A few decades ago, “theft” meant someone stealing stock from your shop or cash from your till. These days, there’s a lot more that thieves can take from your business—parts, data, identities and, yes, cash. But just as thieves are becoming more sophisticated, so is the technology to safeguard your business from threats in both the real and digital worlds.
PROTECTING YOUR DATA IN THE CLOUD Ransomware attacks increased 300% from 2019 to 2020. According to National Security Agency Director Paul Nakasone, the frequency of ransomware attacks is expected to remain constant, if not increase, in the next five years. One of the top defenses against cyberattacks is cloud server hosting. Moving to a third-party cloud service provider means your system will be protected by their security measures. Cloud providers are responsible for monitoring system security, performing regular backups, and routinely updating the system to protect it against new threats. If a cyberattack were to happen,
hosting backups of your data in the cloud can make it much easier to restore your data. There are some key ways cloud hosting protects your business: • Automatic patching by the cloud provider ensures that your system is up to date to protect against new vulnerabilities. • MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) within the cloud environment. • Support staff with security training and testing on the latest phishing threats.
“One of the most common questions that people have is, ‘Why do hackers hack me?’ They’ll say, ‘My company is small, I don’t have as much money as them attacking somebody else. Why do they attack my company?’ The answer is most of the time it’s just that you were randomly selected. You were a victim of opportunity. The scammers, the social engineers, are literally sending out tens of millions of phishing emails every day and hundreds of millions of malware programs are trying to break in. On that particular day - if you got hacked - it’s because you, or somebody else around you, accidentally responded to a social engineering email and clicked on a link that you shouldn’t have clicked. Or, you didn’t have your software patched and a malware program came by and tested that particular vulnerability. So, the vast majority of people that are hacked, it really was just random – almost accidental – but they [the hackers] were able to break in.”
ROGER A. GRIMES Data-Driven Defense Evangelist at Knowbe4
DIVERSIFY YOUR NETWORK As more applications migrate to the cloud and issues like security require greater bandwidth, it’s important to consistently evaluate your dealership’s bandwidth requirements. For example, take into consideration the number of users and devices on the network as well as the size of your dealership. Perhaps this means investing in two or more internet providers so your business can operate efficiently.
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