July 2019 Newsletter

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Be a Safe Traveler! 

With the peak of vacation season underway, travelers need to know how to keep their information safe when they are away from their homes and offices. 

Here are some tips to keep your devices & data safe when you travel:

• Never use a public charging station or hotel room charging port
• Avoid open/free Wi-Fi (use VPN or mobile hotspot instead)
• Only connect to known Wi-Fi networks
• Enable remote locking and device erase functions
• Use a privacy screen
• Turn off location sharing

Join our webinar "Security on the Go: Cyber-Security Travel Tips to Protect Your Data & Devices" on July 31 for a more in-depth look at cyber-security tips for travelers!

Top Ways To Protect Your Business From The #1 Security Threat You Face    

Today, cybercrime is more than a potential threat facing your business. It’s an unavoidable force of nature.

“It’s just like preparing for hurricanes, earthquakes or any type of natural or man-made disaster that could create business continuity issues,” says Theresa Payton, the Fortalice Solutions CEO and former White House CIO, in an interview with Cybercrime Magazine. “[It’s the] same thing with a digital cyber-event.” For many of us, it’s easy to imagine these kinds of things happening to “the other guy” and not us. The problem is that cybercriminals go after everyone. They cast a wide net because that gets results.

In fact, according to Roger A. Grimes, 11-year principal security architect for Microsoft and cyber security columnist and speaker, “Eventually every company is hacked.” After decades consulting for many businesses, he’s come to the conclusion that “every company is completely and utterly owned by a nefarious hacker or easily could be.”

Owners of small and midsize businesses might imagine that – lucky us! – we don’t have enough cash to justify some faceless hacker’s effort. We’d be wrong. The reality is around half of cyber-attacks go after small businesses. These don’t really get reported by the media. They’re not as flashy as a cyber-attack against a big bank or retailer. But it’s the attacks against small businesses that do the most damage. One 2016 study found that 60% of small businesses hit with a cyber-attack closed within six months.

Thankfully, it’s not all bad news. While some business owners have no clue what cyber security they have in place, others are looking for ways to shore up their businesses. There are steps you can take to keep the bad guys out.

Two of the best ways to do that are to simply keep all your software up-to-date and keep your team educated about the threats. As Grimes puts it, “The two most likely reasons you will get exploited are due to unpatched software or a social engineering event where someone is tricked into installing something they shouldn’t … It would be a stretch to claim every other exploit type in the world, added together, would account for 1% of the risk.”

How can you keep your software up-to-date? You can actually automate a lot of it. There are several easy-to-use tools built just for this. Many of them also let you manage your software across your entire network from one set location. Say goodbye to jumping around and coordinating updates. Even better, there are many platforms capable of updating themselves. You just want to keep a close eye on them.

More than that, it’s always a good idea to put strong company policies in place. You want to be clear about your security and help inform employees about the dangers posed by malicious files and e-mails, among other things. Take time to educate them on the threats that are out there. And keep the education ongoing, because the threats are ongoing. The bad guys are always looking for new ways to break in.

And don’t forget about accountability. Keep the conversation going and talk to your employees about what they know about cyber security. Some businesses go so far as including cyber security training in their onboarding. Education is everything.

Finally, you MUST partner with a highly trained, security-focused managed service provider or other IT organization dedicated to keeping you protected from these constant threats. Some businesses try to do it on their own only to realize they don’t have the resources. Others think they need an entire in-house IT team to handle all of these threats.

But the fact is, by outsourcing the work, you save money while keeping out the bad guys  optimizing key parts of your network and software. It’s a win/win. It’s all about being proactive. When you have a group of experts working every day behind the scenes, cyber security stays top of mind in your organization, whether you’re thinking about it or not. Really, it’s one less thing you have to stress about.

Guest Article 

Learn Like a Leader 

Mark Sanborn

Disraeli once said that all other things being equal, the person who succeeds will be the person with the best information. For leaders, learning isn’t an academic pursuit. Leaders don’t just learn to know more; they learn to be more. Learning is a critical means to this important end and how they find the ideas that fuel their ongoing improvement. Here’s how the best leaders do it.

1.They make investigation and inquiry a way of life. In their classic book Leaders: Strategies For Taking Charge, Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus famously said that leaders are readers. My friend Bill Byrne was on the cover of Fortune magazine as one of America’s 1% wealthiest entrepreneurs. He credits much of his success to his 15/15 program: he read 15 hours a week for 15 years.

2. They ask more and better questions of more and different people. The best leaders emulate the ancient city of Alexandria, where no ship was allowed to enter the port without surrendering its books to be copied. They query everyone who passes into their lives, hoping to add material to their learning arsenal.
   
   
3. They think for themselves. Just because the best ask lots of questions doesn’t mean they accept what they learn at face value. Learn to consider what you learn with a healthy dose of skepticism.
   
   
4. They choose critical thinking over the convenience of conjecture. An important characteristic of the best is that they are the people who seek the truth. They want to act on factual information rather than speculation and conjecture. They ask, “How do I know this is true? Who says? How does it affect me?”
   
   
5. They learn in future tense. Study for the future, not the past. Develop your learning agenda on what you will need to know to be successful, not what you used to need.
   
   
6. They learn the most important stuff the fastest. When an area of knowledge becomes important, a modern expert is able to recognize the importance of that knowledge and glean what’s most important from it as fast as possible.
   
   
7. They design their own continuing education program. Unlike most people, the best design their own curriculum on an ongoing basis.
   
   
8. They listen to their intuition. Intuition is a great bunk detector. As Robert Bernstein, former chairman of Random House Publishing, says, “In an age of information, only intuition can protect you from the most dangerous individual of all: the articulate incompetent.”

Mark Sanborn, CSP, CPAE, is the president of Sanborn & Associates, Inc., an “idea studio” that seeks to motivate and develop leaders in and outside of business. He’s the best-selling author of books like Fred Factor and The Potential Principle and a noted expert on leadership, team building, customer service and company change. He holds the Certified Speaking Professional designation from the National Speakers Association and is a member of the Speaker Hall of Fame. Check out any of his excellent books, his video series, “Team Building: How to Motivate and Manage People,” or his website, marksanborn.com, to learn more.