Cybercriminals Don’t Always Use Cruise Missiles…

It’s common for business owners to think of cyberattacks as precision strikes. They imagine hackers gathered around their computers carefully planning out the infiltration and extortion of a huge, international corporation with deep pockets.

Hollywood certainly hasn’t helped to clarify this misconception. In movies and on TV, we typically see cybercrime depicted as an Ocean’s Eleven-style heist with careful and deliberate attention paid to a single target.

In most cases, this is not how it actually shakes out.

When it comes to hackers, you’re far less likely to be hit with a cruise missile than you are to step on a landmine.

This is how cybercrime actually operates in most cases. Hackers scatter their “weapons” throughout the internet and wait for an unsuspecting user to trigger them. Instead of spending immense resources going after a hard target, they simply count on normal users to spring hundreds or thousands of these smaller traps.

For the cybercriminal, this is much easier -- and a very reliable way to strike. For the average business owner, it means that something as mundane as checking your email is a walk through a minefield.

We’ve seen it before. One careless user can trigger a ransomware infection that spreads throughout their company and beyond. Once the trap is sprung, it’s already too late for a quick and simple resolution. Productivity is lost. Service is interrupted. People get angry.

It’s unpleasant to imagine, but entire businesses have fallen apart because their cybersecurity was too lax to stop a malicious email link from bringing them down. If a service interruption means the potential loss of customers and revenue, the danger is very much real.

Staying Out of the Cybersecurity Minefield

The good news is that you can avoid this minefield as long as you make a conscious decision to do so. We recommend the following steps as part of a comprehensive cybersecurity plan:

• Train your staff in cybersecurity best-practices to minimize the risk of phishing.
• Layer your cybersecurity to eliminate gaps and maximize protection.
• Make 24/7 monitoring part of your security strategy. There’s no substitute for having cybersecurity professionals watching your network for suspicious activity, and it’s one of the most proven ways to reduce your risk profile.

If you take the appropriate steps, you can rest easier at night knowing that the future of your business isn’t in the hands of cybercriminals. The team at Integral Networks knows how to eliminate these worries from your life and secure your network and data from landmines, cruise missiles, and anything else the hackers want to throw at you.