Who would have thought back in 2010 threat actors would be attacking small businesses? “But it’s happening now, “says George Anderson, the product marketing director at Carbonite + Webroot, OpenText companies.
Unfortunately, in today’s tech climate, the Managed Service Providers or MSP’s who look after small to medium businesses are having to contend with this very issue. Hacking groups whether independent or state sponsored are using advanced hacking tools ((advanced persistent threats or APTs). These sophisticated tools are then used to infiltrate the networks and computers, gaining unauthorised access usually undetected for long periods of time. Sometimes weeks, months and even years at a time. As a result, cyber-espionage is the leading type of threat linked to business breaches globally, according to the 2020 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report.
In other words, these actors and their threats are highly sophisticated attacks. Importantly, they can even be difficult for enterprise security teams to detect, stop or recover from. But we all must be ready no matter the business size. That’s to say, even MSP’s whether large or small, may need extra help protecting their SMB customers from the APT onslaught. There’s already an onslaught of threats from ordinary, profit-motivated cyber-attackers. So how do we deal with this issue head on? Cyber- resilience, that’s how.
What does cyber resilience even look like?
Well George says “that being [cyber] resilient…is knowing that even if you’re knocked offline you can recover quickly…it is essential for today’s businesses”
Meanwhile, today’s organizations have – to accept a breach is pretty much inevitable. That’s the reality of today’s tech climate. Most importantly, the key is to get things back to normal asap. It is the way an organisations cyber resilience will be measured. For a business, “it’s about being able to absorb punches and get back on your feet, no matter what threatens,” as George puts it in a recent podcast.
Read more about how businesses can build a cyber resilient company culture.
How can businesses and MSPs achieve cyber resilience?
A major component in a strong resilience strategy is about defending against attacks and preparing for their affects. Firstly, having tested and proven backup and disaster recovery solutions in place to survive a breach. This ensures that a business has reliable, real-time (or near real-time) recovery capabilities, in the event of an attack. Certainly, if the business gets back to business with minimal disruption, that’s a great day! And a top score in cyber resilience.
Secondly, to reduce the risk of events like data loss from accidental deletion, device theft or hardware failure, businesses really need multiple layers of protection that secure their devices and data in multiple ways. Top tips for data protection include:
- All data must be continuously backed up and available.
- Data stored within collaboration tools, such as Microsoft® Teams or SharePoint, should be backed up too.
- A full cyber resilience strategy should include cybersecurity and threat prevention features, network protection and end user education, in addition to backup and recovery solutions.
- Choose vendors who are known within the channel for their easy management, integrations with RMMs and or their reputation with your fellow MSPs.
So comprehensive cyber resilience solution is the primary goal to ensuring business continuity for MSP’s and the businesses they serve.
The Carbonite + Webroot division of OpenText want to help MSPs achieve this goal by upping the advocacy and stopping the attacks before they can happen. “We want to be able to help MSPs recover and limit lost time, reputation damage, and financial impact so businesses can keep functioning.”
And that’s good news for all. As more vendors start to help MSPs and small to medium businesses guard against and recover from breaches, the more chance we have of outsmarting the threat actors and their sophisticated methods.
