Cisco's 2020 Threat Report

Cisco released their 2020 report on IT threats and there were some eye opening statements and statistics for anyone using an outsourced IT provider. You can download the full report here.

A couple of important takeaways:

Customers of managed service providers (MSPs) have become primary targets.

The poor security and risk from the outsourced/managed IT industry is well known, and things have not changed in 2020. We get regular calls from companies that have been breached, sometimes severely, and often times their IT company is unsure what to do next regarding recovery or security. One of the worst attacks we have seen recently took down email for a midsize law firm an entire week. The hackers know how to get the best returns for their efforts: why target one company when you can attack an IT provider and get access to 20? The next chart shows just how much effort they are putting towards that.

Threat traffic by industry. Source: Cisco.com

A full quarter of threat traffic is hitting IT providers, many of which are not prioritizing security and unable to handle the threats. The news is filled with attacks, breaches, and even worse, recently one of the biggest security firms had their tools stolen.

The lesson here? Don’t let your protector be your biggest threat, make sure you’re vetting your IT vendors thoroughly. Rather than posting our own list, we wanted to share an excellent article that CISO (Chief Information Security Office) Magazine recently wrote, describing the high bar you should set for your IT provider. A lot of IT requires documented, repeatable processes, not just buying the latest buzzword-heavy software.

Of course we’re always happy to talk security and how you can best protect yourself as well! Let us help identify the gaps in your current security plan and how they can be rectified: