Welcome to the Pegasus
Knowledge Center

Small businesses may think they won’t be targeted by cybercriminals, but they would be wrong.

With the increase in the number of cyberattacks, chances are that small and medium businesses (SMBs) will suffer their share of attacks. According to the IT Governance USA Data Breaches and Cyber Attacks – USA Report 2024, 6.8 million known records were breached in more than 2,700 publicly disclosed incidents within a 5-month period.

Hackers that use ransomware, one of the most popular attack vectors, sometimes target SMBs because they think smaller businesses are more likely to pay a small ransom than to shell out the big bucks for remediation. During December of 2023 and February of 2024, ransomware accounted for approximately 50% of cyberattacks.

To combat today’s advanced and pervasive threats, small businesses need to use managed security services to strengthen their cybersecurity.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a double-edged sword when it comes to cybersecurity. On the one hand, cybercriminals can use Generative AI to create malware viruses without the need to know how to code. In fact, the 2024 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community listed GenAI as one of the disruptive technologies that can be used by terrorists and repressive governments to stage cyberattacks and spread misinformation.

On the other hand, your business can use AI as a defense against advanced security threats. The deep analytics performed by AI are what is needed to keep up with emerging and increasingly sophisticated threats. By integrating AI and machine learning (ML) into your cybersecurity tools and strategies, your company can detect, identify, and prevent cyberattacks.

Cyberthreats are continuously evolving, becoming more sophisticated and exploiting new attack vectors. For example, many companies are concerned about the effect Generative AI will have on the risk landscape. The 2024 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community identified Gen AI as a disruptive technology that creates “unintended consequences— from rampant deepfakes and misinformation to the development of AI-generated computer viruses….”

To ensure that your company is prepared to defend itself against emerging threats, you should assess your security needs and strategies regularly. Evaluating your security requirements allows your company to adapt with changes in the threat landscape and develop custom security strategies to keep ahead of security risks.

Use this 10-item checklist to assess how your company is addressing cybersecurity and to prepare to make any necessary improvements.

The threat landscape in today’s digital world continues to expand and become thornier. Some of the most popular types of attacks staged by cybercriminals are malware, especially ransomware, and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. The attack surface is also expanding due to the increasing adoption of endpoints, creating more entry points for hackers to stage breaches. 

Malware attacks often use phishing emails as their attack vector. DDoS attacks use weaponized bots to overwhelm your company’s network with requests. Insider threats and data breaches are also prevalent forms of attack. 

To safely navigate this landscape, companies need to find more sophisticated ways to detect cyber threats. That’s where security information and event management (SIEM) comes in. With SIEM, companies can detect threats, analyze them in real time, and respond to incidents. 

But how does SIEM work?

Gartner forecasted that global cloud spending will increase 21% during 2023 to reach $592 billion, with $42 million going to cloud management and security. 

Although companies are investing in cloud security, they may not understand who is responsible for which aspects of protecting cloud assets. While the cloud provider takes care of infrastructure security, the customer is usually accountable for securing applications and data. 

To protect their cloud resources adequately, organizations need to assess their cloud security to understand the risk landscape, bridge gaps in security, and meet compliance requirements, as well as to find the right ways to prevent and respond to attacks. 

Some companies may think dedicated IT network monitoring is something that only large enterprises need. However, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are often targeted by cybercriminals who use the network to gain access to company systems. Once hackers have entered the network undetected, they can move laterally, reaching every part of the system. 

All types of companies need IT network monitoring to ensure that the network is performing optimally and securely. Network availability and performance is especially important in this always-on era. Customers and clients expect your company to be there when they need you. The health and security of the network is also crucial as companies move to the cloud and increasingly rely on remote devices and endpoints to conduct business. 

Dedicated network monitoring can maximize company uptime and security by optimizing performance and preventing attacks on the network.  

When companies create disaster recovery plans for their data centers, they think of huge breaches, equipment failures, or natural disasters, such as a wildfire, hurricane, or blizzard. However, the disaster that may cripple their technology systems might be a common side effect of a traumatic event: a power outage. 

Recently, the power grids in Texas and California have experienced major outages due to weather events. If an outage affects the power grid in your area, it could shut down your data center, possibly for an extended period.  

As the climate becomes more volatile, companies must rethink their approach to disaster recovery to avoid costly and damaging downtime after a power outage.  

Today’s companies need to stay at least one step ahead of cybercriminals by taking a proactive approach to IT security. Preventing a breach, such as a ransomware attack, is better than remediating an attack that has already taken place. By that time, attackers have already shut down systems and compromised or stolen sensitive data. 

As businesses grow and become more complex, the need for managed security services becomes greater. Security threats have always been a concern for companies irrespective of size, but the rise in intrusions and cyber-attacks have fast become a major issue in the last few years. For these reasons, organizations have sought several ways through which their security issues can be resolved, and one of those is Managed Security Services.

As a company that intends to stand the test of time, you need to do much more than compelling the use of strong passwords or periodic password changes for your employees. Over the last 17 years, the business world has experienced at least 11.6 billion breaches of enterprise accounts through several means.