If you’re a small- or medium-sized business (SMB), don’t bury your head in the digital sand. Cybercriminals don’t discriminate. Your data, credentials or access could be valuable to them in ways not immediately apparent. SMB cybersecurity is critical.
Unfortunately, SMBs also haven’t received the necessary guidance in terms of government support. That’s alarming since in September 2018 alone, the average SonicWall customer faced 1,662 malware attacks. For the year, SonicWall recorded 8.5 billion malware attacks globally — a 54 percent increase over 2017.
But in many cases, cybersecurity guidance isn’t immediately available. In the U.S., for example, NIST has a year to deliver the guidance (read our eBook to learn more). Regardless of geographic location, a year is a long time for SMBs to wait to either enhance or begin their cybersecurity strategy. For this reason, SonicWall has created cost-effective cybersecurity bundles tailored specifically for SMBs.
Bundled Security for SMBs
The SonicWall TotalSecure SMB Bundle* provides robust cybersecurity technology and services that defend growing SMBs from the volume and sophistication of modern cyberattacks.
The tailored package includes high-performance network security, endpoint protection, cloud sandbox, content filtering, online management and more. Admins can also use powerful reporting functions to easily check the health of the network and endpoints and remediate threats if ever needed.
The SonicWall TotalSecure SMB Bundle* also is available for small or home offices. It provides foundational cybersecurity tools that help smaller organizations mitigate cyberattacks from the perimeter to the endpoint.
It’s a comprehensive, out-of-the-box solution to stop cyberattacks, help remediate issues, protect endpoints and manage security — easily and efficiently.
Contact SonicWall to build or enhance your cybersecurity posture for true end-to-end protection from today’s most malicious cyberattacks, including never-before-seen threats.
It’s time to use real-time cybersecurity to protect your business from cyberattacks. Contact a SonicWall security expert today. We’re ready to help you build a sound, cost-effective security strategy that’s just right for your business.
Small- and medium-sized business (SMB) are often one of the segments most targeted by cybercriminals. Now, SMBs are backed by legislation signed by U.S. President Trump and unanimously supported by Congress.
“As businesses rely more and more on the internet to run efficiently and reach more customers, they will continue to be vulnerable to cyberattacks. But while big businesses have the resources to protect themselves, small businesses do not, and that’s exactly what makes them an easy target for hackers,” said Senator Schatz, lead Democrat on the Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet, in an official statement. “With this bill set to become law, small businesses will now have the tools to firm up their cybersecurity infrastructure and fight online attacks.”
Per the NIST Small Business Cybersecurity Act (S. 770), within the next year the acting director of NIST, collaborating with the leaders of appropriate federal agencies, must provide cybersecurity “guidelines, tools, best practices, standards, and methodologies” to SMBs that are:
Technology-neutral
Based on international standards to the extent possible
Able to vary with the nature and size of the implementing small business and the sensitivity of the data collected or stored on the information systems
SonicWall President and CEO Bill Conner also was instrumental in helping form the groundwork for U.S. cybersecurity laws. In 2009, Conner worked with U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) and other security-conscious leaders on the Cybersecurity Act of 2010 (S.773). And while the proposal was not enacted by Congress in March 2010, it served as a critical framework to today’s modern policies. Rockefeller was eventually the sponsor of the aforementioned Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2014 (S.1353), which became law in December 2014.
SMBs Highly Targeted by Cybercriminals, Threat Actors
According to a recent SMB study by ESG, 46 percent of SMB decision-makers said security incidents resulted in lost productivity in their small- or medium-sized business. Some 37 percent were affected by disruption of a business process or processes.
“Criminals target SMBs to extort money or steal valuable data, while nation states use small businesses as a beachhead for attacking connected partners,” wrote ESG senior principal analyst Jon Oltsik for CSO.
“Criminals target SMBs to extort money or steal valuable data, while nation states use small businesses as a beachhead for attacking connected partners,” wrote ESG senior principal analyst Jon Oltsik for CSO.
Leverage NIST Policy, Frameworks
While SMBs await guidance from the new NIST Small Business Cybersecurity Act, they can leverage best practices from the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, which helps organizations of all sizes leverage best practices to better safeguard their networks, data and applications from cyberattacks.
At a high level, the framework is broken down into three components — Implementation Tiers, Framework Core and Profiles — that each include additional subcategories and objectives. Use these key NIST resources to familiarize your organization to the framework:
The NIST framework provides a solid foundation to improve an SMB’s security posture. But the technology behind it is critically important to achieving a safe outcome. SonicWall, for instance, is the No. 2 cybersecurity vendor in the SMB space, according to Gartner’s Market Share: Unified Threat Management (SMB Multifunction Firewalls), Worldwide, 2017 report.
