Available for Interviews: Paul Tracey
Paul Tracey is the Founder & CEO of Innovative Technologies, a Managed Security Service Provider in New York, and is a national speaker, cyber security educator, small business advocate, and author of Delete The Hacker Playbook and Cyber Storm.
What Paul Tracey can say in an interview on
Top Cybersecurity Threats:
1. Phishing Attacks
Phishing attacks remain the most damaging and widespread threat to personal and business data. Phishing accounts for over 90% of breaches and has grown 65% in the last year. Phishing attacks are much more sophisticated and are much more convincing when pretending to be legitimate contacts. The issue is difficult to combat because social engineering attacks human behavior and not technology weaknesses.
2. Malware
Malware is a threat due to the scope of threats that classify as malware. Malware is purely malicious, its intent is to gain access to networks, steal data, or destroy all of the data on your computer. Malware injection is evolving daily and can be delivered in almost any file type. This presents a major technological challenge to businesses.
3. Ransomware
Ransomware normally ends up on a system due to a phishing or malware attack. The goal of the attacker is to encrypt all of the data and charge a ransom for its safe return. Healthcare and Education were originally the main targets of ransomware however, literally every person with a cell phone tablet or computer is a target for this crime.
4. Weak Passwords and Insider Threats
(human behavior)
The lack of cyber security training in an organization can spell disaster. Things like shared and reused passwords are a business’s worst nightmare and a godsend to hackers. Insider threats can be both benign and malicious. An employee or contractor using weak passwords on any device or former employee’s, contractors with greedy or malicious intentions can close a business. 25% of breaches are caused by malicious insider threats. About 60% of employees have access to accounts they don’t need to and most businesses don’t continually monitor account access.
Solutions
These threats are real and not going away anytime soon however, you can start protecting your business and your client’s data today:
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- Remove the low-hanging fruit from the hackers by implementing strong password policies and 2-factor authentication company-wide.
- Educate your staff with a recurring cyber security training program. Training is never complete without testing. Testing your employees with “BullPhishing” attacks is a great way to determine the effectiveness of your training and increase engagement. This will go a long way towards eliminating human behavior putting your company at risk.
- Never skip software updates unless you absolutely need to. We all get notifications to run updates on our computers and we have all pushed the remind me later button. This is not a good idea, every vendor has or is making changes to defend against one attack or another, updates should always be done asap. Schedule a security assessment or at least a dark web scan with a qualified vendor. Environments are constantly changing with the additions of new software and applications and you cannot address a problem if you don’t know it exists.
Interview: Paul Tracey
Paul Tracey is the Founder and CEO of Innovative Technologies, a Managed Security Service Provider in New York, and is a national speaker, cyber security educator, and small business advocate, and author of Delete The Hacker Playbook and Cyber Storm.
Nearly a successful decade in business, Innovative Technologies continues to help clients ensure they have security and compliance procedures in place and well-trained staff. They have earned the reputation as a leading managed security services provider (MSSP) in upstate New York.
Tracey has been featured in MSP Success Magazine and on the Success Spotlight podcast and also runs an MSSP dedicated to helping small and medium-size businesses protect their reputation, money, and customers from cybercriminals.
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