• Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • 713-587-2560
  • Contact
  • Request A Demo
Virtual-Q
  • IT as a Service
    • IT Support
      • Helpdesk
      • IT Consulting Services
      • IT Hardware Procurement
    • Desktop as a Service
      • Secure Remote Desktop
      • High Performance Desktop
    • Infrastructure as a Service
      • Data Center & Cloud
      • Infrastructure Analysis
    • Disaster Recovery as a Service
      • Business Continuity
      • Disaster Recovery Plan
  • Cybersecurity as a Service
    • Risk Assessment
    • Intrusion Detection & Prevention
    • IT Security Compliance Services
  • Industries
  • Resources
    • Demos
    • Client Support
    • Blog
    • LinkedIn Articles
    • FAQs
  • Testimonials
  • About
    • Leadership Team
    • Partners
    • Channel Partners
  • Partner Portal
  • Menu Menu

The Importance of Cybersecurity Awareness

The average cost of a data breach in 2021 was $4.24 million. A cybersecurity first mindset is crucial to protect your business from this kind of disaster. Keep reading to learn what you can do to keep your cybersecurity awareness high.

Introduce Threat

Between ransomware attacks, phishing scams, and social engineering threats, businesses face greater cybersecurity risks than ever before. Not only do data breaches cost more than ever, they’re happening more frequently—in fact, security breaches have increased 67% since 2014.

A cyberattack can absolutely crush a business, and most small to medium-sized businesses are unprepared for this event. Only 50% of U.S. businesses have a cybersecurity plan in place. Don’t leave cybersecurity up to chance, start taking a cybersecurity first mindset today.

What Does it Mean to Have a Cybersecurity First Mindset?

A cybersecurity first mindset is crucial to keeping your business safe in the modern age. This means staying on top of cybersecurity trends, forming a cybersecurity framework and plan, and studying how you can defend against the latest cybersecurity threats.

The right mindset can make or break your business, as 60% of small to medium sized businesses close within 6 months of falling victim to a cyberattack. Change how your business approaches your cybersecurity now to avoid disaster later.

Why is Having a Cybersecurity First Mindset Important?

Cybersecurity awareness is important because the technological landscape is constantly changing. Cybersecurity best practices quickly become dated because hackers are constantly probing for ways to subvert the latest strategies. As soon as your business is secure from one type of threat, cybercriminals find a dozen other weaknesses they can exploit in your business. Top cybersecurity threats of today include:

Social Engineering

Social engineering attacks have been one of the largest trends in cyberattacks in 2022. 85% of data breaches are caused by human error, and social engineering attacks aim to take advantage of this fact.

Social engineering attacks involve tricking users into making security mistakes or giving away sensitive information. Social engineering attacks are extremely effective because they gather personal information about the victim that gives them a false sense of security.

A common type of social engineering is a spear phishing scam. A spear phishing scam tailors messages around private details of the potential victims, like characteristics, job position, or their personal contacts. For example, a spear phishing scammer may impersonate an organization’s IT consultant and then send phishing emails formatted exactly how the organization’s IT consultant would. These attacks are elaborate and extremely effective.

If a social engineering attack is conducted successfully, it could lead to hackers gaining access to your organization’s internal structure. Once cybercriminals are in your organization, they have free reign. They can:

  • Steal or delete data
  • Destroy internal structures
  • Corrupt files
  • Obtain trade secrets
  • Swipe your financial information

Good cybersecurity awareness is key to avoiding social engineering attacks.

Remote Worker Mobile Device Vulnerabilities

The shift toward remote and hybrid work environments has led to a huge increase in employees using their mobile devices for work purposes. This trend hasn’t slipped past cybercriminals, who are developing strategies to target mobile device users. In fact, 46% of companies experienced a cyberattack involving a malicious mobile app in 2021.

Your employees’ personal phone security affects your business. Cybercriminals that get access to your employees’ devices can use them to then tap into your business functions. This is why we always recommend practicing the principle of least privilege. The principle of least privilege restricts process and application access only to people that need them. This restricted access means that a hacker who accesses an employee account will have severely limited access.

Cryptojacking

Cryptojacking is a burgeoning form of cyberattack with very low cybersecurity awareness. In some industries, cryptojacking attacks have risen as much as 269% in this year alone. These attacks hijack the processing power of your devices to run cryptomining scripts in the background of your device. These scripts mine cryptocurrency with the intent of generating income for the cybercriminals.

