One of the most important aspects of keeping your business cyber secure is to maintain continuous vigilance, never lapsing into complacency. An occasional elbow in the ribs helps keep us from drifting away from what can often be a tricky path of maintaining rigorous cybersecurity.
Consider this article that elbow in the ribs!
We’re prompted to write it by a big uptick in cyber incident reports coming across the desk of our cyber team lately. The frequency and sophistication of the threats is escalating, and they’re targeting businesses of all sizes. Now is a perfect time to assess whether your business is adequately protected.
We want to go over three of the most commonly reported cyber threats we’ve been seeing. Then we want to go over some of the strategies we follow to ensure our clients enjoy rock-solid protection. Outsourcing your cybersecurity takes away a major stress for business owners, putting your business in the safe hands of seasoned pros. Our list below will reinforce that sentiment.
First, let’s take a look at those threats.
Three Common Cybersecurity Reports
Building your defence strategy needs to be strongly informed by the nature of threats facing your business. There are many out there, but these are three we’ve been running into a lot lately.
Phishing
With phishing, attackers disguise themselves as trustworthy entities to deceive you into revealing sensitive information such as usernames and passwords or even credit card details! Typically carried out through email, the attacker sends a message that appears to come from a legitimate source like a bank or well-known company. They aim to trick the recipient into clicking a malicious link or downloading an attachment containing malware.
Spoofing
Spoofing is the creation of fake websites, emails, or caller IDs to dupe people into thinking they’re interacting with a legitimate person or organisation. By gaining someone’s trust, they manipulate themselves into a position where they can steal data, extort money or install malware. Text messages can be used for spoofing, as can fake websites designed to look like a legitimate business’s website, such as a bank.
Brute Force Attacks
This one sounds simple – it’s basically when a hacker tries to guess the login credentials to a target system. But that would take centuries, right? Not with the help of bots, which can try multiple varieties of usernames and passwords in no time at all. This is an old method that’s easy to foil in your cybersecurity strategy, but the fact that it’s still popular and still works shows we still have a way to go when it comes to creating a blanket culture of cybersecurity.
How Smile IT Ensures Your Business is Protected 
When you outsource your IT to an MSP like Smile IT, you enjoy our comprehensive approach to cybersecurity that includes both preventative measures and responsive actions. Our goal is to ensure your business is equipped to handle any cyber threats coming its way.
Here’s how we do it:
Cybersecurity Assessment
Our team of cyber gurus perform a thorough assessment of your current security measures, evaluating your systems, networks and cyber culture. We do this in alignment with the ‘Essential Eight Maturity Model’ from the Australian Cyber Security Centre, determining where your business stands in relation to this framework. By identifying your vulnerabilities, strengths and areas that need improving, we can devise a clear roadmap to compliance with the Essential Eight and greatly improved cybersecurity posture.
Up-to-Date Cyber Strategies
This is an ever-evolving game, with the hackers pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in their quest to overcome your defences. You need to stay ahead of them, and that’s pretty hard work. At Smile IT we have a cyber team who make it their business to keep ahead of the hackers, staying up-to-date with the latest trends, technologies and practices. From implementing multi-factor authentication to reviewing data permissions and consistently patching software, we’ll ensure you’re protected from the latest threats.
Employee Training
Human error still accounts for 38% of all data breaches in Australia… because, well, we’re human right? The good thing about humans is that we’re pretty good learners, so educating your team about cyber threats and best practices has identifiable positive results in preventing attacks. At Smile we’ve partnered with Phished.io to provide training programs that help educate your staff in identifying phishing and other cyber threats before falling victim to them.
Compliance Support
Different industries have different rules and regulations around cybersecurity that you must comply with. If you don’t and you experience a cyber incident, you could be liable for huge fines. As if you don’t already have enough on your plate! We provide full compliance support, keeping up to date with any regulatory changes and helping you implement the necessary changes to align with the latest rules.
Data Backup and Disaster Recovery
If your business does experience a major cyber incident, you want a rock-solid backup plan in place to get your business operational again. Regular and robust backups mean your critical information is safely and securely stored away. We’ll put automated backup processes in place to ensure all your latest data is saved. Then, in the event of an attack, we’ll have a disaster recovery plan to revert to, restoring operations with minimum downtime.
Let’s Protect Your Business
If you want a review of your current cybersecurity or are overwhelmed by trying to keep your business safe by yourself, we’re here for you. As an ISO27001-certified tech company, we walk the talk when it comes to rigorous compliance. We’ll get you up to speed with the Essential Eight and devise a roadmap that keeps your cybersecurity posture at exactly the level it needs to be.
Don’t wait for an incident to happen before you take action… it’s just too costly. Get in touch today and we’ll help your business thrive in the digital age, safely!
When he’s not writing tech articles or turning IT startups into established and consistent managed service providers, Peter Drummond can be found kitesurfing on the Gold Coast or hanging out with his family!