March 21

Evaluating Your Cybersecurity Budget

If you’re a yeah-I-take-cybersecurity-seriously kind of person, good for you! We love to see it. You’ve probably already got some solid cybersecurity practices down and that makes us really happy. But have you budgeted enough for what you really need? We don’t mean to scare you, but spending some extra dough upfront on cybersecurity can save you a whole lot of money and headaches down the line. Trust us.

For legal reasons, we can’t officially tell you to get your accountant in a headlock until they cough up some wedge for extra DNS filtering and a dose of phishing training, but that’s exactly what we’re telling you to do… 

But I’m Already Spending Like Billio on the Cloud!

Sure you are, buddy, and we’re not surprised. We’re big cloud fanatics too. The cloud makes everything easier – you don’t need a bigass IT team, you can collaborate from anywhere, and there’s a whole shedload of useful SaaS that keeps your business looking real good. But the cloud is fallible and that means – bingo! – you’ll probably need just a smidge (or even a smadge) more cloud cybersecurity controls. 

The Three Key Things to Plan For in Your Cybersecurity Budget

Look, when it comes to cybersecurity, we are like kids in a candy store. If you have an unlimited budget, we can get really fancy with it and talk your ear off all day about your options. But most businesses don’t have the budget (or the time) for that. Here are the three key things even the most bare-boned of cybersecurity budgets should cover:

  • Mobile device management: If you have a fleet of devices flapping about, MDM gets them locked down and secured in minutes. This is a cost-effective way to spend your cybersecurity cents because it’s the mechanism for a ton of automation (including onboarding automation), remote access security best practices, forced security protocols like updates and passcodes, and a way to flag up anomalies before they turn into headlines.
  • Cloud single sign-on: This blesses you with iron-clad audit trails, idiot-proof password management, and all the access control you can shake a monkey at. But, don’t shake monkeys. It’s cruel.
  • Phishing prevention: Humans are messy and this means they might suck at cybersecurity. It’s okay though. Phishing training helps them better deal with those pesky phishing emails and there are a ton of cost-effective filters and security controls available to lock out malware before it gets nasty.

MDM, cloud SSO, and phishing prevention are the cybersecurity options that give you the most bang for your ROI. But, if your cybersecurity budget is a bit stretchier, we start getting starry-eyed thinking up more recommendations. Laptop logistics is one clever little option that closes the asset lifecycle loop and gives your compliance officer the happy jitters. And there’s nothing more risk-reducing (and easy) than a good clean-up and optimization of your IT infrastructure. Doesn’t that feel better? 

For more ideas, give us a call. We’d love to help.

Ignition is Silicon Valley’s best (and friendliest) IT security, compliance, and support team. Call us now–chatting about IT support and cybersecurity is our favorite thing to do!

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