This Christmas, technology is everywhere, making vigilant cybersecurity practices more essential than ever. Traditionally, the vacations taken during this time are a time when things can get bogged down for businesses, along with employees getting distracted from their work and put it on the back burner. Those days are over. In today’s world, it can be hard to get days off around the holidays, and sometimes employees are asked to even do more than usual.
Mostly, employees take more time off around the holidays. According to Pew Research, between 90-and-95 percent of citizens of the US celebrate Christmas. As a result, many businesses won’t be staffed for Christmas. One element that has to be taken into consideration is cybersecurity. While a study by IBM suggests that cyberattacks don’t peak during the holiday season, many organizations wish to hire seasonal help to keep operations running more smoothly. This opens these companies up to social engineering attacks and other malignant computer issues.
This extra risk, alongside the undeniable amount of stress and reliance these computing systems cause, makes it crucial to possess a full-scale cybersecurity plan. That’s why many organizations have consulted with IT professionals like MyTek to guard their business’ network and infrastructure through diligent planning.
“It takes roughly six months to actually prepare,” said Peter Tran of RSA, a computer security firm. Another expert, Demetrios Lazarikos of Blue Lava Consulting stresses testing systems to make sure their cyber security protocols are strong, “The fear is that the system will break. You test the system; you stress it; you are trying to anticipate the traffic.” He goes on to mention that differing types of attacks, including Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks create big issues, which if there’s no dedicated incident-response plan, a company can be at major risk.
By having an idea to guard, test, and protect the systems your business depends on to make sure no infiltrations happen, and any that do get in are mitigated quickly. Any company, especially one that depends on its IT to succeed (think eCommerce), can sustain themselves until business returns to normal after the vacations are taken.
The IT support leaders at MyTek understand how important cybersecurity is for the sustainability of your business, and are committed to helping Arizona businesses protect their networks through any sort of situation. Call us at 623-312-2440 to find out more.