Farokh Karani

A recent, high-profile incident in which a Hollywood-based hospital suffered through a ransomware lockdown is just the latest in a long string of public attacks that threaten the way we do business today. By Farokh Karani, Director, North America — Sales & Channels, Quick Heal Technologies

In the world of cybercrime where hackers are generally one step ahead of everybody else, good security practices can literally be the difference between protecting critical computer data and exposing the personal and confidential information of school staff, students, parents, and third-party contractors.

What do resellers and managed services providers (MSPs) need to keep top of mind as security threats spiral in 2016? Ongoing vigilance and protection is the only way to stop these threats in their tracks, which is why it’s important to keep pace with new IT security dangers that have recently emerged. At the same time, many existing threats are also expanding and mutating, finding new ways to make their way beyond the corporate firewall.

Over the last couple years, security breaches have rocked the business landscape. Sensitive data — from high-profile retailers and financial institutions to lesser known mom-and-pop shops — fell into the hands of global thieves and hackers, affecting millions of consumers and company employees. Indeed, it has been a challenging time for data privacy and security, and the massive thefts served as a wake-up call for organizations around the world.

When the mobility wave hit, data security got way more complicated for IT services providers and their SMB customers. Indeed, as mobile devices have infiltrated the SMB market in a big way, hackers have kept pace, waging full-blown attacks against the mobile landscape. Studies have shown that mobile malware assaults rose by 58 percent in 2012, making mobile data security one of the biggest threats for businesses today.