5 Things Every MSP Needs To Know About Cybersecurity

By Ian Trump, Security Lead, MAXfocus

It turns out factory workers enjoy scrolling through their Facebook News Feed as much as you and me. Maybe that doesn’t exactly raise eyebrows, but this should: connecting to the social media site via a flat network that controls all facets of production.

Let’s just say there’s nothing to “like” about that scenario.

That sums up the conclusion I once reached after conducting a factory’s cybersecurity audit. Allowing Internet access on machines whose sole purpose should have been production-based really did one thing well: It exposed the business to all the evils of the Web. Because the network wasn’t segmented for security purposes and lacked an internal firewall, the factory was flirting with disaster. Hackers could have halted conveyer belts or worse, infected the network with a vicious virus. (One employee said that a security breach would have cost the company between $3,000 and $4,000 per hour.)

This extraordinary risk prompted me to ask the factory’s decision-makers a question that all managed services providers (MSPs) should raise with their clients and potential customers: What is truly important to your business?

As you might imagine, employees updating their status, uploading a new selfie or checking their email from computers that are critical to production was deemed detrimental to the business. It sounds like a no-brainer. But you’d be surprised.

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