.....and will affect your small business.

Recent cybersecurity incidences of SolarWinds breach, Microsoft Exchange Server vulnerabilities, and the current Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack has prompted President Biden to sign an executive order to increase the cybersecurity stance of the federal government and all civilian agencies it contracts with. But don't think for a moment that we, as SMALL BUSINESSES, won't be affected. You can find documents and presentations that will discuss various degrees of cyber threats to the American business community, but there is only one direction these threats are occurring: increasing - increasing frequency, increasing diversity, increasing persistence, increasing number of players (both private and nation-state), increasing cost of recovery, and increasing cost of protection (both insurance and armament). This Executive Order expects the private sector to adapt to the continuously changing threat environment, ensure its products are built and operated securely, and "partner with" (read "submit to") the Federal Government to foster a more secure cyberspace.

Small businesses are no longer "protected" by products that have an "install and sleep" approach. America has entered a time that requires "continuous" improvement through existing tools that you already have in place through new tools on the market but not installed. There will also be a large number of new tools that will be developed and offered as we move forward.

Here is an interesting point: one cybersecurity measure missed in the executive order is to implement and test backups to all critical systems. Good security policies accept some risk and mitigate it with the use of backups in case a critical system becomes compromised. Colonial Pipeline is estimated to be worth $8 billion. This is certainly not a "small business", but it is a business that has gambled it's future because it did not take a simple step to mitigate that risk. One report claims that Colonial Pipeline paid $5M to end the ransomware attack. A simple matter of maintaining an off-site backup for ALL CRITICAL systems would have allowed recovery without submitting to the payment demand.

Protection of small businesses is affordable with today's tools. Not implementing and managing these tools places your livelihood at risk, much like taking the title of your home to the casino.

These attacks are succeeding in small businesses as well as large corporations and the state and federal governments. Doing nothing is not an option. Call HAWKi today to improve your armor.

Be safe..............John