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BWW Media Group / Keeping your buyers secure in a time of uncertainty

Keeping your buyers secure in a time of uncertainty

It’s safe to say that current events of 2020 have left much of the world feeling less secure, and that goes double for your IT buyers.

This period of disruption has exacerbated concerns about tech security in two significant ways:

  • Public crises including COVID-19 have inspired new waves of security exploits that play on end user fears, including phishing attacks and ransomware aimed at critical health services.
  • The way we work has changed profoundly as enterprises disperse to home offices, opening new vectors for attack.

Even before the pandemic transformed the workplace, enterprise IT decision-makers were already on guard. Asked by Petri.com about their main areas of focus this year, security came out on top.

More specifically Petri readers put these concerns at the top of their lists:

  • Ransomware
  • Password insecurity
  • Recovery from new attacks
  • Data Breach
  • Cybersecurity

It’s not surprising, then, that Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday this week included the longest list of security fixes the company has ever released in a single month. The release patches 129 vulnerabilities, including 12 critical issues that affect Microsoft Graphics Components, Windows Hyper-V, the Windows font library, Windows Media Foundation, and the Microsoft Windows Codecs Library.

So where can smart marketers make themselves useful in the enterprise security conversation? First and foremost, talk with your customers about ways workplace security concerns have shifted to the home front.

While BYOD use of personal computing hardware and the rise of telecommuting have already stretched the limits of the traditional office far beyond its physical walls, the COVID-19 era has prioritized three security practices.

  1. Multifactor authentication. Preying on end users’ fears, cybercriminals have tailored their phishing attacks to use COVID-19 as a lure to divulge usernames and passwords. Especially when they’re physically separated from IT support, users are likely to compromise security from sheer stress. Multifactor authentication puts a barrier between attacks and users who are even more susceptible to them than usual.
  2. Phishing protection and education. It’s even better if your buyers can keep attackers from getting as far as compromising end users or even reaching them. Tighter filtering for phishing attacks are key, and so are timely reminders to remote workers that they need to think before they click.
  3. Device protection. The range of devices your customers must support is more varied than ever, and the challenge of ensuring that each is equipped with adequate security software is both more crucial and more complex than ever.

You can never go wrong engaging IT buyers about the state of device and infrastructure security, and staying up-to-the-minute on the latest attacks, patches and defenses will make you a valuable resource.