Art Gilliland and HP’s Cyber Security team have been hard at work this year.  As with many of the major manufacturers of both hardware and software, security has not only been a trending buzz word in 2015 but a major priority. And for many business owners, it tends to be a thing of mystery. What attacks should one be the wariest of? Which systems do I have in place that are the most vulnerable?

For those seeking some answers and wanting a better lay of the land, Gilliland has put together a comprehensive report on cyber-risk for 2015. It’s highly suggested reading and one will be happy to note that it covers most topics in an easily digestible way. This is a diverse discussion, and HP isn’t able to cover everything, but Gilliland’s team does a nice job of giving us all some things to think about and improve on. It is definitely the cyber risk report that every business should look at. In fact, Security Week is calling this report “a must-read for security professionals”.

You can download and read the entire thing here: Explore the HP Cyber Risk Report 2015

Particularly of note in the report:

–The discussion of network misconfigurations still being a problem to properly secure many businesses. This is an issue we address every day with many prospective customers as we work to make their networks more secure and stable.

–New technologies can provide new ways for threats to exist. There’s a big push right from major technology creators to do more looking before leaping in terms of making new products as safe as possible before releasing them. Point of Sale systems were primary attack targets in 2014 and there’s a push to re-investigate these systems. At Upward we are constantly looking for the newest ways we can keep all anti-virus and malware software on our customer’s systems as up to date as possible to avoid new breaches.

–Complimentary Protection isn’t enough. HP’s report highly recommends that businesses use as many tools as possible to keep their networks safe and that many complementary (or what we call bloat-ware) programs are not enough to keep a PC safe. At Upward we are actively employing as many technologies as possible to keep our customers safe, but when reading this report, it is clear that we can also do more. And we will.

The main takeaway for us upon reviewing HP’s report is that this is an uphill battle and that we’ve got our work cut out for us. Cyber threats are real, diverse and constantly changing. We know that we have to keep our walls secure, build them higher, and adapt to the threats as they come our way. This isn’t something we’ll shy away from. We understand that to be the best IT service provider in the Portland Metro Area means that we have to make this a huge priority. We’re up for the challenge and we’re extremely interested in talking with business owners who want to take cyber-security as seriously as we do.