With more than 26 years of defending SMBs from cyberattacks, SonicWall has polished and refined cost-effective, end-to-end cybersecurity solutions. These solutions are tailored specifically for small- and medium-sized businesses and can be further customized to meet the needs of specific security or business objectives. A sound, end-to-end SMB cybersecurity should include:
For example, the SonicWall TZ series of NGFWs is the perfect balance of performance, value and security efficacy for SMBs, and delivers access to the SonicWall Capture ATP sandbox services and Real-Time Deep Memory Inspection.TM This integrated combo protects your organization from zero-day attacks, malicious PDFs and Microsoft Office files, and even chip-based Spectre, Foreshadow and Meltdown exploits.
Contact SonicWall to build or enhance your cybersecurity posture for true end-to-end protection from today’s most malicious cyberattacks, online threats and even the latest Foreshadow exploits.
SonicWall solutions are available to SMBs through our vast channel of local security solution providers, many of which are SMBs themselves. In fact, many SonicWall SecureFirst Partners even provide security-as-a-service (SECaaS) offerings to ensure it’s easy and cost-effective for SMBs to protect their business from advanced cyberattacks.
Are you a SonicWall customer who needs to stop the latest attacks? Take advantage of our ‘3 & Free’ program to get the latest in SonicWall next-generation firewall technology — for free. To upgrade, contact your dedicated SecureFirst Partner or begin your upgrade process via the button below.
What’s the equivalent of cash on the Internet? PayPal? Western Union? Bank transfers? No, no and no ““ along with many other obvious choices. Each of these online payment methods first requires some sort of identity verification, whether through government issued ID cards, ties to existing bank accounts or to other resources that are directly linked to your identity. The closest equivalent to cash on the Internet is a collection of decentralized, peer-to-peer digital crypto currencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin and other derivatives. These currencies allow instant online transactions that are completely anonymous, which is exactly what turns them into cash-equivalent payment instruments online. Digital currencies have become increasingly popular over the past several years, with established companies starting to accept them as payments. For example, SonicWall became the largest company in the world to accept Bitcoin as payments with its announcement in 2014. Just a few days ago, Michael SonicWall (@MichaelDell) tweeted that SonicWall received an 85 bitcoin order for servers, which is roughly $50K USD.
Bitcoins and other digital currencies are also called “crypto” currencies because they are generated through “mining”, a process in which banks of computers or specialized processors are set up to “mine” bitcoins by performing complex cryptographic operations of increasing difficulty. The more bitcoins are in circulation, the more difficult the mining becomes. For those who wish to bypass the mining, bitcoins can also be purchased through online exchanges. The value of bitcoins and other digital currencies is not set through any central authority, but is rather a reflection of several variables such as the number of bitcoins in circulation, popularity of a particular currency and very importantly, just like with real cash, trust in the system and people’s expectations of future value of a single unit of currency. Therefore, the decision to accept payments in bitcoin and other digital currencies carries an additional risk due to the volatility of the bitcoin value. On the day of publication of this blog, the value of a single bitcoin hovers around $228 USD, although was as high as $979 USD a little over a year ago. Interestingly, anyone can create their own crypto currency if that they can get others to use it, so the value of a currency can also fall should a competing currency become more popular or perceived as more secure.
The anonymity inherent in crypto currencies also makes the digital currency “wallets” into extremely lucrative targets for hackers. These wallets can exist on personal computers or in the cloud on wallet hosting providers’ websites. Once a wallet with digital currency is stolen, there is no way to trace the identity of the original owner ““ just like real world cash. Over the past few years, there’ve been several types of attacks on crypto currency users. Attacks that steal bitcoins can range from indirect and invisible to blatant and direct break-ins that steal the equivalent of the bank vault. The invisible and indirect attacks use botnets to harness victims’ computer power to mine currency for the botnet operator, effectively stealing electricity from thousands of individuals in amounts that may not be noticeable. More direct attacks steal individual’s unencrypted “wallets” from their PCs. The most brazen attacks target online exchanges, or bank equivalents, with poorly implemented security. Our recently published 2015 SonicWall Security Annual Threat Report outlines some attacks on online Bitcoin exchanges that put a few of those exchanges out of business or seriously dented their operations.
As crypto currencies continue to become increasingly accepted by the general public, businesses and retailers will have to adapt and start accepting digital currencies alongside credit cards, PayPal and other online payment methods. This will save some money for these businesses through not having to pay credit card processing fees. However digital currencies are no free ride. Such businesses must ensure that they carefully manage both the economic and technical risks of such currencies. The economic risks lie in managing the volatility of the value of the digital currencies, while the technical risks are all about security. Losing online “cash” is the same as losing physical cash ““ it becomes nearly impossible to prove what’s yours once it’s in circulation.
