Now is not the time to ignore your vulnerabilities. Only a few years ago a little network segmentation, anti-virus software, and a firewall were considered adequate for securing most businesses. Experts would disagree with this being adequate, but this was a common belief for many small and medium businesses. Being in the trenches every day, first-hand experience proves this out. It wasn’t unusual to not even see a “Security” line item in an organization’s annual IT budget.
I’ve preached about “Technology Debt” in the past. Technology Debt is the concept of consistently underspending on IT and falling behind on building an appropriate and properly performing IT infrastructure. It’s my opinion that many organizations are incurring a “Security Debt”. The big difference between the two is that an archaic security infrastructure can result in catastrophic results when you’re the focus of some bad characters.
Despite all the articles and news stories about agencies, businesses, and public works getting cyberattacked, it isn’t changing the security behavior of many organizations—excluding of course those that have been affected. Those on the receiving end of an attack know firsthand what it feels like to watch their organization shut down. The “fun” doesn’t stop even if you are able to recover your data or workloads. Shareholder and investor explanations, lost customer confidence, lost revenue, unanticipated expenses, compliance penalties, and the public’s scrutiny are just of few of the long-term impacts.
Interested in learning more about IT Security and how you can protect your business? Contact us for a Security Assessment!
Foreign Governments
While everyone is caught up with possible Russian hacking, there are other governments actively attacking American interests; it’s also not just isolated to the government, military contractors, and the Fortune 500. China, North Korea, Iran, and others are working hard to steal data, trade secrets, and intellectual property. They can’t match our ability to invent, so they hack.
The Internet of Things (IoT)
It feels like everything made today can be internet connected. Appliances, consumer products, control devices, etc. numbered over 8 BILLION in 2017. It’s estimated to be 20 Billion by the year 2020. A significant number of those devices have agreements with platforms controlled by Chinese companies with ties to the Chinese government. We put dependence on these devices to run our businesses and lives, but do you know where that cloud data is going and how it’s being used? Do you just assume the cloud is safe and all the players have your best interest at heart?
Naturally, PEI is here to help if something bad is happening, but we’d much rather help proactively. Security is a risk management process. We have insurance for the possibility of an accident or catastrophic event. IT security is the same.
Ben Franklin said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” It couldn’t be truer for security.
Tim Krueger, PEI
