Opportunity Knocks: Cyber Security Awareness Month

By Cara Sievers

As you might know, October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month – a great time for channel partners to help their clients assess their cyber security measures.

Not only is personal identity theft occurring at a staggering rate, but SMB and enterprise security threats are also on the rise as more and more of our business occurs in the cloud. Providing applications that can protect businesses from attacks, viruses, phishing, spyware and so on, is certainly an opportunity for the indirect channel – selling safety should be getting progressively easier based on such a threatening environment and the increase in mobile workforces. Here are some tips to help you analyze the security steadfastness of your clients … and yourself.

First, if you are wondering just how safe you are, click here to take a quiz offered by The National Cyber Security Alliance to see how your protective measures stack up.

Another helpful service that can keep you in the loop on security threats is The National Cyber Alert System, created by the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team and the Department of Homeland Security. Click here to obtain an e-mail notification subscription to security alerts and tips.

Moreover, Daniel V. Hoffman, chief technology officer of security application provider SMobile Systems, offers these five ways to protect yourself from a cyber attack:

Hoffman says both consumers and businesses need to implement antivirus and personal firewall applications for their mobile devices; and even though the actual threats to the devices might be the same for individuals and businesses alike, the impact can be different.

“For example, the most common type of infections our Global Threat Center records for Windows Mobile and BlackBerry mobile devices is Spyware,” explains Hoffman. “For businesses, this could mean loss of sensitive customer data, trade secrets, etc. For consumers, the effect can be equally devastating if they perform mobile banking and trading or online purchasing. In either event, every key typed and e-mail/SMS/MMS sent and received can be stolen and uploaded to a hacker’s server.”

Hoffman also says that with regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA, businesses also must meet federally mandated compliance regulations; and in order to comply, encryption is becoming a requirement on smartphones.

“While a lost or stolen mobile device can adversely affect a consumer, businesses can suffer significant financial losses if a mobile device doesn’t have encryption and the device is compromised. In both cases, consumers and businesses need to treat their mobile phones in the same manner and implement the same security technologies as with their PCs,” says Hoffman.

SMobile’s security applications include virus and malware detection, text message and data filtering, prevention of unwanted messages from interrupting the user, spam blocking, enterprise management, protection for mobile professionals from harmful data on open networks and data security and password-protection for content and files. The privately held company, headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, generates 15 to 20 percent of its sales through the indirect channel, via agents, resellers, distributors, consultants and systems integrators.