8 Effective Cybersecurity Controls For SMBs

A Few Important Control Designs For Effective Cybersecurity Today

For over three decades, businesses have been protecting themselves with firewalls and anti-virus. Even before then, businesses were backing up their data to tape and cartridges. In the last 15 years or so, patch management has become another staple of cybersecurity. Today, these Risk Controls simply aren't enough anymore. As a Cisco spokesperson recently said, "Hackers don't break in, they log in."

Small and Mid-sized businesses (SMBs), more than any other type of organization that uses Information Technology, are feeling the brunt of the impact that the failure of these legacy controls leads to. Over half of these organizations fail within six months when they get hacked.

As SMBs continued to adopt technology, Managed Services Providers (MSPs) began to provide support for IT for the majority of SMBs. The MSP became the reason that business had good coverage for the four legacy controls listed above. These technical risk management controls are no longer enough to keep their clients safe without additional layers of security, as up to 95% of successful attacks target human beings who use technology rather than any vulnerabilities in the tech stack ¹ .

It's time for SMBs and the MSPs who manage SMB IT infrastructures to look beyond this basic cybersecurity risk management model and educate their clients on what they need to protect themselves. In this 8-point guide, we will explore ways for MSPs to engage with their clients to develop the level of cybersecurity risk management that prevents attacks from succeeding and minimizes the impact of a successful intrusion. Each week we'll be unveiling a new step on our blog, so please check back frequently or sign up to our newsletter for updates and to download the entire guide for free!

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In our kick-off article for this 8-point guide, we'll begin by discussing most important decision a business can make regarding cybersecurity risk management; determining their cybersecurity risk management strategy. This article is part of our weekly series on how to manage cybersecurity risk for businesses. If you'd like to download the complete 8-point guide, click here to sign up and get the entire guide for free!