3 security risks managed security services can help you avoid
Security should be of the utmost importance for all businesses. The number of digital threats that could target you are ever growing, and the damage they can do is potentially reputation destroying. Your data, intellectual property and financial information are at risk if you don't have a security system in place, and an experienced technician handling it. By outsourcing this responsibility to a managed security service, you'll be ensuring your data remains safe and sound. Here are three of the biggest risks that managed security could help you avoid.
Malicious software
Malware is designed to disrupt or gain access to a computer system, and it can be quite damaging if it does. This type of software includes (but unfortunately it not limited to) viruses that can cause significant damage, spyware used to attain personal information, browser hijackers that can take over your web browsers and, perhaps worst of all, rootkits that can gain administrative rights to your system and exploit them as the originator sees fit.
Email scams
Phishing is a scam that often targets businesses. They appear as legitimate emails, however when opened they download viruses or other unwanted software onto your computer than can capture personal information and other sensitive data. A business email compromise is another email scam that specifically targets businesses. How this works is a scammer will pose as an executive in the company and send an email requesting the transferral of funds to a "business partner" and supplying the scammer's own account details. This scam has been successful as recently as 2016, where German company Leoni AG lost approximately US$44 million.
Hacking
Hackers are a crafty breed, constantly coming up with new ways to access systems and extort them for their needs. It can be very difficult to keep up with methods for unlawfully gaining entry to private computers, as they undergo frequent updates to try and work around cybersecurity measures that have been put in place. Whether the hackers' goals are financially motivated, or merely to disrupt, the risk is the same.
What managed security services can offer
Many small- to medium-sized enterprises wrongfully assume that they are too small to be the target of cyber attacks. The Ponemon Institute released a report at the beginning of2017 that stated 55 per cent of the 598 SMEs interviewed stated they'd experienced a cyber attack during 2016. A managed security service can help you build a strong security system to keep your data safe, and will also provide the expertise to identify a breach and act on it soon enough to minimise the threat.
While much of the time preventative measures can keep malicious software off your system, it can be difficult to manage once it's there. For more information about managed security services, call LOOKUP.COM now.