users’ online security.
Myth 3: Protecting your organization is good enough.
Reality: Many of the biggest cyberattacks in recent years involved third parties or entities subordinate to the organization that was breached. Everything in your ecosystem, from strategic partners, to subsidiaries, vendors and contractors, can be a threat route. Security is only as strong as the weakest link, and often times that weak link extends beyond your physical and digital walls. The point is, it’s important to be able to absorb an attack and keep on operating. In other words, have a strong business continuity plan in place.
Myth 4: Cybersecurity is an IT issue. It’s too complex for management to get involved.
Reality: The executive team should set the appropriate risk levels in physical and operational areas of the organization. This allows management and staff to implement and extend these policies to create a unified and robust security posture. Formal policies and procedures, such as a published cybersecurity plan, can be helpful in this regard. It’s also important that management visibly stress and support the cybersecurity program because workers generally follow the lead of their supervisors.
Myth 5: It’s too expensive to implement a Cybersecurity Program.
Reality: Mitigation or avoidance of risk via a cybersecurity program is actually surprisingly cost-effective with managed solutions like those provided by TPx. Our managed IT, managed firewall and business continuity services are all backed up by a state-of-the-art security operations center (SOC) and staffed by a team of security analysts with military and intelligence service backgrounds. TPx also offers a compelling Unified Threat Management solution that consolidates network security – including firewalls with anti-virus and anti-spyware protection, intrusion detection, web filtering and more – as a comprehensive and dynamic threat prevention solution.
It’s an increasingly dangerous path to let common myths, a lack of internal expertise, or a lack of budgeting or planning to create vulnerabilities that are easily exploited by cybercriminals – especially with affordable, managed cybersecurity solutions within your grasp. Your TPx representative is happy to help you see how we can shore up your defenses against threats of all types.
About the Author
Matt Mair is a Senior Product Marketing Manager for ITx Managed Services. His role includes marketing and communications for TPx’s suite of managed IT offerings including Managed SD-WAN, LAN Monitoring, Office 365, Workstation and Servers Management, Colocation and Server Backup solutions. Matt holds an MBA from Michigan State University’s Broad School of Business and resides in Los Angeles.