Here’s an alarming news story: A hacker recently released data stolen during the 2023 MOVEit data breach, potentially affecting hundreds of Canadian and international companies that used the file transfer software. This new development has led to the publication of sensitive employee data, with Canada Post experiencing 69,000 exposed records and Amazon a whopping 2.8 million records.
Not all cyber-attacks are this large-scale or headline-worthy, yet security incidents of all sizes and shapes have the potential to upend businesses across industries and cause disastrous consequences. In the face of this chaotic cyber threat landscape, organizations want a strong cybersecurity posture that helps reduce risk and preserve business continuity.
Working with a managed IT provider specializing in security can be a valuable, strategic decision for experiencing peace of mind and adequate data protection. Below, we explore how Bulletproof designs our managed security services to protect Calgary businesses from threats and boost their cyber resilience with comprehensive, proactive security solutions.
The Cyber Threat Landscape in Calgary
Though the recent Calgary Public Library cybersecurity incident fortunately didn’t result in data loss, it did lead to location closures and service disruptions, significantly affecting the community’s access to resources and services. The problem also made many local businesses nervous about something like this happening so close to home.
In recent years, many organizations have prioritized digitizing their operations and integrating newer, more advanced cloud-based technology into their employees’ daily workflows. While that shift online has led to impressive benefits—a strategic digital transformation led to HP experiencing a 70% productivity increase, for example—it has also increased the likelihood of data breaches, ransomware, and phishing attacks.
Many organizations, especially small and medium-sized businesses, have limited resources and in-house expertise that they can designate toward implementing robust security strategies. They also need more resources to handle the constant vigilance and strategic updates necessary to keep pace with how cyber threats evolve.
As the city continues to grow and its reliance on technology deepens, local organizations will need to find cost-effective solutions for boosting their cybersecurity to ensure economic stability. This is especially critical for businesses that have shifted to hybrid work and need to provide secure remote access to their employees.
Bulletproof’s Approach to Proactive Cybersecurity
Investing time and effort into cybersecurity will drive significant value for your organization. It will help you protect against cybercriminals’ actions while also saving you from the financial losses that come from productivity-killing downtime.
You can offload a lot of that work to third-party experts when you leverage the SECaaS model to implement your modern cybersecurity strategy. (That’s Security-as-a-Service!) For one flat fee a month, you work with a team of specialists whose job is to stay current on the industry’s expectations and best practices for data protection.
Here’s how combining cybersecurity with managed IT benefits you:
Risk Assessment & Vulnerability Management
If you want to proactively address your system’s weak points before bad actors exploit them, you need to know what they are! A managed IT provider will conduct an IT risk assessment and vulnerability assessment to look for any shortcomings in your setup and then build an IT security policy that outlines the steps to tackle them.
When we provide support with overseeing cyber security audits, that may include penetration testing, which involves simulating attacks to see how your system responds, or a network vulnerability scan that looks for misconfigurations, open ports or other issues with the infrastructure components connected to your network. These steps are all part of a comprehensive risk management strategy that provides advanced threat protection when you need it most.
At every stage, our nuanced understanding of your industry will come into play: for example, our IT consulting for non-profit data security will differ from that for an energy company or accounting firm.
Threat Intelligence and Monitoring
At Bulletproof, we guide you through implementing various cybersecurity best practices, which include integrating managed detection and response solutions into your defenses. We aim to simplify threat detection and give you an ongoing, real-time understanding of the health of your infrastructure, software, and hardware.
These tools use automated threat intelligence to help you anticipate emerging threats and continuously monitor your networks for suspicious activity. This allows you to facilitate a prompt data breach response and prevent resource damage. We also install intrusion prevention systems that block unauthorized access attempts and leverage sophisticated firewall management to filter out malicious traffic efficiently.
Ongoing Maintenance
As a managed IT provider, our mission is to help your business rely on a smooth IT infrastructure that empowers you to operate efficiently. That focus on functionality is key to your security, too. We oversee regular software patches and updates, which, yes, help you access the latest features and eliminate any bugs that slow down your performance. Most relevantly, though, this also closes any gaps in your ecosystem that hackers can use as entry points.
As part of our ongoing activities to maintain your cybersecurity posture, we’ll conduct regular data backups to allow you to quickly restore your critical information in the event of an incident.
When it comes to network security, we take active steps to fortify your systems against external and internal threats. We also prioritize endpoint protection to secure every device accessing your network, using strong forms of access control and document management to deter unauthorized users.
Security Awareness Training
Your employees are the heart of your business, so they’ll also be key players in defending your organization from risk.
Every time they log in, send an email, or access company data, they interact with systems that criminals are eager to exploit. With the right training, they can avoid becoming an easy target and unknowingly opening doors to threats that could jeopardize everything they’ve worked for.
We provide comprehensive security awareness training to arm your staff with the tools to identify and prevent risks and confidently leverage technology to drive your business forward. Our experts include practical, hands-on exercises to help employees recognize social engineering tactics, practice safe browsing, and respond to real-world cyber threats.
Boost your cybersecurity with our managed IT for Calgary businesses
Strong cybersecurity is like locking the doors and windows of your business, but in this case, you’re closing any entry points to your valuable data for cybercriminals to access your IT infrastructure from anywhere in the world.
When you partner with Bulletproof IT for our netSHIELD+ managed IT services and cybersecurity solutions, you’re taking the right steps to secure systems and prevent leaving yourself open to attacks that could halt operations, drain your finances, or damage your reputation in an instant. Instead, you’re helping your business thrive in our digital world for years to come.
Contact us to benefit from our expertise in providing secure, resilient IT support solutions for Calgary-based businesses.