You may be wondering why cryptojacking is a serious threat if it doesn’t directly harm your data. Cryptojacking attacks are extremely taxing on your device’s operating system, which will slow your performance to a crawl, leading to the slowing of your business processes as a whole.

Our Cybersecurity Tips for a Cybersecurity First Mindset:

Follow these steps to avoid security threats and ensure that your business is maintaining excellent cybersecurity standards:

Follow Cybersecurity Trends

Cyberattacks are constantly developing. Research the latest cyberthreats and stay informed on how to defend against them. Investigate what layers of security you can incorporate to protect and prevent new cyberattacks.

Train Employees

The vast majority of cyberattacks are a result of human error. Train your employees on cybersecurity best practices to prevent those mistakes from happening. Start by teaching your employees about the most common cyberattacks and how they can identify and avoid them.

Then, have them comply with cybersecurity best practices, like:

  • Enabling multi-factor authentication
  • Regularly changing their passwords
  • Limiting access to work software to work devices.

Update Software

Software updates are often designed as a response to cyberthreats. Make sure that you’re regularly updating all of your software to keep your devices secure. We highly recommend implementing automatic updates when possible to avoid the problem of employees ignoring update requests.

Partner With a Cybersecurity Provider

If staying on top of cybersecurity awareness by yourself sounds intimidating, consider partnering with a dedicated cybersecurity provider. A cybersecurity provider takes care of cybersecurity awareness for you, letting you focus on your core business processes.

If you’re interested in cybersecurity services, Virtual-Q brings enterprise-class security, computing, support, and disaster recovery to any business for a flat monthly cost. Whether you’re concerned with meeting compliance or guaranteeing your company’s future, Virtual-Q is here to help.

Share This Post

  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter

Related Postings

Image of exhausted team members meeting around a table.

Why IT Projects Fail

IT Support
Read more
March 2, 2023
https://www.virtual-q.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Image-of-exhausted-team-members-meeting-around-a-table..jpg 1250 2000 AbstraktMarketing /wp-content/uploads/2021/06/virtual-q_logo_w.png AbstraktMarketing2023-03-02 09:00:002023-03-09 14:43:45Why IT Projects Fail
Image of people looking at a computer together.

Virtual-Q’s Top Tier IT Support

IT Support
Read more
February 28, 2023
https://www.virtual-q.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Image-of-people-looking-at-a-computer-together..jpg 1250 2000 AbstraktMarketing /wp-content/uploads/2021/06/virtual-q_logo_w.png AbstraktMarketing2023-02-28 09:00:002023-03-09 14:43:46Virtual-Q’s Top Tier IT Support
Image of two people looking at code on a computer.

What to Expect from an IT Risk Assessment

Cybersecurity
Read more
February 21, 2023
https://www.virtual-q.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Image-of-two-people-looking-at-code-on-a-computer..jpg 1250 2000 AbstraktMarketing /wp-content/uploads/2021/06/virtual-q_logo_w.png AbstraktMarketing2023-02-21 09:00:002023-03-07 09:33:23What to Expect from an IT Risk Assessment

Categories

  • All About Virtual Q
  • Cloud
  • Cybersecurity
  • IT Consulting
  • IT Hardware Procurement
  • IT Support
  • LinkedIn Articles
  • MSP

Recent Posts

  • Why IT/MSP is Crucial During a Recession March 9, 2023
  • What Are IT Consulting Services? March 7, 2023
  • Why IT Projects Fail March 2, 2023
  • Virtual-Q’s Top Tier IT Support February 28, 2023
  • Cloud vs On-Premise February 23, 2023

Our Services

IT as a Service (ITaaS)

Cybersecurity as a Service (CSaaS)

Industry Solutions

 

Location

2245 Texas Drive Ste 260
Sugar Land, TX 77479

Get In Touch

Phone
Main Line: 713-587-2560
Helpdesk: 713-587-2500

Email
sales@virtual-q.com

Website by Abstrakt Marketing Group © 2022
  • Sitemap
  • Privacy Policy
Our Checklist for Improving Cybersecurity for Small Businessesmanager working in call centreHow an IT Consultant Can Help You Navigate the Changing Work Environment
Scroll to top

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

OKLearn more

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Accept settingsHide notification only
Translate »