Everything You Want to Know About Cybersecurity

At High Touch, we use technology to help keep businesses safe. Cybersecurity is a hot, continuously evolving topic. Some of the most frequent questions we get are around cybersecurity, cyberattacks, and data security. Here, we’ve compiled answers to some of the most common questions we get about cybersecurity for businesses.

To make things easier, we’ve broken down our cybersecurity FAQ into three categories:

  • Cybersecurity Is Your Business. Answering questions about the “whys” of cybersecurity.
  • Cyberattacks and Cyberthreats. Information about hackers, ransomware, malware, and other digital threats.
  • Building a Cybersecurity Solution. Tips for how to construct a smart cybersecurity solution for your business.

If you have any additional questions about cybersecurity and your business, let us know. We’d love to hear how we can help.

Cybersecurity Is Your Business

1. What Is Cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity is a broad term that includes securing data and the technology systems responsible for moving, storing, and authenticating data. For businesses, cybersecurity encompasses the technology that’s in place to help keep your business safe, the people and processes that ensure your business stays safe, and the education to ensure your employees remain vigilant against potential cyberthreats.

A smart cybersecurity solution incorporates multiple layers of technology, processes, and education to help keep your business safe. Imagine it like stacking numerous layers of swiss cheese on top of each other. Alone, one layer has holes; however, you can cover up the gaps when you stack multiple layers on top of each other, making it more challenging to worm through the holes in the stack.

Learn more about multilayered cybersecurity.

2. What types of businesses are most at risk for a cyberattack?

You may think that big businesses with more endpoints are more vulnerable than small businesses. Or, businesses with attractive data, like financial services companies or those in the healthcare industry, would be easy targets. That’s not always the case—of course, they hold an incredible amount of data, but it’s like trying to rob the Federal Reserve gold vault versus robbing a regular Joe on the street. Bigger businesses or those that handle sensitive data typically have the technology, regulations, and processes to protect themselves from cyberattacks.

On the other hand, small and medium-sized businesses without dedicated IT expertise, cybersecurity technology, processes, or education are easy targets for hackers.

3. What’s one of the biggest cybersecurity challenges businesses face?

One of the biggest challenges currently facing businesses is staying educated when it comes to cybersecurity and being aware of evolving cyberthreats.

Most often, hackers initiate cyberattacks after finding a way to steal an employee’s username and password. We use “steal” lightly—hackers typically trick users into handing their information over. Once the hacker gains access to the system, they can sit back and wait until they have a perfect, lucrative opportunity to execute an attack.

With proper cybersecurity education and best practices in place, businesses can help protect themselves from the most commonly executed information hacks and cyberattacks. One of the most effective forms of cybersecurity education is Security Awareness Traininglearn more about it here.

4. Are organizations doing enough to combat cyberthreats?

In most cases, the simple answer is no.

Cybersecurity requires consistent education, company-wide processes, and executive-level commitment. Generally, there needs to be more awareness surrounding how quickly hackers can initiate a cyberattack, how quickly cyberattacks evolve, and how businesses need multiple layers of cybersecurity to protect themselves—especially in modern workplace environments where employees are working remotely and sharing a ton of important data via digital communication channels.

Cyberattacks and Cyberthreats

5. What are the most concerning cyberthreats right now?

Ransomware is one of our biggest concerns—it’s a specific type of cyberattack where hackers deploy malware, then force you to pay a ransom in order to regain access to your system—more on ransomware below.

We’re also always concerned with monitoring and preventing lateral phishing takeover attacks. Through these types of cyberattacks, hackers gain access to an employee’s email account. Then, they set up rules to extract valuable data and information. Once hackers find a piece of information they can exploit, they use it to create a genuine-looking email to everyone in the employee’s address book.

With advanced technologies and machine learning, hackers can make phishing emails look frighteningly legitimate. As other employees open and interact with the email, hackers gain access to more data and information until the entire organization is potentially affected.

6. What are some common types of computer viruses?

Common examples of computer viruses include resident viruses, multipartite viruses, direct actions, browser hijackers, overwrite viruses, web scripting viruses, file injectors, network viruses, and boot sector viruses.

Here’s a full list of common computer viruses, including how to recognize them and common symptoms of a virus attack.

7. What is malware?

Malware, short for malicious software, is a program or file that is intentionally harmful to your computer, network, or website. These types of cyberthreats infect your system to gather sensitive data, disrupt operations, or spy on your digital activity.

Common examples of malware include viruses, ransomware, Trojans, spyware, keyloggers, and worms.

8. What is ransomware?

Ransomware is a specific type of cyberattack where the attacker forces you to pay a ransom fee to regain access to your system or files. Common types of ransomware attacks include scareware, lock-screen ransomware, and encryption ransomware.

We outline everything you need to know about ransomware here, including how to protect yourself from ransomware attacks and what you should do if you fall victim to ransomware.

Building a Cybersecurity Solution

9. How do you build a cybersecurity solution?

Cybersecurity isn’t a one-size-fits-all product. Businesses need to take a layered approach to cybersecurity for defense, monitoring, and remediation.

The specific solution you need for your business will be a combination of firewalls, email security, anti-virus, patching, VPN connections, endpoint protection, multifactor authentication, user education and security awareness training (SAT), endpoint detection and response (EDR), security information and event management (SIEM), and data backup.

Learn more about the 11 layers that make up a comprehensive cybersecurity solution.

10. How can we build a safer cyberworld?

It all comes down to education, processes, and technology. Businesses need to invest in educating employees on cybersecurity best practices. Additionally, businesses need to effectively secure the data they’ve been entrusted with.

Users, internal and external, should make more informed decisions when interacting with technology.

11. What should I do if I suspect a cyberattack?

Your organization should have a cyberattack remediation process in place. If you’re unsure, ask your IT provider or someone in your internal IT department—it could save your business money and its reputation if a cyberattack occurs.

12. How much does cybersecurity cost?

As much as we’d love to throw a perfectly round number out there, it’s tough. Cybersecurity solutions really depend on your organization’s individual needs. Once we determine your specific security requirements, we can help design the perfect multilayered solution to help keep your business safe.

High Touch is well equipped to design, implement, and support cybersecurity requirements ranging from basic firewall installations to advanced HIPAA and PCI-compliant solutions.

network security

What Can High Touch Do to Help?

Combining our IT and cybersecurity expertise, we help keep businesses safe. High Touch can offer a customized cybersecurity solution for your business and/or technology consulting services to help you uncover and understand your business’s needs.

Contact us to learn more about how High Touch can help keep your business safe.