Recent Blog Posts
Despite what detractors say, regulations are in place for good reason. They typically protect individuals from organizational malfeasance. Many of these regulations are actual laws passed by a governing body and cover the entire spectrum of the issue, not just the data involved. The ones that have data protection regulations written into them mostly deal with the handling and protection of sensitive information. For organizations that work in industries covered by these regulations there are very visible costs that go into compliance. Today, we look at the costs incurred by these organizations as a result of these regulations, and how to ascertain how they affect your business.
Bootstrapped Startups and Very Small Businesses Most businesses don?t consist of more than a few people toiling over their work to create products and services that solve the demands of people and other businesses. By and large, these very small businesses use technology to their advantage, but don?t really have the substantial marketing budgets that would allow them to dabble in different types of marketing. Since every marketing dollar has to be used conscientiously, social media becomes one of the best outlets to get their brands out. Whether your business is a new startup or has been in business, but operates with only a few employees, social media can really present it with an outlet to expand your brand?s reach. The most popular option is Facebook, but most of the major social media outlets have options that can help businesses get better exposure without a huge investment. Established Small Businesses and Well-Funded Startups As a business gains access to more capital, either through revenue growth or outside investment, more options become available. For the established small business or the well-funded startup, you begin to see the use of marketing agencies that help use social media to promote businesses. A marketing agency is much like a managed service for your business? marketing. It allows you to continue to focus on your business while you outsource your marketing to another company. Most startups with backing have a different strategy, however. They are busy trying to establish products and services that will provide a rapid ROI for their investor base. This means that many of these organizations establish marketing alongside the offering, speeding up the process, while looking to use industry best practices to get their message out. Both of these businesses rely on social media in many of the same ways smaller businesses do, but since many of them already have established marketing hubs in the way of company websites, they don?t rely on social media to act as one. This makes social media more of an external resource than a central part of their marketing strategy, although it remains important. Companies of this size create tutorial videos, webinars, and other marketing efforts that they promote through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram. It also allows them to use client testimony to their advantage much more effectively than smaller businesses can. Medium-Sized Businesses For businesses in the mid-market, social media use is well-established. Medium-sized businesses typically have over 500 workers, which means that they already have an established brand and have already found some modicum of success. They have teams of people (internal or outsourced) that actively use resources such as business intelligence and business analytics to develop their marketing, advertising, and public relations strategies. This provides them the freedom to be more active in the social media space and be a little more creative because they have the capital backing their marketing efforts through the medium. What Social Media Platforms are Out There That Have Services for Businesses? These apps are designed for sharing ideas so all of them are viable options. If you consider that these are some of the richest and most influential companies in the world right now, with literally billions of users, it makes sense to have a plan to take advantage of their relative cost effectiveness. Whether […]
Data security isn’t a matter to be taken lightly, as too many businesses have found out the hard way. Unfortunately, there are far too many simple ways to correct common security issues – enough that it’s foolish not to do so. We’ll review a few ways to fix security issues, after discussing one of, if not the, most egregious security failings in modern history.
