SMBs Archives - Page 5 of 5

World Backup Day reminds us all just how precious our data is

Think of all the important files sitting on your computer right now. If your computer crashed tomorrow, would you be able to retrieve your important files? Would your business suffer as a result? As more and more of our daily activities incorporate digital and online...

3 Reasons We Forget Small & Midsized Businesses are Major Targets for Ransomware

The ransomware attacks that make headlines and steer conversations among cybersecurity professionals usually involve major ransoms, huge corporations and notorious hacking groups. Kia Motors, Accenture, Acer, JBS…these companies were some of the largest to be...

How Ransomware Sneaks In

Ransomware has officially made the mainstream. Dramatic headlines announce the latest attacks and news outlets highlight the staggeringly high ransoms businesses pay to retrieve their stolen data. And it’s no wonder why – ransomware attacks are on the rise and the...

An MSP and SMB guide to disaster preparation, recovery and remediation

Introduction It’s important for a business to be prepared with an exercised business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) plan plan before its hit with ransomware so that it can resume operations as quickly as possible. Key steps and solutions should be followed...

Podcast: Cyber resilience in a remote work world

The global pandemic that began to send us packing from our offices in March of last year upended our established way of working overnight. We’re still feeling the effects. Many office workers have yet to return to the office in the volumes they worked in pre-pandemic....

5 Tips to get Better Efficacy out of Your IT Security Stack

If you’re an admin, service provider, security executive, or are otherwise affiliated with the world of IT solutions, then you know that one of the biggest challenges to overcome is efficacy. Especially in terms of cybersecurity, efficacy is something of an amorphous...

How Cryptocurrency and Cybercrime Trends Influence One Another

Typically, when cryptocurrency values change, one would expect to see changes in crypto-related cybercrime. In particular, trends in Bitcoin values tend to be the bellwether you can use to predict how other currencies’ values will shift, and there are usually...

Webroot’s 2015 SMB Threat Report: An Analysis

Recently, Webroot published 2015 SMB Threat Report: Are organizations completely ready to stop cyberattacks?, which included the results from a survey of 700 SMB decision makers worldwide about their IT security, their readiness for security response, and use of MSP recourses in their environment.

Many SMBs are outsourcing cybersecurity to managed services providers (MSPs) to make up for the lack of time and in-house expertise. According to the report, 81% of respondents agreed such outsourcing would improve their bandwidth for addressing other tasks. With the majority of SMBs surveyed planning to increase their cybersecurity budget in 2016, VARs across a broad variety of industries are beginning to embrace this service-centric relationship with their clients. For customers, choosing to work with an MSP means they avoid installation and maintenance headaches. They also avoid diverting resources towards laborious IT security support tasks or ad hoc break/fix reseller charges.

Although SMBs appear more aware of cybersecurity-related risks to their organizations, many are still unsure or under-informed about their own readiness to handle such risks even with heavy investments of time into protecting the environments. Incredibly, even with 56% of respondents reporting over 17 hours spent on cybersecurity, 44% are still feeling they have less time to stay up-to-date on threats.

Just 37% of IT decision makers surveyed in the US, the UK, and Australia believe their organizations are completely ready to manage IT security and protect against threats. While I am not entirely surprised given the considerable cybersecurity challenges SMBs face, but it’s still an alarmingly low number.

On the flip side, when asked how confident IT decision makers would be that someone on their staff could deal with a cyberattack, a surprising 84% responded confidently. Given the other responses to this survey, this was unexpected and indicates a discrepancy and possible misperception of IT resources, knowledge, and capability to thoroughly address a cyberattack.

Webroot’s SMB Threat Report makes it clear that the future of security is in need of some change with IT decision makers are stretched thin. In the near future, we should expect a continued movement towards “outsourced IT,” particularly on the cybersecurity front. According to the survey, 81% of respondents believe outsourcing IT solutions would increase their bandwidth to address other areas of their business. In order to reap the full array of benefits, though, IT decision makers must be proactive about identifying MSPs that offer “intelligent cybersecurity” solutions.

Our definition of intelligent? Solutions that are easy to install, can be managed remotely, and provide real-time protection against modern threats. While these are all important qualifications, we expect SMBs to place an increased premium on the “real-time” component.