As your business grows, so do the risks and threats to your organisation, and while it’s easy enough for a single-man operation to do its due diligence to protect the interests of the business, it’s much harder to maintain good cybersecurity practices when other duties take priority.

Growing a business is a constant game of keeping up with new developments – from onboarding new clients to seeking out new business opportunities to engaging with and responding to small problems as they arise – and it’s no wonder that some things get pushed to the side and forgotten about until something truly drastic happens to bring attention back to them.

For small businesses, that drastic event is not one that they’re prepared to financially recover from: 83% of SMBs simply do not have the funds or cash-flow necessary to recover from the fall-out, and a quarter of those were unaware that there were recovery costs involved. This is worrying, given that cybersecurity threats are on the rise, and with the latest AI developments, show no signs of slowing down or stopping.

In 2023, there was a 72% increase in data breaches, up from 2021. Around 35% of that data breach occurred as a result of malware delivery through email, the tool that every business uses.

Simply put, cybersecurity is an element that your business cannot opt out of, but unless you have been putting money aside to invest in a strong IT infrastructure, it’s difficult to frontload the costs of protecting your business.

There is a better way: you can reach out to an MSP, or a managed service provider, for cybersecurity management without the additional costs of maintaining an internal IT team.

How does a managed service provider improve cybersecurity?

Investing in cybersecurity means investing in a seasoned, professional IT team that can both run your internal infrastructure and keep an eye out for threats. For small businesses, that cost comes at a premium, and while it is considered better to have an in-house team for prompt responses to any emergencies, that can quickly dig into your profits.

A managed services provider works on a retainer basis to supply you with all your IT infrastructure needs at a lower cost than hiring in-house, which can prove more reasonable for SMBs who are just starting out or who have no budget to maintain a team of experts. However, for all intents and purposes, it is the same level of expertise that you can find in any IT professional, just spread out over dozens of clients instead of a single business.

How can MSPs help manage cybersecurity for SMBs?

A lot of cybersecurity threats operate on exploiting vulnerabilities in the protocols of a business. To that extent, a lot of businesses also have too much on their plates to dedicate enough time to continuous maintenance of their IT infrastructure, where something as simple as an update can introduce a new vulnerability into a previously-safe system.

Additionally, cybersecurity moves quickly: new threats develop and roll out at a rate too quickly to keep up with or prevent, and therefore a cybersecurity team primarily ends up focusing on prevention and key practices, rather than creating iron-clad systems that will easily come apart once the next threat materialises.

A managed services provider has the capacity to stay updated with all the latest threats and implement certain protocols to catch any risks as they arise. Some of these include.

Implementing secure email

As we stated above, a lot of malware is delivered through email. With the advent of AI, it’s become even more difficult to tell apart a genuine email from a threat – and your employees, without careful coaching, will not know the difference.

As a result, one of the most basic and effective ways to protect your business is to ensure that your emails are secure and users are protected from clicking fraudulent links. Additionally, an MSP can also introduce an automated process that can scan and determine whether an email is a potential risk.

Employee training and upskilling

IT is a complex multi-faceted operation, and it can be impenetrable for people who haven’t grown up or worked in businesses that have had a stringent IT system before. On top of that, there are more employees working remotely than ever now, and if you weren’t already aware of the risks of working remotely in cafes, it’s easy for your employees to inadvertently leave sensitive information out in the open.

A managed services provider can organise regular training and awareness programs that can help your employees understand the value of safe remote working practices, and to help them implement changes within the way they work to protect that sensitive data.

Running regular cybersecurity audits

As the business changes, so will your employees: you might hire people regularly, or let go a few who are no longer a right fit for the business. Changing employees, however, is a massive vulnerability within the organisation, and regular cybersecurity audits can help maintain a rotating list of access permissions, allowing you to protect client data far more effectively.

An MSP can run these practices from beginning to end, from onboarding employees and giving them access to only the most pertinent client information to then revoking that access. Compromised employee accounts can also fall under this purview, and managed service providers can immediately limit or block access to the compromised account.

Log monitoring

Logs of what goes on in your business can reveal crucial information about where your traffic is coming from. One can easily detect if there is a high quantity of traffic coming from unsafe sources. By establishing a regular log monitoring system, a managed services provider can detect potential threats before they become a risk.

Maintaining best practices

There are a large number of tools available for cybersecurity professionals that a business might simply not be aware of: remote access tools that limit IP access, multi-factor authentication, and continuous updates are three of the best ways that you can prevent a cybersecurity threat from becoming a bigger risk to your business.

A managed services provider will have a better understanding of which elements to prioritise to protect your business, and the capacity to keep your systems constantly updated and monitored against vulnerabilities. In the case of a breach, they can respond quickly and accordingly, and limit the fallout.

A managed services provider can streamline the creation of offsite data backups, an incident response plan, and contingency plans in case of failure in a way that gives you the best chance of coming out on top of the cybersecurity risk.

There is no room, in today’s very high-powered, tech-enhanced working environment, for businesses that do not prioritise their cybersecurity. With vast quantities of client data being traded daily through various operations, it’s key that your business is best prepared for prevention rather than reaction, and if the high cost of an effective in-house cybersecurity team proves too high, a managed services provider can give you the best chance of maintaining your business operations at the highest level of security for your budget.

If you’re interested in managed services for cybersecurity, and you have no idea where to start, reach out: we’re always happy to guide you along the right path.