To read more about attacks on digital currencies and other security trends tracked by our threat research team, download the 2015 SonicWall Security Annual Threat Report.
https://d3ik27cqx8s5ub.cloudfront.net/blog/media/uploads/images/featured/iStock-674952306Med.jpg5001000SonicWall Staffhttps://blog.sonicwall.com/wp-content/uploads/images/logo/SonicWall_Registered-Small.pngSonicWall Staff2015-05-04 05:14:182022-03-30 07:09:27Why Digital Currencies Like Bitcoin Should Be on Your (security) Radar
Triple-A ratings are normally associated with chief financial officers keeping a tab on John Moody’s bond credit rating. In the world of IT however, how can a chief information officer or information technology decision maker (ITDM) rate the efficiency of an IT security implementation?
IT security is one of the main concerns for ITDMs with attacks such as Venom, Shellshock or Heartbleed and others affecting organizations globally. Therefore ITDMs are taking steps to protect the corporate network from threats of all sizes. However, as it stands security is still at risk from internal and external stand point.
How can ITDMs know when they have reached a level of security that will protect from cyber-attacks while still empowering employees to do their job better? A comprehensive security approach should encompass three factors, it should be adaptive to threats, business requirements and also the ever evolving use of the internet within the corporate network, have adapted to meet the specific requirements of an organization and have been adopted fully by end users.
These factors can be summarized as a Triple A security approach, that could help you with your overall security posture and grant your organization a Triple A security rating.
Adaptive:
IT infrastructures are constantly changing. In the past we had static IT infrastructures, however, we are moving towards a world of convergence. Therefore, security infrastructures need to adapt in order to be effective. An adaptive security architecture should be preventative, detective, retrospective and predictive. In addition, a rounded security approach should be context-aware.
Gartner has outlined the top six trends driving the need for adaptive, context-aware security infrastructures: mobilization, externalization and collaboration, virtualization, cloud computing, consumerization and the industrialization of hackers.
The premise of the argument for adaptive, context-aware security is that all security decisions should be based on information from multiple sources.
Adapted:
No two organizations are the same, so why should security implementations be? Security solutions need flexibility to meet the specific business requirements of an organization. Yet despite spending more than ever to protect our systems and comply with internal and regulatory requirements, something is always falling through the cracks. There are dozens of “best-of-breed” solutions addressing narrow aspects of security. Each solution requires a single specialist to manage and leaves gaping holes between them. Patchwork solutions that combine products from multiple vendors inevitably lead to the blame game.
There are monolithic security frameworks that attempt to address every aspect of security in one single solution, but they are inflexible and extremely expensive to administer and organizations often find that they become too costly to run. They are also completely divorced from the business objectives of the organizations they’re designed to support.
Instead organizations should approach security based on simplicity, efficiency, and connectivity as these principals tie together the splintered aspects of IT security into one, integrated solution, capable of sharing insights across the organization.
This type of security solution ensures that the security approach has adapted to meet the specific requirements and business objectives of an organization, rather than taking a one size fits all approach.
Adopted:
Another essential aspect to any security approach is ensuring that employees understand and adopt security policies. IT and security infrastructure are there to support business growth, a great example of this is how IT enables employees to be mobile, therefore increasing productivity. However, at the same time it is vital that employees adhere to security policies and access data and business applications in the correct manner or else mobility and other policies designed to support business growth, in fact become a security risk and could actually damage the business.
All too often people think security tools hamper employee productivity and impact business processes. In the real world, if users don’t like the way a system works and they perceive it as getting in the way of productivity, they will not use it and hence the business value of having the system is gone, not to mention the security protection. We have solutions that allow for productivity and security.
“We have tight control over the network nowadays and can manage bandwidth per application using the firewall. The beauty of our SonicWall solution is that we can use it to create better store environments for our customers.” Joan Taribó, Operations and IT Manager, Benetton Spain.
By providing employees with training and guides around cyber security, this should lead to them being fully adopted and the IT department should notice a drop in the number of security risks from employee activity.
Triple A
If your overall security policy is able to tick all of the three A’s, then you have a very high level of security, however, the checks are not something that you can do just once. To protect against threats, it is advisable to run through this quick checklist on a regular basis to ensure that a maximum security level is achieved and maintained at all times. It is also important to ensure that any security solutions implemented allows your organization to grow on demand; as SonicWall says: Better Security, Better Business.
https://d3ik27cqx8s5ub.cloudfront.net/blog/media/uploads/images/featured/IT-Guys.jpg-550x0.jpg359550SonicWall Staffhttps://blog.sonicwall.com/wp-content/uploads/images/logo/SonicWall_Registered-Small.pngSonicWall Staff2015-05-02 06:20:512018-12-19 16:23:12Is Your IT Security Strategy Aligned with Your Business Requirements
