Cybersecurity for Iowa businesses is becoming increasingly important, while also more challenging. As hackers get more and more aggressive and become better at their devious technology, Iowa businesses of all sizes have to scramble to keep up.
For Iowa businesses, especially small businesses, being hampered by a cyberattack, or worse, completely shut down by ransomware, can be catastrophic. Many small businesses in particular can be prone to closing down shop entirely after a ransomware attack. But you don’t want your life to work to be thrown away just because some hacker has decided to randomly target your Iowa business.
Cyberattacks in Iowa Are Increasing
Iowa businesses are not immune to cyberattacks simply because they are located in the idyllic Midwest. Some major cyberattacks in Iowa have actually been elevated to the level of terrorism.
For example, an Iowa grain co-op, New Cooperative, was hit with a serious ransomware cyberattack from BlackMatter, a new ransomware group, in 2021. The ransomware hackers requested a bounty of 5.9 million for the organization to get their data back. BlackMatter claimed that they had stolen about 1,000 gigabytes of data from the Iowa grain co-op and demanded payment in cryptocurrency.
In many respects, Iowa businesses may be more prone to cyberattacks, especially in certain industries such as farming and infrastructure. Cyberattackers are specifically targeting infrastructure businesses in order to wreak havoc with supply chains. The American food supply is a major target of such hackers, and Iowa farms and food businesses need to be on the lookout.
Iowa government agencies are also at risk of cyberattacks. For example, back in 2017, hackers actually obtained access to Iowa’s public employee pension accounts and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars. Officials had speculated that the hackers were able to access the system via Social Security numbers and birth dates.
Cyberattacks in Iowa Can Be Thwarted
The worst thing for an Iowa business to do would be to just cross your fingers and hope that a cyberattack won’t hit your company. But you don’t need to just hope and pray.
Fortunately, Iowa cyberattacks can be thwarted with the right cybersecurity tools, systems, and processes.
There are a number of smart steps that you can take as an Iowa business to reduce your vulnerability to cyberattacks and ransomware.
Iowa Cybersecurity Audit
First, it’s a good idea to do a cybersecurity audit of your Iowa business to find out where your vulnerabilities might be. For example, did you know that your printer flight might be a prime source of intrusions because of network access?
Fixing Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities in Iowa
Second, once you have discovered what your vulnerabilities are, you of course want to put some IT resources on it to fix the problem. Having a Managed Technology Services (MTS) organization on your side can make this process so much easier, and they also can help with the initial security audit to find potential holes that your own Iowa onsite team might have missed.
Iowa Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
Once your security holes have been patched, you will want to create plans for the future that should include Iowa business continuity and disaster recovery strategies and plans, as well as regular workflows and processes.
Iowa Document Management Solutions
Your Iowa business should also consider using services such as document management solutions to enable collaboration while offering restricted access controls. Document management solutions can also leverage the cloud, so you won’t have to worry about losing all your documents if your local network gets hijacked.
Iowa Ransomware Planning Remediation
Since ransomware is becoming a bigger, bigger problem, especially for Iowa businesses, you will want to have ransomware planning in place. Backup cloud storage is always a good idea, and if the worst case happens, a ransomware remediation plan.
Improving Iowa Cybersecurity With Managed IT
If your Iowa business is overwhelmed with managing the day-to-day, and you don’t know how your team will handle cybersecurity on top of that, Managed Technology Services can help. CDS Office Technologies is a top Iowa Managed IT solutions provider. We have helped my Iowa businesses, large and small, improve their cybersecurity posture to prevent and mitigate cyberattacks. We are also experts in Iowa ransomware remediation and secure document management solutions. Our certified technology experts can help your Iowa business establish and implement a robust cybersecurity plan.
CDS Office Technologies is a leading provider of Managed Technology Services and ransomware remediation for small businesses, large businesses, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies in Iowa. If you would like to take advantage of our Iowa cybersecurity expertise, please contact us for a consultation.
