LAZI virus in small and medium-sized businesses - a clear and immediate danger to business continuity

Many small and medium-sized business owners suffer from a virus that puts into doubt
Your ability to survive a cyber attack. Is your business also infected with this dangerous virus?

Guy Hochman - CEO Genie Computing Services

Every day I meet small and medium business (SMB) owners and naturally, the issue of ransomware attacks, which has recently received a lot of media exposure, immediately comes up.
To my surprise, many of them tend to think that cyber terrorism is mainly directed at large organizations and corporations that hold sensitive databases and therefore they may be more "blackmailed" for ransom demands. Other business owners are aware of the existence of the danger, but prefer to rely on luck or on basic security software, because "quality information security requires huge budgets". These worldviews are clear symptoms of the presence of the Lezli virus in the management culture.

Small and medium-sized businesses are highly sensitive to cyber incidents

Reality proves that small and medium-sized businesses are as vulnerable to cyber attacks as the large organizations, but the essential difference is that in most cases, a large organization has the resources and capabilities to deal with the threat and recover from the damage
The business, marketing and image skills - capabilities that do not exist in SMB.
The business continuity of a small or medium-sized business affected by a cyber incident is questionable, therefore the meaning of optimal information security in these businesses becomes a matter of being or not. However, all is not bleak. Significant technological developments that have taken place in the world of information security in recent years, allow every business owner to benefit from effective information security solutions that are adapted to small and medium-sized businesses, significantly reduce the level of risk and above all, are available to them at accessible prices.

A story from life about a good night's sleep and waking up to a harsh reality

One of our clients, a CPA firm that employs dozens of employees, commissioned an information security survey and received from us several recommendations for risk management: some critical for immediate implementation and some with a lower urgency, such as protection of endpoints, servers and authorization mapping.
The client gladly accepted the recommendations, understood the advantages inherent in them and discovered that with an annual budget of only about NIS 20,000, he could significantly improve the information protection system in his office.
The client took the time to make the decision and "slept on it" for three months. The awakening was difficult: during this period the firm experienced a ransomware attack that led to the shutdown of operations and direct damages worth millions of shekels: strategic clients left for competing CPA firms, the employees continued to receive their wages and financial reports that were not submitted on time resulted in severe image damage. The Genie team immediately engaged in the task and restored the information system and at the end of the event, the client approved all the recommendations included in the survey.

Define a budget section for information security issues

The correct approach to information security in the small and medium-sized business is to define a budget section for the issues of information security and protection
The cyber - as I have seen in similar businesses in Germany and England, where the "we will kidnap and then deal with it" approach is almost non-existent.
Just as you budget for security services, rental expenses, IT services and the purchase of office equipment, so you must budget for the protection of the core of your activity - the business information.
Remember that any amount budgeted for this important purpose is nothing compared to the duplicate amounts you will have to allocate to deal with a cyber attack that will meet you in the future and to restore the circles of destruction it will sow around it: loss of customers and markets, damage to reputation and exposure to lawsuits.

don't wait for tomorrow Order a security survey to rank the risks

Reality proves that the protection of the small and medium-sized business cannot be limited to a sophisticated alarm system and the installation of bars... A security survey that will show you the security weaknesses in your business will allow you to prepare accordingly and protect the valuable business information. Remember that compliance with information security requirements has another significant advantage: it will open doors for you to cooperate with entities that require compliance with an informed information security policy from their suppliers.
We, at Genie, have been dealing with information protection, IT and cyber matters for 20 years and know how to adapt the information security solutions to the budget available to you. The creative technological solutions we will make available to you will improve the resilience of the business against cyber attacks and allow you to sleep better at night.