Webinar Rewind | Small Companies ‘More Vulnerable’ to Cyberattacks

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — IT professionals from Executive Computer Management Solutions Inc. (ECMSI) recently conducted a webinar that advised viewers how cybersecurity breaches often start through email, and that small businesses need to take heed.

“You’re seeing a lot of the bigger companies get breached. But I promise you, it’s the smaller companies that are actually more vulnerable,” said Dave Galioto, ECSMI chief information officer. “They just don’t make the news.”

Galioto was among the panelists for the webinar, “Cybersecurity: What you need to know to keep your business safe.” Others include ECMSI owner and CEO Ralph Blanco, Nate Bair, security team lead; Kyle Forward, network operations center lead; and Shane Nesbitt, sales manager. The webinar, hosted by The Business Journal, was conducted March 30.

ECMSI has been in business for over 23 years, and employs 30 IT support staff. The company provides IT managed services, advanced security, cloud and VoIP services

“Our goal at the end of the day is to focus on IT and build a strategy for our partners to make sure they could just focus on growing their business,” Blanco said.

“The dynamics of IT is changing constantly,” he added.

Focal points of the webinar were viruses, malware, ransomware, phishing and social engineering.

Bair said phishing attempts are something they often see at ECMSI.

“We see phishing attempts all the time,” he said. “A Gmail account will disguise itself as a CEO of a company and it’ll start to send emails out to the various employees, asking for certain personal information.”

Bair said phishing could include asking for information such as credentials, being told to call certain numbers and asking for credit card information. 

Social engineering is another topic that Bair said is becoming more relevant, as he referenced the Twitter hacking in 2020 where over 130 accounts were compromised. Among those hacked were the accounts of Barrack Obama, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates.

“That was 17-year-old in Florida against a multi-billion-dollar organization,” Bair said. “No one is above these types of attacks.”

Bair said EDR, or endpoint disaster recovery, is another “big buzzword” in the IT industry.

Monitoring and management are key layers to advanced security. They encourage internet users to be more proactive to avoid downtime and gain better protection, panelists explained.

“It’s difficult for companies even when they’re big enough to have internal IT staff to handle everything that’s coming in,” said Blanco. “We’re constantly looking out for our partners – what’s best in class and being very proactive.”

Watch the video above to learn more about how ECMSI protects its business customers from cyberattacks and what internet users should be doing at home.

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.