Photo by Five Point Five
The state of US SMBs -s today is a city without parents. No one is safe and protected. No one can relax. No one can do what they are supposed to do. And no one knows how much time they have before an outbreak happens.
Some people even think they’d be better off opting for the cybercriminal dark web. If only they knew how. If only they had enough expertise.
But if you don’t know how to protect your home, you don’t know how to break into another one. In other words, you should know what hackers know in order to protect your data.
If you think it’s enough to install Microsoft Defender, you are going to get hacked. Because if things were that simple, we would not have Data Holocaust on the horizon.
Financial institutions, local and state governments, healthcare, education, and technology companies are under constant pressure to become victims of cyberattacks, i.e., to be hacked.
The psychological pressure of knowing you don’t have the means to protect yourself exceeds any primal survival instinct and leads to serious mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, drug addiction, and even suicide attempts.
Wouldn’t it be easier for everyone to just learn how to protect their business and get on with their lives?
Don’t Ask Why You Need A Cyber Insurance
We don’t ask why we insure our cars and homes, but we hope we can avoid data breaches and cyberattacks without insuring our businesses.
I’m sorry to have to tell you this – we can’t, you can’t.
I specialize in helping small and medium businesses qualify for cyber insurance. Let me tell you another hard truth: minimal security coverage, i.e., the cheapest combination, isn’t enough to meet the minimum requirements for cybersecurity insurance.
Data security and cyber protection are something new for all of us, just as the car was something new. And just like the car, inaction and ignorance will cost you your life and the lives of the people who work for you.
Be prepared for the changes. Invest in your protection and knowledge. Then, and only then, will you be able to do business, confident that you’ll succeed, and prepared for any eventuality.
Don’t be afraid when you read numbers about cyber threats, or should I say, don’t give up, but level up.
The concept of minimum requirements is inherent in human nature. It has saved us from extinction. The same applies to compliance with the system that regulates your activities, with the fundamental goal of ensuring its stability and longevity.
The state won’t survive the death of the economy.
Cybercriminals Are Smarter Than You
Did you really believe that crime doesn’t evolve, educate itself and follow technological progress?
I can assure you that 80% of cybercriminals are far smarter than you, far more tech-savvy, and far greater investors than you and all your employees combined.
And that’s why they’re making profits that most of us can only dream about.
Even if you do not change anything in your licensing, the world around you changes.
80% of people do not change anything in their firewall, they use 5 years or more old hardware and buy the basic suite.
And that opens the door to novice-level hackers because they cracked the minimum protection ten years ago.
How To Renew Your Subscription?
Before you renew your subscription, review the following:
Your configurations,
Your compliance,
Your expertise.
When you buy your license, you must also buy expertise, or you’ll be throwing your money down the drain.
Whatever you spend on your software subscriptions, you should use it to achieve best practices. Whether it’s paying an expert to configure your security policies or making sure your IT staff spends some of their time implementing security features to high standards.
And most importantly, make sure your IT staff is trained and up to date on the latest technology.
You do not become an expert on a $10000 email security suite just because your title says IT Manager.
Think of it as buying and using a car. There is the cost of buying the car, but there is also the cost of car insurance and the cost of car services (maintenance, car repair, environmental and technical compliance).
The Three Costs of Data Protection
Basically, data protection comes with three costs:
The subscription cost,
The configuration costs,
The expertise.
It matters who you renew your subscription with, just as it matters who repairs your car.
You don’t want your brakes to come off or your battery to give up the ghost in the middle of the highway or anywhere else.
You want to improve your configuration, adopt best practices, obtain expertise, ensure data compliance, and most importantly, meet minimum cybersecurity insurance requirements.
Let me repeat.
You want to improve your configuration, apply best practices, bring in expertise, ensure data compliance, and most importantly, meet the minimum cybersecurity insurance requirements.
Simply put, you need to invest in more data security solutions if you don’t want your 10, 100, or 500 employees to lose their jobs and burden their families.
Your Ideal IT Manager
Whoever is responsible for your email security stack needs to be an expert in Barracuda, Mind Cast, Proofpoint, and Cofense.
They need to be regularly updated on the latest technologies in the product solutions, on an annual basis.
That’s exactly what we do at TLIC Worldwide, Inc.
When a client comes to me with a renewal request, I research how many desktops they have, what type of business they run, and assess the level of security.
At the end of the day, it’s always about adhering to the security and compliance framework to give you the best protection that automatically qualifies you for cybersecurity insurance.
And to do that, I only use the best practices and the best security features.
That’s the reason you were attracted to my article. Because I made sure to highlight the best practices in the title.
That’s Not All
In my next article, I’d like to elaborate on the minimum requirements for cybersecurity insurance.
And after that, I’ll analyze 18 categories of minimum compliance requirements for you, because I know how scary and confusing they are when you don’t have a personal data expert to translate them for you.
Now you do have one.
And I’m not telling you that we can fix everything overnight, but I’m asking you, when is your next subscription renewal?
Until then, please feel free to take 30 minutes of my free expertise to get an idea of where your security controls really stand and what it takes to meet minimum compliance and cyber insurance requirements.
You can schedule an appointment on my calendar.
He who owns your data owns you.
The Soveraign Group