The promise of increased productivity in the cloud continues to ring true now more than ever. Access to corporate data from anywhere at any time while simultaneously collaborating as a team has kept so many businesses productive and competitive in our remote work environments. The caveat of access from anywhere is that without sufficient cybersecurity and risk management strategies, threat actors can also gain access to your sensitive corporate data.

In light of the uptick in breaches at small and medium-sized businesses (SMB), I wanted to briefly review the cyberthreat landscape and offer some cybersecurity best practices organizations can implement to better position their businesses against the bad guys.

Cybersecurity incidents are on the rise and not slowing down. This year, the nation has seen malicious cyberactivity against private sector companies such as SolarWinds, Microsoft Exchange, and most recently, the Colonial Pipeline. Cybercriminals also took advantage of the chaos brought on by the pandemic.

Data breach attacks are only getting more sophisticated and gaining more traction. They're happening to individuals at home, employees within organizations who click on the wrong link, CEOs who are targeted in a  Business Email Compromise, and the list goes on. What's even worse is that small- to medium-sized businesses are more of a target than the large corporations. According to Verizon's 2017 Data Breach Investigations Report, 61% of all data breach victims are businesses under 1,000 employees. 

Within the last decade, small to medium-sized businesses (SMB) have embraced cloud technologies. The promises of agility, productivity, resiliency, and scalability are appealing benefits to any business leader. If you were to look around your business today, you may find the cloud touching almost every aspect of it. While cloud technologies offer significant benefits, they also introduce new security risks. This leaves executives searching for effective cybersecurity tools and solutions to reduce chances of a high-priced, high-profile data breach.

Cybercriminals have small to medium-sized businesses in their crosshairs, and they are using phishing emails to lure them in. The reality is, any organization with sensitive data can be a target for cybercriminals. They have learned to precisely craft their phishing emails to trick spam filters and fool unsuspecting victims into clicking. Once this happens, the cybercriminals have the green light to proceed with their scam. Learn about the types of phishing emails used today and steps your organization can take to reduce the risk of phishing attacks.  

Cybercrime is a persistent, complex fight against the unseen. Elusive cybercriminals continually hone their hacking skills to target millions of unsuspecting users and exploit their digital weaknesses. They are usually driven by financial gain, and it is predicted that ransomware attacks against businesses will occur every 11 seconds by the end of this year. This estimate doesn't include individual attacks which occur even more frequently (Cybersecurity Ventures). Employing the right cybersecurity strategies to stay ahead of their endless attacks can sometimes feel like the cybersecurity goalpost is moving every second.