3 Urgent Signs Your IT Provider Is Leaving You Vulnerable to Ransomware

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NEW Critical Cybersecurity Insurance Changes and Threats That Could Destroy Your Business If Ignored

Learn the crucial facts most businesses are unaware of about recent shifts in cybersecurity insurance requirements and the rising threats that are putting countless organizations at severe risk of catastrophic cyberattacks, lawsuits, and financial ruin. Act now to protect your business before it’s too late.

The Truth About IT Security That No One Is Telling You

The hard work, investments, and time you’ve dedicated to growing your business are at significant risk due to misinformation and half-truths spread by cybersecurity experts, IT companies, and even your insurance provider.

You think that your IT company or internal team has your network fully secured.

You think that you're doing everything necessary or at least enough.

You think that your insurance provider will cover your losses if a breach occurs.

You think your employees are savvy enough not to put your business at risk.

You think that because you're small, cybercriminals wouldn’t target you.

Unfortunately, these assumptions are dangerously outdated. The reality is that if you're still relying on these beliefs, your business is at serious risk of financial loss and reputational damage. This report serves as a wake-up call. The last few years have seen significant changes in cyber threats, insurance coverage, and IT security practices. The plan you put in place even a year or two ago may no longer be sufficient.

We can almost guarantee that the advice you’ve received about securing your business against hackers is either inaccurate or incomplete. When a breach occurs, the people who sold you on their “secure solution” will likely be nowhere to be found, leaving you to deal with the fallout alone and out of pocket.

This report is not just about protecting your data; it’s about ensuring you fully understand the risks associated with cyberattacks, IT failures, or employee errors, along with the costs, consequences, and damage to your business that could result.

Are You Underestimating the Threat?

If you believe that your business is too small to attract hackers, or that your employees are too smart to fall for scams, then you’re exactly the type of target cybercriminals are counting on.

Small businesses are often easier to compromise because they tend to have fewer protections in place. Cybercriminals are unethical, but they are not foolish—they know how to exploit vulnerabilities.

Many businesses that suffer breaches are not specifically targeted. Instead, cybercriminals use automated software to scan the internet and attack as many victims as possible. These attacks do not discriminate based on the size of the business, and small organizations are breached every day.

Are you really willing to risk it, believing your business is too small to be worth hacking? The average ransomware demand is now $1.5 million, and that doesn’t include fines, lawsuits, emergency IT services, or lost business.

Think Insurance Will Cover You? Think Again.

Insurance companies are in the business of making money, not paying out claims.

In recent years, cyber insurance carriers have shifted from keeping 70% of premiums as profit to paying out 70% in claims. This has led to major changes in how cyber liability insurance is issued and how claims are paid.

To even qualify for basic cyber liability coverage today, you may need to confirm that certain security measures are in place, such as multifactor authentication, endpoint protection, and tested backup solutions. Carriers may also require phishing training and cybersecurity awareness programs, among other measures.

But the greatest overlooked risk is the actual enforcement of these critical security protocols. If you fail to implement the required measures, your insurance claim could be denied after a breach.

You cannot simply say, “I thought my IT company was handling this.” Your IT provider may argue that they were not involved in securing your policy or that they never guaranteed your security. They might even provide evidence that you declined advanced security services they offered. Without proper documentation of your security efforts, you could find yourself shouldering the full financial burden of a breach.

The Consequences of Cybercrime

The impact of cybercrime on your business can be severe:

• Loss of Clients and Revenue: If your business is breached, you’ll need to inform your clients and employees that their private information was exposed. This news can spread quickly on social media, damaging the trust you’ve built with your clients. While some may be understanding, others might cancel their contracts or even take legal action.

• Legal Fees and Lawsuits: Responding to a breach can be incredibly costly, with emergency IT support, legal fees, and other expenses quickly adding up. Your business could face investigations and audits, and if you’re found negligent, the financial and reputational damage could be extensive.

