Many small and medium businesses (SMBs) who allowed employees to work remotely for the first time recently, have decided to continue to support remote work indefinitely, at least for some employees who prefer it and have proven they can work productively in that mode. Even those businesses who summon most employees back to the office now operate in a significantly different, and more cloud-centric technology environment. 

While they offer many benefits, tools like Microsoft 365, OneDrive, Teams, and Zoom can open the door to cybersecurity threats. To cybercriminals, SMBs also look like easier targets than large corporations. In 2021, 43% of cyber-attacks were expected to target small businesses. And, with rising ransomware and phishing attacks becoming significant threats, 66% of SMBs report that they are concerned or extremely concerned. 

You should be concerned. We all should be concerned. If you follow the tips below, you can also be prepared and better protected. 

How do you stay protected? 

• While cybersecurity defense requires particular expertise, we specialize in making that expertise available to our clients. We can help you protect yourself by taking a few simple steps. 
• For starters, we recommend starting where the most damage is typically done — with email. Given that 94% of malware is delivered by email, you need advanced email protection against phishing and ransomware threats. 

Assess your current security posture 

• Cyberthreats are constantly evolving (on a daily or even hourly basis) in order to bypass security solutions. We can start by testing your email security to better understand their current gaps. 
• While elaborate penetration testing exercises may be impractical for a business your size, there are now continuous Breach and Attack Simulations (BAS) tools that allow us to assess vulnerabilities in the background. Some of them are provided free of charge or offer a free trial. Let us help you determine your real exposure to cyber threats. 

Protect all collaboration platforms 

• The most burning need for most SMBs is protecting their email. We believe all organizations should use an Advanced Threat Protection solution for email (as, unfortunately, Microsoft Defender/Office ATP is insufficient when it comes to advanced threats). In addition to email, the risk of cyberthreats being delivered and spread via other collaboration tools is constantly growing. Ideally, you want to use a security solution that protects multiple channels in a consistent way. 
• For many businesses, that means protection that covers Microsoft 365 email but also collaboration platforms like Microsoft Teams and SharePoint. 

 Our Recommended Solution 

Working with our technology partners we provide solutions to protect your business at every level, including: 

• SaaS Defense for Microsoft 365, which blocks incoming malware attacks spread by email or through collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams.  
• Remote monitoring and management of your PCs, servers, and network, with specific features for ransomware detection and remediation. 

• A complete suite of backup solutions for data on your own servers and in cloud services like Microsoft 365, Microsoft Azure, and Google Suite, all of which can come under attack. That way, even if the defense and detection layers should miss something, you have the option of restoring everything to a clean, ransomware-free state from before the attack. 

Many businesses today can’t live without the flexibility and connectivity they get from modern cloud collaboration tools, and certainly no business can operate without email. The trick is to leverage the power of digital connectivity while guarding against the opportunities it creates for cyber criminals. For that, you need a layered cybersecurity defense, which we can help you implement, that includes prevention, early detection, and swift recovery of your systems.