2020 and beyond – The last couple of years has been nothing short of challenging. The pandemic, natural disasters and overall unrest has forced us to change how we think about getting business done.
In 2020 most businesses went from a centralized office model to being forced to completely scatter in the blink of an eye. Some businesses were prepared. Most unfortunately were not.
Moving forward, I don’t believe business will ever operate the same way again.
Its time to rethink “the fundamentals”
With a complete shift in where, how and why people get connected to the work they do, there is an opportunity to rethink the fundamentals of remote connectivity with security built in.
- We need to be just as secure out of the office as in the office
- We need to be able to access systems no matter where we are
- We need to have solutions that have smart and total protection built-in (not an afterthought)
…but we still need to Run a business!
Businesses need secure connectivity built for people – not perimeters.
New World, New Risks
In the work from anywhere economy, threats can come from anywhere too. Hackers have changed the way they work as well. The threats are changing as fast or faster than business.
“When employees take their machines home or use their home machines for work, those machines now sit in a physical and digital space unlike any within the office. Between routers, printers, foreign machines, devices, gaming consoles and home automation, the average home has a more complex and diverse communication and processing system than some small companies.”
– Entrepreneur.com April 2020
Cyber criminals are switching tactics and exploiting COVID-19-related fears among the population. As a result, working from home is becoming a gateway to new forms of data theft.”
– Deloitte Cybersecurity Study April 2020
We hear this a lot in IT:
- Why would the cyber criminals go after me?
- I’m too small
- I don’t have anything they want or need
- that stuff happens in the movies.
- It’s too expensive
We need to change our mindsets!
The Cyber Stack
You have anti-virus on all your computers/laptops, but this is no longer enough, you are no longer behind a safe firewall at the office, your machines are now scattered throughout homes.
In our connected world, our Work from Home or Work from Anywhere approach these days has only highlighted our need for added layers of security not limited to the office but per device and per employee.
Today, staff work from the office or work from home or both, you may have techs, electricians, plumbers, or other repair people on the road who not only need tools but also a device of some sort that connects to your data that may or may not live in the cloud or on your premises on your closely guarded server.
Your staff are connecting from all sorts of internet connections, from their home Wi-Fi, public Wi-Fi like free street Wi-Fi, McDonalds Wi-Fi whilst they are having a coffee or lunch.
How secure are these internet connections? Who Is watching, who is scanning and who wants to break in and check what is there? Who wants to not only steal your data but maybe to encrypt your data and hold it to ransom and ask for a sum of money to decrypt your files.
To prepare for what tomorrow brings, businesses don’t need a bunch of solutions that are dependent upon physical spaces with many points of potential failure.
Businesses need unified systems that are redundant, in the cloud and cover connectivity and security needs under one system working in harmony.
Lets talk Cyber Security
- 62% of small business have experienced a cyber security incident.
- 1 in 5 SMB’s did not know the term Phishing
- 80 percent of SMB’s rated cyber security as important to very important
- SMB’s that outsourced their IT security believe they are better protected than they really are
- Almost half of SMB’s reported they spent less than $500 on cyber security per year.
It’s time to think of a new way we approach security.
Being prepared for an everywhere, anywhere secure global network. It’s the most secure way for your business to stay connected, stay protected, stay positive and stay ahead.
Don’t become a statistic, if you don’t know what you have, how your protected or if your protected, seek help, talk to your managed service provider, possibly get an independent security audit, don’t hold off, don’t wait.
Visit some sites that give us excellent information:
https://www.cyber.gov.au/acsc/view-all-content/essential-eight