• Operational Costs: The aftermath of a cyberattack can disrupt your operations, leading to lost orders, downtime, and significant operational expenses. The cost of recovering from a breach is often far greater than the cost of preventive measures.

Is Your Current IT Company Doing Their Job?
Take This Quiz To Find Out

• If your current IT company does not score a “Yes” on every point, they are NOT adequately protecting you. Don’t let them “convince” you otherwise and DO NOT give them a free pass on any one of these critical points. Remember, it’s YOUR business, income and reputation on the line.

• That’s why it’s important to get verification on the items listed. Simply asking, “Do you have insurance to cover our company if you make a mistake?” is good but getting a copy of the policy or other verification is critical. When push comes to shove, they can deny everything.

• Have they met with you recently – in the last three months – to specifically review and discuss what they are doing NOW to protect you? Have they told you about new and inexpensive tools such as two-factor authentication or advanced endpoint security to protect you from attacks that antivirus is unable to detect and prevent? If you are outsourcing your IT support, they should, at a MINIMUM, provide you with a review cadence and report of what they’ve done – and are doing – to protect you AND to discuss new threats and areas you will need to address.
   
• Do they proactively monitor, patch and update your computer network’s critical security settings daily? Weekly? At all? Are they reviewing your firewall’s event logs for suspicious activity? How do you know for sure? Are they providing ANY kind of verification to you or your team?
   
• Have they ever asked to see your cyber liability insurance policy? Have they verified they are doing everything your policy REQUIRES to avoid having a claim denied in the event of a cyber-attack? Insurance companies don’t make money paying claims; if you are breached, there will be an investigation to prove you weren’t negligent and that you were actually doing the things you’ve outlined in your policy.
   
• Do THEY have adequate insurance to cover YOU if they make a mistake and your business is compromised? Do you have a copy of THEIR CURRENT policy? Does it specifically cover YOU for losses and damages? Does it name you as a client?
   
• Have you been fully and frankly briefed on what to do IF you get compromised? Have they provided you with a response plan? If not, WHY?
   
• Have they provided you evidence that they have a third-party that audits their network? Did you know that if their network gets hacked, the hackers will have access to your network too? If you haven’t seen evidence of their third-party audits, request it immediately.

• Have they kept their technicians trained on new cybersecurity threats and technologies, rather than just winging it? If they don’t have a way to show you that their team is learning about threats hitting your industry and to validate that their team is up-to-date on current security protocols, how can they guarantee providing you with secure solutions?

• Do they have a ransomware-proof backup system in place? One of the reasons the WannaCry virus was so devastating was because it was designed to find, corrupt and lock BACKUP files as well. ASK THEM TO VERIFY THIS. You might *think* you have it because that’s what your IT vendor is telling you.
   
• Do they have controls in place to force your employees to use strong passwords? Do they require a PASSWORD management system to prevent employees from using weak passwords? If an employee is fired or quits, do they have a process in place to make sure ALL passwords are changed? Can you see it?
   
• Have they talked to you about replacing your old antivirus with advanced endpoint security? Anti-virus tools from two or three years ago are useless against today’s threats. If that’s what they have protecting you, it’s urgent you get it resolved ASAP. Without a Zero-Trust solution, your Anti-Virus cannot fully protect you.
   
• Have they implemented “multifactor authentication,” also called 2FA or “two-factor authentication,” for access to highly sensitive data? Do you even know what that is? If not, you don’t have it.
   
• Have they implemented web-filtering technology to prevent your employees from going to infected websites, or websites you DON’T want them accessing at work? I know no one in YOUR office would do this, but why risk it? Adult content is still the #1 thing searched for online. Then there’s gambling, shopping, social media and a host of other sites that are portals for hackers. Allowing your employees to use unprotected devices (phones, laptops, tablets) to access these sites is not only a security risk but a distraction where they are wasting time on YOUR payroll, with YOUR company-owned equipment.
   
