Wartime Protections
By: Marc Schwartz, President of Ozone IT Services
I lose a lot of sleep wondering how to reach an audience of clients and non-clients alike on the subject of cybersecurity. Why? It all goes back to one call, one moment, that changed a company forever. And it was preventable.
A manufacturer called my company for help when they’d been hacked by ransomware, and I had to deliver the bad news that there were very few things in their company that were not compromised—their ERP, their Quickbooks, their inventory, pretty much everything that ran their business was impacted except for a handful of design computers. Losses from that event were north of half a million dollars, which was devastating to them. While it wasn’t my money that was lost, I felt helpless to be of substantial help to them.
Today, we’re at the threshold of major business losses due to retaliation from Iran. I still remember images of scud missiles in the Gulf War flying towards our troops. Today, it’s not the missiles that we need to worry about, but the nearly imperceptible cyberattacks heading our way designed to cripple our economy.
Geoblocking
What can we do to protect our companies and employees? For starters, every company with a firewall, can turn on geoblocking. It’s the internet equivalent of blocking traffic coming from various countries, and, yes, you can block traffic coming from Iran and anywhere outside the US that you don’t do business with. While this might seem oversimplified, this small step is a solid start as a precautionary measure. While we are unaware of Iran’s plans of attack, we know their skills as cyberwarriors are far superior to their physicial weapons.
Protection is Easier than Recovery
Some sectors pay close attention to cyber threats, but most do not. I’d rather not be an alarmist, but it doesn’t take an alarming amount of care to protect your business from data loss—either accidental, incidental, or malicious. Failure to pay attention to cybersecurity basics can cause significant losses to your credibility, customer experiences, and profitability. Most IT people I meet are ethical and want your business to succeed without the disruptions that cyber mischief can cause. If you have an IT team, ask them what precautions they have taken to keep your company safe against cyber warfare from abroad. If you want to speak to experts, contact my team at https://ozoneitservices.com/contact/.
I’ll sleep better if businesses take heed from this one example from my past and prevent unnecessary attacks and losses in the future.
Take Action
Start with an assessment. Ask your team and your MSP: when was your last successful restore of ERP/OT? Who validated it independently?
If you can’t answer confidently, schedule an independent recovery readiness assessment now—test one workload this quarter and quantify your real recovery time and data loss exposure.
Chris Mackin is Vice President of Sales at Ozone IT Services with more than 25 years of experience designing and delivering cybersecurity and IT solutions that help organizations reduce risk, protect revenue, and operate with confidence. He is a trusted advisor to business and technology leaders, known for aligning Backup as a Service (BaaS), Patching as a Service (PaaS), and security infrastructure strategies to real-world operational and financial goals.
