12-31-20 | Blog Post

Revisiting 2020’s Three IT New Year’s Resolutions

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Commit to a stronger security stance- recommending an end-to-end culture of security across the organization to decrease “susceptib[ility] to security breaches caused by human error.” So how did business fare in the face of this seemingly annual recommendation to make security institutional at every level?

It becomes apparent, especially in light of 2020’s massive and seemingly lasting distribution of employees, that increases in spend on security infrastructure (across hardware, virtual and cloud) and expertise (in-house, advisory or fully managed) is critical to business survival. Making 2021 the year that every business fully institutionalizes security will do more to prevent expensive breaches and cybercrime than perhaps any other activity. This includes frequent, thorough and mandatory training on security and security best practices for every employee, contractor and vendor.

Focus more on core business goals: In essence, focus more on delivering new solutions to your customers, serving your customers in more efficient ways, and consider outsourced cloud and infrastructure management as a way to enhance business and IT efficiency. “Are you bogged down by constant infrastructure worry? Consider outsourcing your cloud management to a third party so you can focus on accomplishing bigger and better things.” The pandemic became an unintended catalyst for the rapid growth in cloud and managed cloud services that benefited struggling businesses during 2020.

  • InfoWorld and IDG provide data that 92% of surveyed organizations are now in cloud and cloud computing spend has increased 59% since 2018.
  • A positive aspect of cloud management outsourcing is security. For many Managed Cloud Providers, having the industries latest and best security practices, as well as highest caliber of security personnel, is a cornerstone of their business. Add to this the availability of 365x24x7 security management and monitoring that offers greatly reduced risk for business. If outsourcing cloud management is intended to provide more time for IT to focus on core business, then Gartner’s prediction becomes very relevant- public cloud for infrastructure workloads will suffer at least 60% fewer security incidents than data centers.

Improve disaster recovery RPO/RTOs and decrease downtime: This bullet spoke to the potential business consequences of any downtime and the importance of back-up and restoral services. 2020 increased the implications of downtime via a virtual tsunami of Ransomware and other business disrupting cybercrimes. The immensity of the effort required for any business to fully recover from such an incident suggests that the added layer of protection offered by cloud-based disaster recovery and cloud-based backup are essential elements of any business survivability plan. Adding to the best available elements of protection and security, Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) provides an invaluable 24x7x365 extension of any business’s IT staff.

  • From Security Boulevard– The US observed 145.2 million ransomware hits in Q3, which is a 139% year-over-year increase.
  • Cybercrime magazine predicts a ransomware attack every 11 seconds in 2021

Any way we look at 2020, it was a year of immense challenges including security, IT, distribution of workforces and basic business survivability. All of this in the face of a global pandemic. With 2020 all but finished, it seems relevant to reemphasize last year’s “3 IT New Year’s resolutions” and add that if you need any assistance in 2021 to overcome the adversity of 2020, please let us know, we’re here to help.

To all of your families, co-workers and friends around the world, we wish you a happy and prosperous 2021.

If you’re looking for the expertise to advise your business on cloud services and the potential impacts that cybercrime can have on your business, Otava can help. Data Backup and Disaster Recovery plans are an essential component of business survivability should a security breach or cyber compromise occur. Consider our secure, compliant cloud solutions managed by a team of experts trained in the latest security best practices. Call 877-740-5028 or contact us to learn more.

 

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 Cyber Attacks: Dangerous and Expensive Implications: The damage wrought by a cyber attack can be disastrous. How can you better protect yourself? (Read more)

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