WJR Business Beat with Jeff Sloan: Cybersecurity Awareness Month (Episode 130)

This happens to be cybersecurity month and when you think about it, now with more and more of us doing work from home, this concern about keeping networks safer, and your computers safer becomes a very timely topic. Who better to discuss this than the guy who knows from StartupNation, the founder and CEO, Jeff Sloan.

Good morning, Jeff.

Good morning, Paul.

Yes, indeed. One of the biggest hot-button issues facing small businesses today is cybersecurity. As you said, Paul, now with work from home as the new normal, businesses are more exposed than ever, and the bad guys know it and they’re more active than ever.

Phishing, malware, ransom attacks, spyware, Trojan horses, worms, even Zoom bombing, Paul, are cybersecurity threats facing businesses today. Unfortunately, there’s even threats from the inside, from our employees. If you’re a small business owner, you need to be on top of this growing problem that can literally bring your dream business down.

October is national cybersecurity month and given the current conditions and circumstances of both our increased exposure coupled with the massive increase in the threats coming at us, the time is now to address this issue and to protect your business. Well today, our friends from Dell and McAfee have joined with StartupNation, we’ll provide a free webinar that you can attend this afternoon at 2:00 PM Eastern time to help you understand these threats and to learn what you can do to protect your business.

Now, Megan Wright from Dell Technologies says this about the growing threats:

“You’re hearing it every single day, whether it’s a small business to medium business or a large business, but there’s a lot different malware viruses and cyber criminals that are maybe utilizing some strategies like Trojan horses or ransomware attacks. We’re hearing an average of a small business owing about $38,000 after being attacked with ransomware. And you may never get that data back. And that’s, what’s just so critical about making sure that you are secured, because if you are a victim of an attack and you pay all of this money to get that data back, you may never actually get that critical information back for your business.”

And so Megan, what are some of the things we can do to protect our businesses?

“The two great takeaways that you can look at today is making sure that you focus on your end-point security. So your laptops or desktops, and that’s not only for yourself as the business owner or the entrepreneur, but also anyone that you’re interacting with or that’s interacting with company data. So, any of your employees, you need to make sure that they’re end point laptops and desktops are secure. And then we also want to think about the network. Where are your employees logging in from, how are they accessing that critical data that’s shared across your network, within your business?”

So, Paul, listen, if you’re concerned about protecting your business, even your personal information, you should join the free webinar today. You can go to StartupNation.com/Dell, get registered, sign up for free, and the information is invaluable.

Well, I think it’s important to point out here, Jeff, that, and this should drive the point home with cybersecurity month, which we’re in the midst of, is that this isn’t just an annoyance for business—an attack can be catastrophic.

Yeah, indeed, Paul. Listen, you’re sitting there one day, you’re going about your business. You’re fighting hard to get through this pandemic, as if that’s not enough. You’re fighting hard to get through it, and all of a sudden everything locks down. Your website’s down and you get a notice that says we’re demanding $30,000. We’ve got you held hostage, everything’s locked down until you pay it. You don’t get anything back. And then as Megan said, even if you do get it back, it can be incomplete. If your website’s brought down, it’s hard to put it all back together. It can be catastrophic, Paul.

It can be truly catastrophic. It is one of those crimes that nobody’s been able to solve yet. So, the answer is not trying to solve it once it’s happened, the answer is to get equipped to make sure it doesn’t happen to you. And that’s what you’re doing today at two p.m. with this free webinar at StartupNation.com. And then did you say forward slash webinar or forward slash forward slash Dell?

StartupNation.com/Dell. It’s all free. It’s extremely valuable information. Check it out.

And I suspect that’s what Dell is talking about and certainly what McAfee is talking about. That’s their business and it has been for a very long time. Nice of you to offer this cybersecurity webinar for free today, again, at two o’clock, for anybody who could use the information, which would be everybody.

Anything else, Jeff? I mean, I think that covers it, Paul. You, you know, we want to put everyone on notice and we want to give them solutions. So, thanks for Paul and to WJR for making the information about the webinar today known to the public. Take advantage of it.

There’ll also be, by the way, Paul, a $3,000 giveaway for a Dell package that you can win by just registering and we’ll pull a name out of the hat and it’s yours. So even further advantage and further reason to go join the webinar today.

Excellent. Jeff Sloan, StartupNation founder and CEO on WJR. You hear him here every morning and, on the weekends, too, at the Great Voice of the Great Lakes, News Talk 760, WJR.