In this day and age, information—intellectual property, employee and client information (PII), financial records—are gold, and unscrupulous individuals will do anything to get their hands on them. Even cybersecurity for small businesses has become a top priority.
Luckily, there are high-level government cybersecurity frameworks even SMBs can implement to protect themselves.
What Cybersecurity Framework Does the Government Use?
The government is well aware of the damage that cyber crimes cause. To protect its sensitive data from breaches, whether intentional or otherwise, the government issued a series of guidelines to be followed by their offices and businesses who work with them.
These are the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS), which focuses on data procurement; Cyber Security Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), which is mainly for the Department of Defense (DoD); and the Cybersecurity Framework from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
However, it’s not only government contractors who benefit from the high-level security compliance brings. Your small to medium-sized business (SMB) can also reap the benefits of government-level cybersecurity solutions, starting with the NIST Cybersecurity Framework.
Small-Medium Businesses and Cybercrime
You might not believe that cybercriminals are targeting your SMB business, but statistics show otherwise. In 2019, 43% percent of cyberattacks were focused on small and medium enterprises.
With the COVID pandemic driving people to work at home, cyber crimes have increased 400% a month into the pandemic. Cybercrime is a reality for small and medium businesses, and the damage it causes is real, amounting to millions of dollars each year.
NIST Cybersecurity Framework and SMBs
To have an organized cybersecurity system, The NIST met with industry leaders in 2013, and a year later, the NIST presented the cybersecurity framework to the public. The framework includes five steps.
- Identify the data and systems that need protection, such as consumer, patient, and other sensitive information.
- Protect the data using hardware and software.
- Detect breaches using tools and policies before they happen.
- Respond to the threats by using tools to mitigate and control data breaches.
- Recover systems and assets through backups, parallel devices, the cloud, or other resiliency tools when a data breach occurs.
According to Gartner, the security framework that NIST outlines is so effective that in 2021, 50% of American businesses have adopted the framework to protect their businesses. Your SMB business can also benefit from using the NIST framework to protect your business.
How ThrottleNet Can Help
Even if your SMB doesn’t have direct dealings with the government, it can still benefit from the NIST framework of cybersecurity, especially for data protection and recovery.
ThrottleNet’s managed cybersecurity for small businesses help implement the aspects of NIST that apply to your SMB, providing you with a comprehensive data protection plan that works well with your organization’s specific needs.
Remember, prevention is always better than the cure. Our Managed Network + Cybersecurity plan is uniquely designed to prevent even the most sophisticated threats, while optimizing your networks. Get a free dark web scan today to see where your vulnerabilities lie and improve your business’s security.
