At a recent event, we sat down with IT and cybersecurity service providers to gain their insight into the daily cybersecurity issues affecting small and medium-sized businesses. These 3 Veteran IT and cybersecurity advisors told us of some common cybersecurity myths they still see among business leaders and small businesses alike.
The User Is the Weakest Link
The user is also the best potential first line of defense. With proper cybersecurity training and education, users play an important role in ensuring that adversaries can’t gain a foothold in the network.
You Don’t Have Anything Valuable to Steal
You might not have a lot of valuable data like credentials to steal. But what is the cost of shutting down operations for a matter of days or months—or never? The question should rather be ‘What is your data worth to you?’
Cybersecurity Is Separate From Business Risks
Business leaders need to realize that cybersecurity risk is a business risk to cultivate a healthy security environment that accepts the importance of cybersecurity policies. Cybersecurity is not about fear, uncertainty, or doubt. It’s about addressing a known business risk.
IT Technicians Are Cybersecurity Technicians
Yes, cybersecurity and IT are related, but cybersecurity is a very big topic in its own right. Cybersecurity is closely related to business risks and business strategy. Cybersecurity professionals have to obtain specialized skills and qualifications.
You Can Buy Cybersecurity and Become Unhackable
Some people think that they can invest in a few cybersecurity tools like a firewall or antivirus and that will be enough. The truth is that every breached company had those cybersecurity tools in place. Instead, cybersecurity needs to be operated. A layered approach is necessary that will address your cybersecurity risk by taking into account your particular network and business risks.
Worrying About IF You’ll Be Hacked
In a long enough time frame, it’s a matter of WHEN you will get hacked. This underscores the importance of developing visibility into the network. You can’t assess a compromise if you don’t have the visibility to see it, and you can’t address it if you can’t assess it.
We’d like to thank Elias Stucky from Upward Technology, Sean Slattery from Caribbean Solutions Lab, and Ryahn Toole from Lehigh Valley Technology Company for participating in this panel and lending their valuable insights into cybersecurity myths.
If you’d like to develop the network visibility needed to operate cybersecurity proficiently, open a Lumu Free account.