industryopinion


Cyber-education is key


Ensuring that businesses have secure practises is a year-long endeavour. With over half of UK employees concerned about cybersecurity at work, more support is needed to ensure that security is upheld throughout organisations both large and small. Mark Appleton, chief customer officer at ALSO Cloud UK believes that MSPs and the cloud marketplace are in the best position to provide this support due to the breadth of their resources and clients available.


W


ith workforces more conscious than ever about cybersecurity concerns, more reassurance and support are needed to keep secure


practices for business continuity. MSPs and the cloud marketplace are in the best position to provide this support due to their extended access to cybersecurity clients. Cybersecurity month has come to a close,


“MSPs are in the perfect position to


but cybersecurity practices are a year-long endeavour. Yet even years into the new normal of hybrid and remote working, businesses and IT leaders are still failing to ensure security practices are upheld within their operational teams. With more than a quarter of UK executives reporting their cyber budgets are inadequate – according to iomart and Oxford Economics – intelligent allocation of budget and support when it comes to supporting cybersecurity is key more than ever. Earlier this year, Aviva also reported over half of UK employees


provide much needed support to their


customers, to safeguard against ransomware threats.”


“MSPs are in the perfect position to provide much needed support to their customers, to safeguard against ransomware threats. This can be in the form of phishing simulations or quality service solutions, amongst other solutions. By giving their customer businesses the ability to check their security posture, operational teams gain a greater understanding of where potential education gaps are regarding company cybersecurity practices.” Appleton also believes that human resources are often overlooked in lee of high-tech protection, but ultimately are just as important. “People forget common security practices that can be so critical to


business continuity, just for the sake of ease and convenience.


harbour concerns about cybersecurity at work. Gen Z workers were found to be more worried than their older generation counterparts. With this shift towards a next generation workforce more aware about the new dangers to business continuity that cybersecurity threats bring, more support is needed to combat these concerns and ensure that cybersecurity training and practices are upheld throughout organisations both large and small. “Onboarding via MSPs should include cybersecurity practices


as a default and necessity, especially given the shift to hybrid and remote working is here to stay. One vulnerability can compromise the whole system, and often this is tied to human error. Enterprise defence is a team sport – so every employee is a player in ensuring cybersecurity practices are upheld.”


16 | January/February 2024


Human resource, just like SaaS and cyber protection, needs the same level of ongoing patching and updating to ensure that it is working at top capacity. Human error is not something that can be entirely removed in operations; educating people, therefore, is the key here.” “Having an ecosystem that works for you is essential, but it all


depends on the size and data kept with your business. All these factors mean each has a different approach. SMEs especially must consider what is best within their budget, but MSPs onboarding and support is a critical way to provide them with needed resources and access to security posture checks.” “Ultimately, your human operational teams and software all


work in a complete business ecosystem – one cannot function to maximum capacity without the support of the other. MSPs are in the best position, due to the breadth of their resources and clients that they have available, to support SMEs and other businesses in their cyber-education efforts through the cloud marketplace and promote ongoing training with their onboarding practices.”


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