Think of one of your clients. Just pick one at random – any will do. Now, picture that client’s:
- Business model and the kinds of sensitive data it possesses – employees, customers, contractors, etc.
- Bank accounts and other financial assets
- On-prem infrastructure
- Cloud infrastructure and apps
- Portals and APIs connecting customers and suppliers
- Remote worker connections and devices
- Mobile devices
- Employees
- Finance, IT, HR and (if they have it) research departments
- Executive teams
You know where we’re headed. Cybercriminals directly target everything on this list. Perhaps the endgame is data, bank funds or extortion (via ransomware); but these are the ways the bad guys get in and wreak havoc. And as we all know at this point, they’re good at it.
They launch a layered assault
Cybercrooks are successful because they attack each vulnerability from multiple angles. That goes for digital, physical and human infrastructure alike. Consider your client’s personnel. They’re targeted via:
- Phishing
- Spear-phishing
- Smishing
- Whaling
- Malicious IPs and URLs
- Public Wi-Fi
- At-home networks (that aren’t secure)
- Malware in cheap charging hubs and cables they order online
- Malware in fraudulent QR codes in venues and restaurants (e.g., fraudulent stickers placed over-top of restaurant QR codes that serve up a site that looks exactly like the restaurant’s menu but load the mobile device with malware)
- Countless other attack vectors, both current and future
The same principle applies to networks, apps and infrastructure across the board. Criminals attack around the clock on multiple fronts - even with AI-powered tools that learn from failures and attack again based on what they learn.
This requires a layered defense
Because of these constant, complex and evolving attacks, the concept of cyber resilience was born. Cyber resilience strategies aim to prevent attacks but assume that some will be successful. In essence, you want to provide your clients with:
- Cutting-edge security solutions
- The ability to continue to operate (or restore operations quickly enough that production remains on track) if an attack is successful
Fortunately, as complex as the combination of targets and methods of cyberattack can become, you can help your clients achieve protection with a simple, five-step strategy that covers the full spectrum of cyber resilience:
1. Evaluate.: Formalize the thought exercise above, walking through risks holistically (infrastructure, systems, data, people, processes and procedures, etc.).
2. Protect: Leverage the best-available tools to protect your clients with policies and procedures, tools (security, backup and restoration) and awareness training.
3. Monitor: Evaluate suspicious events.
4. Respond: Rapidly neutralize and contain threats to limit (or block entirely) their impact on business operations.
5. Restore: Rapidly restore systems and data either surgically (e.g., an isolated remote user) or at scale.
Within this process are layers of specialized tools that deliver protection and work in concert with each other so your clients can achieve true cyber resilience.
Single-Solution vendors simplify cyber resilience
In order to get your clients to take action and protect themselves, you need to present them with the breathtaking scale and complexity of the threats they face while also offering a layered solution they can get their heads around. There’s no better way to achieve this than providing them with a scalable, single-vendor solution. Here are some talking points to help you with those discussions:
- Cybercriminals are attacking companies like yours with astonishing success rates.
- While the scope and scale of these threats can seem overwhelming, they can be combatted with the right layers of protection and operational resilience.
- That doesn’t have to mean a patchwork of contracts and providers and a lot of finger-pointing if something isn’t going right.
- The best defense is to get your solutions from a single provider that meets all your security and resilience needs, and can actively execute real-time, AI-powered threat detection across all of your systems and devices.
The single-source solution, provided you’ve chosen the right provider partner, works best for your MSP as well. It’s the only practical way to scale your cyber resilience practice.