During my career as an entrepreneur and specialist in cybersecurity, I have witnessed how many new businesses are seriously affected by the misconception that cyber security can be left for a late project moment; or even worse, that it is a single purpose in which the implementation of one or more solutions will solve the problem forever.
On the contrary, It is important to know that cybersecurity for companies, regardless of their size or industry, is a constant processwhich evolves frequently and must be addressed as one of the priorities when starting a new business.
Not doing so is a much more expensive problem than adopting security solutions and methods that, on the surface, may seem costly to the finances of small and medium-sized companies that are just being born.
The “cost” of cybersecurity for your business
In fact, An IBM report indicates that globally the cost of data leaks and theft, to mention just one of the most latent threats, is 4.35 million dollars.
That is why I always recommend that entrepreneurs take into consideration the true cost of cybersecurity within their priorities, since the care of their information is essential, especially at this stage, in which they are beginning to make their way within their respective industry and in which a cyber attack deals a lethal blow to your operations.
The first thing that from my experience entrepreneurs should know, is that any point of its operation is vulnerable and must be properly protected, from servers, financial databases, to simple communication through emails. You never know what will be the step in which everything can collapse.
The environment makes us more vulnerable
In addition, they should know that all economic and other situations and phenomena can be the spearhead for the increase in cyber threats, as happened with Covid-19. For example, during the first years of the pandemic, Interpol detected a 59% increase globally in the incidence of phishing and emails with malicious URLs.
Entrepreneurs must understand that the true cost of cybersecurity is not in the price of the solutions and/or services used for it. Instead, they must first analyze the cost of not implementing the correct approaches and of remaining vulnerable, and then measure the importance of protecting themselves.
The role of ethical hacking
For them, ethical hacking appears as one of the main protection methodologies. First, because it allows entrepreneurs to have specialized allies that will not act as a consequence of threats but will allow them to anticipate the incident. Thinking like cybercriminals would and executing a protection strategy preemptively is the ideal way to detect and close vulnerabilities, before the malicious entities themselves do.
Furthermore, the use of ethical hacking methods such as pentesting manual, to mention an example, is the ideal way to make entrepreneurs really have full visibility of what happens inside their organization in terms of security, something that otherwise it is difficult for them to really know clearly.
Grow your business without taking care of it?
It is common to see that many entrepreneurs are focusing solely on growing their business using marketing and sales strategies, without knowing that they have a series of open doors inside that malicious hackers could use to attack them, and thus tear down everything that with too much effort. and time have built.
For this reason, in conclusion, I urge entrepreneurs not only to be informed about the constant evolution and sophistication of cyber threats, but to turn to professionals who provide them with solutions with which they can anticipate and protect their systems from changing global cyber threats. .
Santiago Rosenblatt Santiago Rosenblatt is the founder and CEO of Strike. Entrepreneur who started hacking at the age of 6, he loves to build innovative and useful solutions to everyday problems, currently focusing on Computer Engineering and Cybersecurity. He has worked as a Software Engineer, Cloud Engineer and has also led the Cybersecurity department at AstroPay and PedidosYa. His experience has led him to find vulnerabilities in Netflix, PayPal, NBA League Pass, NFL Game Pass, AstroPay, dLocal, Spotify, PedidosYa, CandyCrush, SongPop and Trivia Crack among many others.