Lockdown Lessons 3: Closing Security Gaps

We can all agree: it’s the nature of technology to advance. Cybercrime is no exception to this rule, and neither are the tools we use to stop attacks. But you’d be surprised how much a business can accomplish in terms of their own security simply by keeping existing systems up to date and using technology to their best advantage. For instance, just staying on top of patches and disabling unnecessary services that may be on by default can go a long way toward closing security gaps.

In this guide, we’ll go over some basic ways that can help small and medium- sized businesses and managed service providers (MSPs) future-proof their IT environments against sophisticated, modern malware.

Patch and Keep Systems Up to Date

Unpatched software, operating systems, and firmware are a common vulnerability. For example, you only have to look at some of the major ransomware attacks that have made headlines. By exploiting security gaps in older operating systems, like when the WannaCry ransomware attack took advantage of the EternalBlue exploit in 2017, ransomware can spread like wildfire.