Small Businesses Need More Security Awareness

Just a few hours from now I’ll be presenting to business leaders in Las Vegas – Sponsored by ProStar

I think one of my favorite things about coming to Las Vegas is the hotels – always a great deal, and if I had brought my entire family (7 kids and one wife), we would all fit in this room (yes, that’s a picture of my room this week.) I could’t fit the entire room in the picture above, that’s just the living room and dining area. But on to today’s event…

Important News Items (Sound Bites) You Should Know

Last week’s Gartner event bought out the importance of IoT – The Internet of Things. Expect this to be big business in the coming year. Everything is going to be connected, if it’s not already. This morning’s WSJ reports that 64% of people surveyed think they can manage IoT security…keeping people out. 93% agreed that hacking into someone’s IoT was a form of burglary (which causes me to wonder what the other 7% think), but 64% are concerned that their IoT will be hacked. Something’s not adding up here.

First, 100% of IoT implementations can be hacked. 100% of it should be considered theft, and it would be foolish for anyone to say they can manage their security without a problem. We should all be concerned about this – I’ll be addressing this today in our meeting. The more we connect, the easier it is to manage life and business – with the exception of security. IoT is not a security improvement, it’s a downgrade in security.

The Amazon Web Services Event kicked off Last Week in Vegas…What About Cloud Security?

We know from earlier reports that 80% of small businesses will be on the cloud in the next 4 to 5 years. This statistic is old, so we are more like 4 years out now. I expect that to accelerate. “Researchers in Massachusetts are raising new questions about the security of all multi-tenant cloud environments,” writes Brandon Butler, for Network World. In a recent interview I did with Sklar Technology in Richmond VA. I pointed out that cloud vendors probably offer a safer world for SMB data than the SMB business itself can provide. I still believe this. But after conducting numerous follow up assessments across the attendees of last week’s event, Sklar found companies using the cloud but severely lacking in security. They discovered companies with no back up at all, PCs infected with Bots, and host of other issues. These small businesses need security, but they don’t have the time or the resources to keep things up to date and guarded against evolving threats. As Butler points out, the cloud is not secure. In his article he reports that researchers were even able to steal the encryption keys used to lock down the Amazon Cloud data. Now that vulnerability has been patched, but software problems never go away. There’s always one more vulnerability waiting to be discovered. Each one is a likely entry point for hackers.

Today’s Event

Today’s event is just what Small Business Leaders Need. We’ll be meeting over lunch at the JW Marriott, just about 15 minutes off the “Strip”. ProStar and their partners are hosting this to help educate the Small Business Leader Community – it’s invite only, but completely paid for thanks to the generosity of ProStar and their vendor partners.

PS. Are you a technology reseller? If so, you might be eligible for free security sales training through the SVLC Security Sales Mastery Program. We have multiple security sponsors willing to help resellers ramp up these important concepts. Contact us to see if you qualify.