This guide breaks down three important cybersecurity considerations. Most organizations make cybersecurity overly complicated because “you should do it either way.” This is not a valid argument. Business owners have tons of “have to” being thrown at them every day. It’s extremely difficult to cut through the fluff and identify what is critical and what is just nice to have.
We take the approach of educating the community on cybersecurity to help them make an informed decision for their business.
Executives Guide to Cybersecurity
We kept this guide short because we know you’re busy.
So, once you know which layers are recommended and WHY, it’s important to realize the three primary factors an IT company should be evaluating when choosing the right fit for each of these layers. This information is important to review so you can identify why price may be higher/lower, why your employees are impacted or not impacted, and whether these layers are actually effective or not.
The three factors we will be reviewing are effectiveness, user impact, and price.
Effectiveness
This is without a doubt the most important aspect of cybersecurity to take into consideration. Is the layer effective at doing what it says it’s going to do? For instance, is the spam filtering service actually catching spam? If so, at what rate?
Here is a good example of this: Microsoft 365 has a built-in spam filtering, so why would a business invest in an additional spam filtering?
The answer is effectiveness.
The built-in spam filtering does stop some spam, but not at a rate that your IT provider is comfortable with. That is why they recommend an additional layer of protection. It’s not to sell another service, it’s because it is their job to protect your business.
We go through a standard checklist and review process for every recommended layer to ensure the layers are effective in the current environment. I say current environment because cybersecurity changes very quickly. So, we must continuously repeat this process to ensure our recommendations are the latest and greatest!
User Productivity
This cybersecurity consideration does not get talked about enough but is oftentimes the main pain an organization feels. What is the point in being hyper secure if it causes many roadblocks that slow your users down and ultimately cost more money than not having the layers in place at all.
A good IT provider must evaluate the user impact. However, this is often not the case. Again, they may default to “but this is the only way to be completely safe!” but that’s just not the case. Our clients are not impacted by constant roadblocks but are just as secure as businesses that may have a less thoughtful MSP.
In some cases, there is no getting around this thought.
For instance, multi-factor authentication is a layer that requires a second form of authentication or “login” to gain access to an account. This can be cumbersome for the end user, but it truly is an important layer.
So, we identify how to make this easier. A couple of quick ways we can make this easier for our clients:
- Authenticator app – this will send a quick push notification to your mobile phone. All you have to do is click “Yes” rather than remembering and typing in a code
- Safe devices – We set devices you log in from often as safe devices. This will limit how often you are prompted for a second form of authentication.
User impact is huge and if you are feeling the pain of an IT provider that has not considered this, please reach out today so we can get you working securely AND fast.
Price
Another topic that many IT providers will shy away from is price. We serve the small and medium sized business space. Ensuring that our clients can afford our recommendations is critical, because affordable and implemented is better than expensive and avoided.
When evaluating the best cybersecurity package for our clients, we have to ensure price is one of the factors to ensure we can roll out to all of our clients to protect them. It’s not reasonable to assume our clients can pay for the same service as a publicly traded company for instance.
However, that does not mean they are less secure! Oftentimes big price tags are associated with additional reporting, ability to customize at great lengths, and number of users. Since we can purchase with economies of scales, we can provide enterprise level security at a reduced rate.
Conclusion
Thank you for taking the time to read this. You obviously take cybersecurity very seriously if you are willing to get educated on how it’s consideration can protect your business. If you’re interested in learning more, be sure to check out our Executives Guide to Cybersecurity and reach out to our team.
We would be happy to provide a free evaluation of cybersecurity at your business and review these 3 important factors to ensure you are in the best possible situation.
Reach out today Contact Us.
