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Small-medium businesses are on the bullseye for cyber attacks, with businesses being attacked and compromised on an hourly basis, yet many SMBs don’t seem to be worried at all. 63% of small-medium businesses experienced a data breach in 2019, as reported in a study by Keeper Security and the Ponemon Institute. Yet the same study found that 60% of SMB owners think their businesses aren’t a likely target for a cyber attack. These numbers don’t add up, and something about these business owners’ laid back attitude just doesn’t make sense – SMB recovery from a cyber attack is estimated to cost around $200,000, and can easily reach millions depending on the extent of the damage (and in case of ransomware – how big the ransom price is). In fact, a study by BullGuard found that over forty percent of SMBs do not have cybersecurity defense plans whatsoever.

Security is confusing, we get it. It can be expensive, there are way too many options, and your budget is limited (especially nowadays, during a worldwide epidemic). So how do you choose the right security solution for your needs AND your budget?

Utilize Threat Intelligence - Start with Known Threats

Most cyber attacks are deployed from known attack sources – whether it be known cyber gangs and APTs, known malicious infrastructure, or even ASNs and areas of the internet that are known to be abused for cyber attacks. Cyber threats have become so complex these days, including advanced evasion techniques, that traditional security solutions which use malware signatures or behavior information to detect threats oftentimes miss critical breaches in victims’ systems. With traditional security measures failing to protect users, this newfound situation calls for the industry as a whole, and for security solution consumers, to rethink traditional security approaches. To ensure network security, we need to create a strong first line of defense, using threat intelligence to block inbound malicious traffic from known attack sources, before they penetrate the system.

Don’t Forget Outbound Threats

When we think about blocking threats, we tend to focus on inbound malicious activity – we imagine a hacker trying to breach our system, setting-off a siren letting us know that someone is trying to hack us. Yet there is another, often overlooked layer of security that is critical to ensure across-the-board protection. Sometimes, complex malicious activity may bypass inbound security and breach a system, but if it cannot phone home to its servers (and to the hands of the attackers), the attack becomes useless – and harmless. Blocking known malicious outbound traffic lets businesses ensure that even if their critical data has been reached, it cannot be sent to the attackers, and therefore it will stay safe.

Don’t Buy New Hardware – Use a Software Solution

Buying and implementing new hardware is a burden. Hardware installations require an expenditure of time and money that you probably don’t want to spend, and it may very well not be a cost-effective choice. Choose a software solution for cheaper prices, easier installation and solution flexibility. SaaS, virtualization and public cloud platforms provide scalable and affordable security options for SMBs.

Keep it Light

When choosing your software solution, choose a light option that will take little machine resources. Whether it be a network software solution for your firewall or DNS, or an endpoint solution, light software won’t force you to choose between performance and security, allowing your system to continue functioning at high capacity.

Choose Automation

Keep things light-weight in terms of people resources, too. When security solutions use automation, it allows them to take endless amounts of top-notch information from a variety of intelligence sources and vendors, and operationalize the information so that it can be used to combat threats. Automation also comes in to play when the solution needs to push updates from the sources to the customer’s devices. Use a solution that automates its intelligence aggregation, and automatically pushes the aggregated data in to your devices at a high updating speed. In addition to high quality threat coverage, automated systems also require much less maintenance efforts.

 

Now, more than ever, a rock solid security solution is an investment worth making. Spending a few thousand bucks a month can save companies hundreds of thousands, if not millions later when dealing with a cyber attack’s remediation costs, business ramifications and stolen data implications. Choose an easy-to-install solution that offers high value at a low cost.

 

Interested in hearing more about how ThreatSTOP will automatically protect your organization against cyber attacks? Fill out your contact information below to learn about how ThreatSTOP can reliably and quickly protects your network from cyber threats, or to request a demo.