2294144289_a54db90ac5Symantec has published the latest version of its internet security threat report, entitled “Cybercrime: New Tricks of the Trade”. You can download it for free, provided you fill in your contact details. What it shows is that the time between a threat becoming known, and criminals using it to trawl the internet for weaknesses in PCs, servers, websites or other connections, is becoming shorter. In a matter of hours or days, before a hole is closed or a weakness patched, hackers can break into businesses to steal their data, compromise a website or commit other data crimes.

The focus of attackers is now smaller businesses, who are less likely to have high-level security in place. These attacks put their data at risk of theft, blackmail, destruction or use for criminal purposes; all of which could see a small business fold. Imagine if you could no longer access your customer or product database, or a list of credit cards your business owned was being used by criminals. The repercussions could be massive, and as more businesses move to the cloud, proper security protection is no longer an option, but an absolute requirement.

High grade internet security solutions need not be hugely expensive. We offer firewalls, intrusion prevention systems, redundancy and rapid security updates to protect your dedicated servers and hosted solutions. These help to provide multiple layers of rapid and responsive protection for your server. Rules can be created to help prevent malicious access to your data and decide who is allowed access to data and services. catalyst2 can also monitor web traffic to block DNS-style attacks, cross scripting attacks and security holes in any software.

Despite our increasing use and reliance on the internet, it has never been less safe, and will continue to become a greater risk as more businesses rely on it for services and storage. We can minimise the threat to your organisation, and focus on staying ahead of the bad guys when it comes to the latest threats, with huge savings compared to on-premises solutions, taking the weight of managing these threats off your shoulders.

Image source: Security by CarbonNYC [in SF!] licensed under Creative commons 4