Fear, Information Security, and Chicken Little

When we started to include managed networks into our services for clients, we immediately realized how serious an issue cybersecurity is.

The amount of malware in the world and the tenacity of cybercriminals is stunning.

A research report written by CSIS and sponsored by McAfee puts the total global cost of cybercrime at $600 billion each year. That number is expected to grow. Ransomware alone is a $2 billion “industry.” Some estimates place the total cost of ransomware as growing to $5 trillion (yes, with a “t”) by 2021.

It can be easy to look at these huge figures and think that you're too small for anyone to target.

That's not true.

As I've explained in a previous post, Why Hackers and Cybercriminals Love Small Businesses Like You, small size is no defense from cybercriminals.

Keep this in mind: 43% of cyberattacks target small and medium businesses.

That percentage increases every year. 

As we bring our services to market and talk with our clients about their need to triple lock the front door (and windows and attic and backdoor and any other points of entry), we started to worry that we sounded like Chicken Little.

Running around and screaming about the “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” or our desire to shake sense into some people isn't really a good idea.

After some time, it just becomes noise and easy to ignore.

Small and medium businesses do confront a set of security issues that are serious, and they're doing so in a situation that isn't always beneficial for them.

Cyberattacks are accelerating in number and complexity. There aren't enough cybersecurity professionals to fill all of the open cybersecurity positions. IT staff for many SMBs spend their days on the day-to-day tasks of managing IT (troubleshooting for users, updating and managing the network, etc.). 

Sometimes they don't have enough time to get everything done.

That's where managed IT and managed network services come into play. You can outsource the basic infrastructure needs to experts who can monitor your network 24/7, proactively blocking attacks and quickly performing updates and patches.

There are reasons beyond security to outsource your network. As with other arguments for outsourcing, the main two arguments are simple:

1. It costs less
2. It allows you – and your IT staff – to focus their time on improving your business 

We'll be sharing our knowledge about managed networks in the coming months – benefits, best practices, what to look for in a partner, and more. And, yes, part of the argument will be inspired by Chicken Little – because it is possible that an acorn in the form of ransomware could drop on your head.

As you learn about managed IT with us over the coming months, we will be writing about security issues. We aren't trying to scare you into our services – we think security is a top IT issue and that you should understand the implications.

Put another way: 

This stuff is scary.

We're not trying to be scary for the sake of being scary. 

But some of this stuff is scary.