Unsecured Networks A lot of people are working remotely. In fact, one study showed that 58 percent of all knowledge workers–which are workers that deal in information–are now working remotely. With so many people being asked to work remotely, and no time to plan out a strategy to get them secured, many employees are working with unsecured access to company resources. In fact, unsecured remote desktops have risen by over 40 percent. This is a major concern, because cybercriminals can use brute force methods to gain access to a desktop. If that desktop is part of a larger computing network, they gain access to that as well. Not a good situation. Speaking of Brute Force Attacks With so many unsecured connections out there, brute force attacks are up nearly 400 percent over numbers in 2019. Kaspersky published a report stating as much, and it really isn?t a surprise. IT administrators were given very little or no advanced notice that they were to implement all the services employees would need. This created the current situation where there are many problems securing authentication points and keeping software effectively updated. There Is Not Just One Virus Going Around Hackers and scammers are using COVID-19, and the fact people are almost universally concerned about it in one fashion or another, to overcome people?s cyber awareness. This was seen almost immediately as COVID-19-related phishing attacks were deployed en masse. In fact, in April of 2020, there were nearly 70 times more COVID-19-related phishing attacks than the previous month. Success Rates for Hackers are Improving Since people are constantly accessing Internet-based resources, and are getting messages from all over, many people are less deliberate in their ongoing scrutiny of incoming emails, the predominant vector phishing attacks come in. The truth is that people were the weakest link in a company?s cybersecurity platform before the pandemic, but it pales in comparison to how much of a liability some are today without constant oversight. COVID-19 is a Field Day for Scammers As mentioned earlier and understood by many security-minded people out there, hackers are opportunists. A global pandemic is just the kind of situation that hackers look to take advantage of; and they have. There are literally billions of COVID-19 pages up on the Internet, so ascertaining which are legitimate and which are nefarious is going to be difficult. Additionally, thousands of domains are added each day, of which 90 percent are scams. Not a good look for humanity when the largest health crisis in decades is met with people trying to steal money and data from others. A Change in Perspective is Needed Technology?s job is to support the way people work, and with today?s strategies in place, more attacks are resulting in more breaches. This is largely because–even with a sharp change in strategy–companies are still trusting their users to do the right thing. They know that most of them will, and some won?t. The only way to get ahead during these uncertain times is to move to a zero trust strategy. That?s not to say that users aren?t still going to have to do the right things, but under the zero trust model, the user is allowed to access their work regardless of where they are or what machine they are using. It?s less critical […]
Huge Business Losses Due to cybercriminal efforts, hundreds of millions of dollars that should be available to businesses are not. Over the past year alone, almost two billion dollars have been stolen from businesses, as compared to $600 million in 2019? and that isn?t even taking the $380 million that firms have paid in response to ransomware attacks into consideration. Hackers will commonly direct their attacks toward larger companies, often those in the financial services, energy, and manufacturing industry sectors. Why? Simple: these companies are often vulnerable, with larger losses from their downtime events. Attacks Are Up This year has been largely unprecedented, with huge numbers of people working from home. Unfortunately, many of these people are doing so without the requisite cybersecurity protections in place. As a result, cyberattacks are happening at a rate of approximately 4,000 each day? an increase of about 400 percent during the past year alone. Attack Vectors Adding to the cybercriminal?s list of attacks, the COVID-19 pandemic has given hackers increased opportunities to shape their attacks. Cybersecurity professionals are seeing a lot of attacks utilizing the current crisis to manipulate their targets, as well as focusing on the organizations dedicated to researching a COVID-19 vaccine. In addition to the critical data these organizations hold, there is a lot of pressure to overwhelm these firms? which potentially leaves them more vulnerable to attack. Many cybercriminals have jumped on this opportunity, including one group known as APT29. APT29 has been identified by both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Interpol as a particular threat, targeting research being conducted in the US, UK, and Canada. Ransomware has also been on the rise as remote work has been more commonly implemented, as remote workers tend to be more vulnerable to these attacks. This, paired with the continued interest in recent coronavirus developments, have led to many successful strategies being deployed by cybercriminals. These strategies have included: Emails that claim to have information about COVID-19 vaccines and shortages of PPE. Messages claiming to be from the government about stimulus payments. Free downloads for video and audio conferencing solutions, a major communications strategy during the pandemic. Hackers have also become cleverer in what their ransomware attacks do, with some directing the data to the hacker after a payment is made to decrypt it so that the owner must pay up twice. How to Respond For your business to survive this pandemic, you first need to be aware of how the situation has impacted the cybersecurity space and complicated matters. Three of the biggest challenges are as follows: Many businesses were not prepared to properly implement remote work before it was required for their business to function. This only increased the difficulties that these businesses faced. Due to this, many of the preventative measures and security monitors were traded off in favor of more efficient remote capabilities. Moreover, attackers are still using COVID-19 as bait to lure their targets into their schemes. To counteract these issues, you need to take a holistic and inclusive approach to cybersecurity preparedness. Here are some elements you need to strongly consider: Training ? Your team can either be your weakest point or your strongest asset, in terms of your security. Make sure they are educated about the different ways a cybercriminal can try to manipulate […]
