Enhance Security:

Overlooked Security Risks: Why SMEs

Need More Than Just Basic Tech Support

For small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in New Zealand, technology focus often starts and stops with the essential issues like getting a PC fixed or making sure that critical email has sent. But this is only a small piece of a technology environment. Unfortunately, the bigger picture of security management is often overlooked, and we have seen significant impact when the risks aren’t addressed.

Beyond Basic Support: The Need for Strategic Security to Protect your Business

What’s often needed is a shift in expectation: from thinking of IT as a simple “fix-it” service (“my PC is working”) to knowing that IT is responsible for proactively managing and mitigating technology risk. This includes regular security assessments, best practices for data protection, and continuous monitoring of your technology.

If you’re an SME and haven’t given much thought to your overall security posture, ask yourself:

  • What would we do if we couldn’t access our systems tomorrow?

  • Is our email environment secure, what would we do if we were compromised?

  • Are we monitoring security events (eg risky activity)?

  • Would we be alerted if something was wrong?

  • Are our systems up to date and secure?

  • Do we have security policies applied to our employees?

Common Security Gaps in SMEs

Reviewing your workplace security is an easy place to start. Our security assessments frequently find the same issues across many SMEs:

  • Unmanaged Security Updates: Without governance or automated processes in place to ensure updates are consistently deployed, businesses are at a higher risk of being compromised through vulnerable systems.

  • Email Security Risks: Online hosted email providers can increase the risk of emails being flagged as spam or compromised. We have worked with organisations who suffered thousands of malicious emails sent by a hacker using the owners email address.

  • Outdated Operating Systems: These systems are more vulnerable to cyber threats.

  • Lack of Virus Scanning: Operating without reliable and managed antivirus software, leaves networks exposed to malware, ransomware, and other malicious attacks.

  • Inconsistent Security Policies: Inconsistent or missing policies can allow unintentional security breaches. For example, employees may have local administration rights on their computers, allowing them to accidentally install malicious software.

Conclusion

Security in the SME sector is often overlooked, but it’s one of the most important aspects of protecting your business. By moving beyond basic tech support to a more security focused approach - using tools like Microsoft 365 as a foundation - you can protect your business from threats.

If you’re not sure where to start, we’re here to help. We provide the expertise you need to understand your risk, set up the solutions you need to secure your technology, and give you peace of mind.