Business + IT Insights

“Dear friend,
I am a displaced Nigerian prince desperately in need of your help…”

By now, we’ve all become fairly savvy at detecting the average phishing scam. If foreign royalty is asking you to send money, or some other stranger cold-emails urging you to invest in a “too good to be true” proposition, you know enough to click spam!

No company is immune to cybersecurity incidents. Unfortunately, they're one of the most common and urgent information technology problems in companies today. While it’s the high-profile data breaches – like the latest to hit Facebook, exposing the personal information of 50 million users – that get the most attention, the reality is that we see small- to mid-size companies experience cybersecurity attacks and data breaches way too often. The global average cost of a data breach is $3.86 million and takes 69 days to contain. Companies that act quickly to contain the breach and conduct damage control suffer less.

Cybersecurity used to be considered “an IT issue.” Keeping data and files safe was the domain of the CIO, and no one else paid much attention as long as operations were running smoothly. Because data has become an enormous business driver for all types of companies, and cybersecurity laws have become stricter and more specific to address the growing risks for consumers and businesses, CEOs and other company leaders have begun to realize that staying on top of cybersecurity isn’t just a smart IT practice. Cybersecurity is now a critical business issue that impacts the health of the organization.

It can seem so legitimate. You get an email from a service you use asking you to change your password. You click on the link, which takes you to a website that looks authentic. You input your current login credentials and suggest a new password. Success! It says you’re done.

There’s been a lot of market hype over the last few years about managed IT support and Managed Service Providers (MSPs) – in addition to the already dizzying array of other IT provider choices. MSPs differ in their capabilities but, in general, each can help you proactively manage your IT infrastructure (i.e., servers, network and PCs) for a monthly fee versus the old model of waiting until there's a problem and then reacting to it. Some may also act as consultants or advisors to you and your internal IT team – if one exists.  

At Lazorpoint, companies work with us because we see more than just technology. We see entire businesses. Our job is to use this vision to enable businesses to use technology to decide quickly, operate efficiently and grow smartly. The following six components of business IT planning are key parts of building that roadmap to success.

9 out of 10 phishing emails contain ransomware, and 91% of data breaches start with a phishing attack.

The consequences of ransomware and data breaches can be severe for a company's bottom line and reputation.

Is it possible your employees could fall for scams like these? If you're not sure, you might want to phish them yourself to find out. 

You probably heard about the ransomware strain WannaCry that spread globally in May, blocking customers from their data unless they paid a ransom.

WannaCry exploited a Windows vulnerability that Microsoft released a patch for two months earlier. This attack was (or should’ve been) a wake-up call to the importance of timely patching on every server and PC, every time critical security updates are released.

Spending heavily on cybersecurity makes sense given the risk, and can make an executive feel safe. Unfortunately, the major sources of cyber threats aren’t technological.

Cybercrime is steadily increasing and getting harder to prevent. Smaller companies are often left scrambling in the face of ransomware, phishing, social engineering and other digital attacks. 

Proactively combatting and preventing these clever, sophisticated schemes takes the right resources, but strapped for time and money, smaller businesses often default to a reactive approach. This can be costly.