You Know Better

The end of the year in the usual circumstances brings about reflection even if it hasn’t given us challenges to face or decisions to look back on. This year was one of extraordinary circumstances, and while the situation was unprecedented, the summary of what transpired lends itself to the age’s old advice: Preparation is key.

The poet Maya Angelou is credited with saying “When you know better, you do better.” And in knowing better, would that have meant that:

1. We would have prepared for assembling and supporting our businesses and employees in remote and work from home setups?
2. We would have had adequate training to recognize the scams and attack methods that cybercriminals would deploy when trying to breach our systems?
3. We would have taken inventory on what equipment we have, and what we might need in dire situations to run our business?
4. We would have done a security risk assessment to know what gaps were in existence within our businesses so that we could address them immediately and not risk further exposure in these new situations?

The list could undoubtedly go on and on. But even these few basic “we would haves” are enough items to put on our to-do list from the experience of 2020.

Knowing this, and that humans are the greatest risk to your business or your client’s businesses when it comes to data breaches and the likelihood of not recovering from a breach, you need to ask yourself: Am I doing better?

A solid and ongoing training program is one of your best defenses when it comes to fighting cybercrime. The threat of it happening isn’t going to diminish and will likely continue to increase in both chances of happening, as well as methods of attack, for the foreseeable future, if not forever.

So, what are you doing to make sure that you are prepared? We all know better now than to ever say “that probably won’t happen”. But do we know better ENOUGH? If you don’t have a training program in place, speak with your IT provider and insist that one is implemented. If you are an MSP or business that needs a solution to offer to your clients, let’s discuss how you can offer this effectively.

Remember, when you know better, you do better.
Let’s all do better.