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IT Security for Small Businesses

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Security, Privacy, & ComplianceStreamlining IT Security for SMBs

Streamlining IT security is a more balanced message about why and how to protect your business. Over the past year, we have covered the on-going, and increasing, threats to small businesses.  We often highlight the scope and severity of the risk, including how security trends will affect small business.  Hopefully this information, along with cost-effective solutions, prompts you to act. At times, we may appear to be fear-mongering.

Sound business practices, not fear, should be your motivation to protect against cyber attacks.

The market is awash with cyber security solutions. These range from single-protection products to complex advanced security monitoring and response services.  The number of options, and competing claims, is overwhelming.

Our Recommendations on IT Security for Small Businesses

Focus protections on the most common, and most damaging, types of attacks.

1. Focus on Risks

We know that:

  • More than 80% of cyber attacks start with, or involve email via phishing and other social engineering tactics
  • Ransomware is the most common type of attack
  • Business email compromise (BEC) is the most costly type of attack
  • Attacks via DNS and web content are becoming more of a risk

As such, small and midsize businesses should focus on preventing these types of attacks. Plan to limit your security approach and spending to prevention and recovery from these risks.

2. Use our CPR model as a guide

Communication and Education

Make sure your team knows how to spot an attack and what to do if they suspect an attack.  They should know the risks and steps you are taking to protect your business.

Periodically sharing articles or updates may be sufficient to strengthen your business.  Subscribing to a security awareness training service is an affordable way to provide this education. Your cyber insurance policy may require this service.

Protect and Prevent

To protect your business from the greatest risks, put the following solutions in place:

  • Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
  • Encrypt data at rest, including on servers, desktops, and laptops
  • Use advanced threat protection (ATP) on all email accounts for inbound messages
  • Ensure your endpoint protection (local anti-virus) is a next-gen solution
  • Use DNS/Web protection to prevent harmful downloads

Specific to business email compromise attacks and ensuring your legitimate emails are not flagged as dangerous, ensure your domain configuration include the following protocols and services:

  • An accurate and complete Sender Policy Framework (SPF) record
  • DomainKey Identified Mail (DKIM) for all sources of email (including marketing tools)
  • Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC)

Respond and Recover

Even with protections in place, cyber attacks can be successful.  Ensure that you can return to operations quickly, even as a full recovery may take time. Your ability to recover and respond should include:

  • Backup/Recover data stored in the cloud (Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, etc.), as well as on local servers, desktops, and laptops
  • Continuity services so you can run images of key servers, desktops, and laptops if they are damaged by an attack

Note that continuity services also protects you from the impact of hardware issues, theft, and other losses.

Start with an Assessment to See Where Your Small Business Stands with IT Security

For a limited time, our Rapid Security Assessment is free of charge. Complete a 3 minute survey and receive a detailed report benchmarking your basic security services with respect to the most common cyber attacks against small and midsize enterprises.  

To learn more, please join us on May 17th at 3:00 PM ET for Streamlining Security, our May 3T@3 Webcast or schedule a no-obligation call with one of our cloud advisors.


Business Email Compromise – The Costliest Type of Cybercrime

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Email, Communications, & MobilityBusiness Email Compromise

While the massive number and scale of ransomware attacks get the most media attention, Business Email Compromise (“BEC“) attacks are the costliest type of cybercrime.

What is a Business Email Compromise (BEC)?

In a BEC attack, the criminal impersonates you and convinces somebody who trusts you to send money. While successful attacks often begin with unauthorized access to your email account, savvy criminals use email and domain impersonation techniques. They trick others into thinking that you are asking for, or instructing them to complete, a money transfer.

As we noted in a recent post, real estate agents and brokers are prime targets of Business Email Compromise attacks because they regularly discuss transferring large amounts of money with their clients. As noted in this recent email scam article from the Associated Press, however, BEC attacks are hitting a wide range of small businesses, nonprofits, and schools.

Business Email Compromise attacks succeed when cyber criminals are able to collate enough information about you to gain access to your account or impersonate you.  Here is how they do it:

  • Given that you use your email address to log into many systems, a third party breach can provide attackers with your email address and enough information to calculate your password.
  • Third party breaches often provide hackers with enough personally identifiable information (PII) about you to launch a successful phishing attack that captures your username and password.
  • Scanning social media posts can also provide hackers with enough PII to successfully phish for your identity.
  • Malware, known as an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT), that makes it past your endpoint protections can gather usernames, passwords, and other information while running undetected on your computer.

How to Prevent Business Email Compromise

Protect Your Identity

To keep your email account secure, you need to protect your identity.

  • Understand the risks and follow practical advice for safe online hygiene. Use unique, complex passwords across systems; avoid oversharing personal information; and learn to recognize phishing and impersonation attacks.
  • Use “Next-Gen” endpoint protections to prevent zero-day attacks, APTs, and more traditional forms malware.  These solutions use heuristics, AI, and behavioral analysis of files to identify an attack. They can also “roll back” changes to stop an attack.

Secure Your Email Service, and All of Your Services

Even as you protect your identity, you still need to secure your email service through proper data protection and security services.

  • Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) protects your account from phishing attacks, bad links, infected attachments, and other risks. ATP verifies sender information and test links and attachments in a “sandbox”, allowing safe messages to arrive in your inbox.
  • Two-Factor Authentication (2FA), or Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), can prevent access to your accounts if your username and password are compromised.
  • Ensure that all of your information is encrypted at-rest and in-motion. Your email service should use Transport Layer Security (TLS) to encrypt messages between sending and receiving services.  Encrypt files on your local disk, on any file servers, and in the cloud.

Prevent Email and Domain Impersonation

As noted in a recent blog post, you can use three (3) different levels of email security to prevent email and domain impersonation.

  • Sender Policy Framework (SPF): Authenticates addresses you use to send email.
  • DomainKeys Identified Email (DKIM): Digitally signs messages to ensure emails are not altered en-route.
  • Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC): Authenticates email origin and instructs recipients how to process bad messages. A DMARC service will track and report any potential issues.

These protocols and a DMARC monitoring service offer the best protection against BEC and impersonation attacks. They also help improve the deliverability of your email. Our ebook, Email Security: Good, Better, Best, dives deeper into this topic.

For a limited time, our Rapid Security Assessment is free of charge. Complete a 3 minute survey and receive a detailed report benchmarking your basic security services with respect to the most common cyber attacks against small and midsize enterprises.  

 

Different Types of Email Security Features

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Different Types Of Email Security Solutions Can Help Protect your Business

When launched Cumulus Global 15 years ago to provide small and midsize businesses (SMBs) with email security and security solutions. As early adopters, we saw how managed cloud services and solutions made enterprise grade solutions affordable and effective for small businesses.  While much as changed over the past decade and a half, we still face email-based threats.

Email Attacks are Easy

According to Verizon’s 2021 Data Breach Report, email remains one of the most common vectors for attacks. And, phishing attacks are at the top of the list. Email phishing attacks remain prevalent because they are relatively easy. Cyber attackers are able to say one step ahead of our defenses, in large part to the rise in social engineering. With more of our personal information available through social media, attackers can use psychological tactics and personalized messaging to target specific individuals (spear phishing) and business leaders (whaling). In doing so, they garner sensitive information and gain access to systems and data.

Business Email Compromise

Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks impersonate your email domains or emails for specific users. In most instances, BEC attacks look and feel like legitimate emails from your business. Combined with social engineering tactics and personalize information, they are hard to spot and often successful.  Cyber security attacks can be “internal” that target your employees, or “external” that use your business to defraud your customers and associates.

Email and Domain Impersonation

Preventing email and domain impersonation attacks bypass account level security, including multi-factor authentication. To prevent these attacks, recipients should only accept email that can be authenticated as coming from your domain.

Different Types of Email Security Protection: Good, Better, Best

Currently, you have three levels of email domain security that can protect your business and your identity: Good, Better, and Best.

Good: SPF Sender Policy Framework

SPF verifies emails sent from valid IP addresses, either from your domain or authorized senders. While most small businesses have an SPF record configured, errors cause individual emails, or emails from marketing and CRM systems, to be flagged as spam by the recipient. Cyber attackers can spoof email addresses to give the appearance of a validated sender.

Better: DKIM DomainKeys Identified Mail

DKIM verifies that have been digitally signed by the sending domain, or by services sending email on behalf of the domain. Proper configuration is technical and involves cryptographic key management; errors can lead to fake messages with valid DKIM signatures. Cyber attackers can remove the DKIM signature using sophisticated relay attacks.

Best: DMARC Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting,
and Conformance

DMARC authenticates email origin by aligning identifiers from SPF and DKIM, and instructs recipients to deliver, quarantine, or reject failed emails by policy. DKIM helps improve email deliverability. Is the best protection against email and domain impersonation attacks, whether they target your employees, vendors, or customers. Reporting enables you to see email sources and manage your policies.

Protect Your Business With Our Email Security Services

While you set up SPF and DKIM with DNS record entries, DMARC is best implemented as a service. Doing so provides you access to settings, reports, and analysis tools. For most small and midsize businesses, the level of protection DMARC provides is worth the minimal cost.

You can learn more with our eBook: Email Security: Good, Better, Best.

To discuss your email security configuration, make an appointment with one of our Cloud Advisors, send us an email, or fill out our contact form.

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Email Security: Good, Better, Best

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eBook | Source: Cumulus Global —
Cyber attacks by email have skyrocketed over the last decade. Email and domain impersonation attacks, fueled by successful phishing attacks, bypass account-centric security. This eBook discusses how to protect your business and domain from Business Email Compromises and impersonation attacks.

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Webcasts

Email Security and Reliability

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(8/17/2021) – A deep dive look at email security and reliability, with a focus on how DMARC prevents business email compromises, spoofing, and phishing attacks. In addition to protecting you from inbound attacks, DMARC protects your domain’s reputation and helps ensure reliable email deliverability.

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Email Security and Compliance

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(7/20/2021) – An updated look at email security and compliance. Summarizing risks and trends, we dive into a tiered approach to ensuring your business, data, employees, and reputation are protected.  We also discuss emerging compliance requirements and steps you can take to ensure you operate within regulatory, industry, and policy expectations.

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