When you look at your total IT budget, how much is dedicated to data security? Have you increased that budget in the last couple of years? Most companies have in response to the growing number of cybersecurity threats that have cropped up in the last few years. More threats should be fought – and won – with a bigger budget, right? Not really.
If you get the feeling that you keep throwing more money into protecting your data, but aren’t seeing an equal reduction in attacks, you’re right. The problem isn’t that increasing your IT budget won’t help. The issue is what you’re doing with that budget. Most people are amping up the same security measures they’ve had in place for the last few years, but the way you use IT and the types of threats have changed in that time.
The majority of enterprise spending on IT security is dedicated to compliance, but compliance regulations address the most base-level and obvious attacks and the policies and procedures can’t possibly evolve as quickly as the threat landscape. The cloud, while hugely beneficial, has deeply changed our data security threat exposure. We are continuously finding amazing ways to utilize cloud computing and the Internet of Things (IoT) to leverage our business offerings. But, in a race to best our competition, it’s possible we’re skipping critical security protocol steps along the way. Using the cloud means your data is leaving your walls, and while that enables tremendous benefits, it means your firewalls and antivirus aren’t enough to protect it.
The threats have continued to evolve as well. We’ve talked a lot this last year about malware, especially the proliferation of phishing and ransomware attacks. While compliance training can help to limit your exposure here, you need to expand it. It’s time to re-strategize and recognize that the spending on localized protection and defense is too narrow-minded.
As our needs have changes, new security solutions have risen. One of the most innovative solutions we’ve found is similar to compliance but with a focus on threat recognition, consider it like developing a Human Firewall. It’s a Software-as-a-Service platform that can test and train your employees behavior on by regularly testing their response to potential threat situations that mimic real-life attacks. If they take an undesired an action, they are automatically alerted and given a quiz to help them understand why that action created a potential issue. It also alerts management to staff members that are likely in need of more extensive training.
Another solution is regaining control of your data. Can you identify who has access to your data in some way right this minute? Vendors, customers, employees, and third-party service providers each create another open window to your data if they aren’t protecting it to the level you expect – and they probably aren’t. There are services to address this issue as well.
In a modern, competitive business environment, your IT security budget needs to be robust, but spent wisely on the resources that will actually protect you against evolving threats, not just internal protections. Great Lakes Computer can provide you with all levels of data security options so you can continue to grow your business in the cloud without growing your risk of breach.
