I know that I tend to include the statement in the title, in many articles and posts that I produce, but I haven’t really expanded on it and explained in more detail why I say that this is a business issue and one that owners and boards need to fully embrace if they are to stay safe.

We still see many ‘tick in the box’ exercises happening when we talk to SMEs, particularly when they have encountered an issue and tell us that they have taken precautions which, when examined, aren’t doing what the company thought, or perhaps hoped, they were doing.  Compliance and auditable solutions need to underpin what precautions you are taking.  If you can’t check and make sure that everything is up to scratch, and do it easily and often, then you have wasted your money. 

Far too much money is spent on one size fits all solutions and those that are reactive to one off threats, which produces a firefighter mentality that is at odds with the holistic preventive protection that is required to combat the current and emerging threat landscape.

This is not just a technical issue

A great quote which I use a lot comes from Bruce Schneier, an American scientist and

information security thought leader.  He says:

If you think technology can solve your security problems, then you don’t understand the problems and you don’t understand the technology.

And there’s a lot of truth in that statement, particularly when it comes to SMEs, simply because they don’t understand the technology, and leave it to the IT management company that looks after their network, who mainly focus on technology, because that’s their comfort zone and selling licenses is a big part of their business.  And neither the SME nor the IT Management company have a handle on the emerging threat landscape.

Another good quote comes from the Chair of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.  He says, ‘If boards do not give cybersecurity and cyber resilience sufficient priority, this creates a foreseeable risk of harm to the company and thereby exposes the directors to potential enforcement action by [insert here your regions governance requirements] based on the directors not acting with reasonable care and diligence.’

Cyber security needs to be flexible and adaptable to the changing threats as they occur, because once they have become prevalent, it’s often too late to play catchup.  This means a holistic strategy that encompasses technology but also process, personnel, compliance and audit.  Don’t be complacent.  If you stand still, you will as they say, come a cropper.

Keep saying – PEOPLE, PROCESS and TECHNOLOGY – in that order.

Is there a Misleading Message Coming from the Technology Industry?

Perhaps, because there is a considerable amount of what we call FUD, fear, uncertainty and doubt, doing the rounds constantly. It concentrates people on thinking about specifics, instead of looking at the bigger picture.  Whilst there is no doubt that phishing, ransomware, and other scams have certainly concentrated the mind somewhat, and these attacks are most definitely not confined to the large enterprise businesses, but have been attacking, with a lot of success, the small to medium business market, this causes vendors to try and exploit the issues around that and push their technology solutions and of course, SMEs rarely, if ever, have the expertise to judge whether or not a particular product will actually give them the protection they need.  We now must add into the mix AI and its capacity for increasing cyber-attacks at all levels, making the production of malicious code so much easier and making it available to those perhaps less skilled than heretofore.

Another problem is that the advertising tends to give the impression that Cyber security is something new when in fact it’s just an evolution of the physical security issues that existed when information was all on paper.  Think of it like that and you’ll realise that it’s been around for a very long time and that what you are trying to protect is information of all kinds.  It’s information that makes your business work efficiently.  The very word Cyber brings with it the illusion that it’s something modern and/or futuristic, when in fact that word is essentially meaningless and the old description of Information Security or Infosec, is far more accurate and descriptive.  Cyber is a blatant attempt to push the technological aspect of information security.

Risk Management

I’m going to slip in a link to a short video on risk management as it pertains to Cyber (yes, I’m using that word because it’s sadly become de facto).  This video describes the process at a high level.

https://bit.ly/3FdZ6x0

Technology can be an essential part of your protection, but it must be targeted in the right way, which not only means you have the right piece of kit doing the right thing, but that you are targeting your IT spend to support your business goals and give a maximum return on investment (ROI).  It should also be married to good policies and processes that are enforceable and auditable and fully understood by your work force.  To do this you have to understand exactly what your risks, vulnerabilities and threats are to ensure that your solution to those risks, vulnerabilities, and threats, is targeted for maximum effect and ROI and that the technology is supporting the policies and processes, all of which is underpinned with good security awareness training.

It’s also necessary to have some way of measuring the effectiveness of your solutions through a monitoring or auditing solution.  Such solutions for SMEs have long been considered too expensive to even consider but that is no longer the case and affordable solutions are now on the market.

We must all grasp that these risks are owned by the board, and if you don’t have a formal board, then the management team.  This needs to be understood fully by those at the top.  They team need to understand what level of risk is acceptable and agree what risks they are prepared to tolerate to achieve the business aims.   They need to ensure that supporting policies are produced, implemented, understood by employees, and regularly reviewed and updated.  At H2 we tend to produce an information security and data protection handbook which can run into many pages.  Producing these policies is not as easy as it sounds.

You may also wish to look at some recognised standards by which you can regulate your risk management.  One such is the international standard for information security, ISO 27000 series but perhaps the most appropriate for SMEs is the Cyber Essentials Scheme which will help you demonstrate an appropriate level of information security and risk management within your company.

Once you have a risk management framework in place, owned from the top, then you can identify your information assets and assess the risk to your business should those assets be compromised in some way.  Then and only then can you adequately assess what processes and technologies you need to mitigate the risks identified for each asset thus targeting your spend for maximum effectiveness.

Sadly, that’s not the end.  User education is probably the most important element of all for SMEs.  Ensuring that your staff are aware of the policies and why they exist.  Protect yourself against scams which sadly, form the biggest danger to SMEs rather than hacks.  Scams can be very low tech or high tech using malware, but however they come in, your staff need to be aware of them.