Have you ever wanted to your organization to be a household name? I’ll bet that Colonial Pipeline didn’t!
There are many ways to establish your name as the leader in a specialty, industry, or market. Some are good, but some others not so much. Being known as the best Neurosurgery Practice, Best Electrical Contractor, toughest Lawyer, or most efficient pipeline would be fantastic.
However, on the other hand, having the reputation as the Medical Practice who was unable to see patients for 2 weeks after having all their patient data stolen, placed on the dark web for sale and at the same time having to pay a 6 figure ransom, all because you chose to not implement recommended cyber security enhancements, would be a very poor outcome! Or the contractor who delayed the completion of a multimillion-dollar project due to a breach/ransomware for similar reasons, oh and by the way, maybe the bad guys release your bidding data just to show they are serious about getting paid!
Colonial Pipeline used to have a closed system, but due to Covid’s remote work requirements, their systems were connected to the internet. They did not have a good security update plan and didn’t have advanced tools in place to detect and prevent intrusions. Colonial was initially breached via a known vulnerability that Microsoft had released a emergency patch over a month ago, but that patch had not been applied! A week ago, almost no one knew who Colonial was, now everyone does and not in a good way! Now they have paid $5 million for recovery rather than having paid a few thousand dollars for prevention.
2021 is going to be a great year for business, unless that is, your organization does not have a secure work from home strategy, a robust cyber security and backup plan, and doesn’t utilize technology as a business driver rather than a grudging expense like Toilet Paper.
If you don't have the following components as part of your I.T. setup at a minimum (or don’t even know what they mean), the question you have to ask yourself is, "Will they call me stupid or just irresponsible when my organization is breached?"
- 2 Factor Authentication
- Robust Backup & Disaster Recovery Plan
- Strong Anti-Virus/Anti-Malware Solution
- Up to date NextGen Firewall
- Artificial Intelligence Based Threat Hunting Solution
- Zero Trust Security Solution
- BYOD and Remote Access Strategy
- Email Encryption
- Staff Security Training
- Dark Web Scanning Solution
- and a few more depending upon your business...
For help with your technology and cyber strategy, please feel free to reach out, my team and I are here to help! Also, sign up for our Cyber Security Weekly Tips: https://www.healthytechsolutions.com/cyber-security-tip-of-the-week/
Leo Bletnitsky, President
Healthy Technology Solutions
702-553-3200