• Have they given you and your employees ANY kind of cybersecurity awareness training? This is now required for insurance providers to cover breaches. Employees accidentally clicking on a phishing e-mail or downloading an infected file or malicious application is still the #1 way cybercriminals hack into systems. Training your employees FREQUENTLY is one of the most important protections you can put in place. Seriously.
   
• Have they properly configured your e-mail system to prevent the sending/receiving of confidential or sensitive data? Properly configured e-mail systems can automatically prevent e-mails containing specified data, like social security numbers, credit cards, and other sensitive data from being sent or received.
   
• Have they properly configured your e-mail system to prevent malicious content and attacks? Legacy email spam gateways aren’t going to cut it in today’s environment. You need a fully AI capable email security platform that runs inside your email system, not in front of it.
   
• Have they had a third-party analyze your network to validate their work? You would never attempt to proofread your own work. Why would you expect your IT person to? Many regulatory bodies require at a minimum an annual third-party assessment for this reason.

Security Is NOT Compliance –

Make Sure Your IT Company Is Taking These 3 Steps

As previously discussed in this report, a mistake many organizations make is thinking that because they’re compliant, they are automatically secure. Sorry. Not so. You can be compliant and completely insecure, but there are three key steps to ensure you are actually secure.

Most IT companies are only doing one or two of the three. You want to make sure they are checking ALL the boxes so if and/or when a breach occurs and you get audited, you are brilliantly prepared, and the damages are minimized. Here they are in order:

1. A regular third-party security assessment with a remediation plan.
 

Hackers are constantly coming up with new ways in. Security tools that worked just two years ago are no longer are sufficient today. If they aren’t having a third-party security assessment performed at least every quarter like clockwork, they are missing gaping holes that are actively being exploited by hackers. Problem is, this is where most businesses stop and don’t go on to steps 2 and 3 below.
 

2. Full and true IMPLEMENTATION of their plan.
 

Best-laid plans are worthless if not implemented. You can give a patient a treatment plan – but if they refuse to follow it, or skip steps and cherry-pick your advice, they cannot expect to get well.

Same goes for security – your IT consultant should be giving you options, timelines and a weighing of pros and cons for choices you make about how to implement a plan to become compliant based on your risk tolerance, situation, budgets, resources, etc. A good IT company or consultant will guide you through this.

But the most important aspect is to make absolutely certain that the IT team or company you put in charge to implement the remediation plan is actually doing it. Based on our personal experience, 90% of the companies selling outsourced IT services and support are NOT being diligent about the full and complete implementation of a security and compliance plan.

In a world of marketing promises, how do you know your IT and security partner is delivering as promised? Please see the previous section of this report to know if they are truly implementing the plan. Further, we are offering a free, independent Security Assessment to audit your current IT company and tell you the truth about what they are (or aren’t) doing for you.
 

3. Documentation.

This is the part most IT companies and businesses skip. Behind every security compliance measure is a documentation requirement.

If you have a breach and subsequently get audited, you will be required to produce documentation of your security activities and policies. If you do not have those documents, your business will not be able to sustain a major attack or breach. If you do not have documented plans for how to address a ransomware attack, data breach, or disclosure and clear instructions on who needs to do what when, you are putting yourself and your business at risk of not surviving the consequences.

Don’t Wait Until It’s Too Late

The time to assess your security program is now, before a breach occurs or a violation is reported. Prevention is far less costly and stressful than dealing with the aftermath of a cyberattack.

Our Free Security Assessment

We are offering a free Security Assessment to help you uncover vulnerabilities in your current IT security before a cyber event occurs. This assessment will provide you with a clear picture of whether your IT provider is doing what they should to protect your business.

Schedule a free cybersecurity analysis (including a penetration test) now as there is limited availability:

datasolved.com/assessment

Why DataSolved?

DataSolved has over 23 years of experience in providing top-tier cybersecurity solutions. Our certified team of specialists is dedicated to helping businesses stay secure and compliant. We offer advanced threat detection, proactive incident response, and comprehensive compliance knowledge to ensure that your business is protected.