When businesses grow rapidly, many tend to prioritize adding new tools, hiring new people, and changing company procedures. During this process, however, some companies forget to take cybersecurity into consideration, putting them at risk of financial losses, operational disruptions, and compliance penalties.
In this blog post, we will explore the five most common security gaps that emerge as a business’s teams and systems become more complex. Also, we will discuss how a managed security services provider like Techmedics can help fortify the security posture of growing businesses.
Organizations focus on ease of access and quick onboarding when they expand to maintain efficiency and reduce costs. Unfortunately, this convenience opens the door to credential theft and business email compromises.
Let’s say a company hires new marketing employees. To ensure they can get up and running quickly, the company may implement lax password requirements and forgo multifactor authentication (MFA). While initially convenient, this creates opportunities for cybercriminals to exploit user accounts, potentially resulting in data breaches.
Alternatively, the organization might give all employees full access to every company file and system. As a result, if a single account is compromised, the attacker’s access could extend beyond the affected account, increasing organizational risk.
Resolving poor authentication systems requires businesses to enforce strong password policies, enabling MFA, and adopting passwordless authentication (e.g., biometrics, authentication apps, security keys) where possible.
Many organizations fail to revoke outdated user accounts when employees, contractors, or vendors leave.
This is often because they still rely on manual processes to manage user access. And as companies grow, regular audits of user accounts and permissions are deprioritized, which causes inactive or unnecessary accounts to accumulate.
Without a centralized offboarding system, these unmonitored “ghost accounts” remain active, increasing the risk that former users or external attackers could gain unauthorized access to sensitive information and business applications.
Businesses can address these issues by conducting access permission audits regularly and automating account deprovisioning. They can also utilize role-based access controls to standardize permissions, reducing the risk of unauthorized access.
Software updates and security patches help protect a business’s IT infrastructure from known vulnerabilities that cybercriminals can take advantage of to access systems and compromise business-critical information.
Unfortunately, many growing businesses delay implementing updates for their operating systems, tools, and third-party applications, resulting in unpatched software flaws.
Back in 2021, threat actors targeted organizations that had not yet applied Microsoft’s security updates for its Exchange servers. This resulted in email data exposure, system compromise, and persistent unauthorized access to affected environments.
IT teams fail to implement patches for reasons beyond simple oversight. Many avoid updates out of the fear of disrupting workflows, while others lack automated patch management tools, delaying the deployment of critical security patches.
Adopting a regular patching schedule and implementing automated patch management tools can help address known vulnerabilities more quickly and reduce the likelihood of exploitation.
As an organization becomes busier adding employees, locations, data, and applications, they may focus too much on day-to-day operations. Eventually, they may overlook disaster recovery, leaving the business vulnerable against outages, cyberattacks, or other disruptions.
While some businesses have a recovery plan in place, it is often insufficient. For example, a company may assume that backing up critical files to the cloud is enough to protect its infrastructure from disasters. However, if the backup environment itself is compromised or improperly configured, the company’s data and systems may still remain unprotected.
What’s more, backup and disaster recovery procedures that worked for a small team may no longer work as the business expands, resulting in increased downtime when incidents occur, as well as longer recovery times.
As such, growing businesses should conduct regular testing of their offline backups to improve business resilience and identify recovery gaps before incidents occur. Furthermore, they must establish and maintain a comprehensive disaster recovery strategy that supports timely restoration of critical systems with minimal data loss and downtime.
Cybersecurity awareness training focuses on educating employees how to recognize, avoid, and report cyberthreats. While it is considered an important component of a layered security strategy, growing businesses may fail to provide it on a regular basis in favor of more immediate operational needs.
Infrequent or one-time training can leave employees more susceptible to phishing attacks and unprepared to identify and respond to evolving attacks. Moreover, it makes the organization more vulnerable to ransomware infections and credential theft. And with human error continuing to play a significant role in various security incidents, inconsistent cybersecurity training can increase organizational risk.
Organizations should conduct cybersecurity awareness training at least once a year. However, they must also conduct refresher modules every four to six months for optimal retention. According to research, employee ability to spot phishing emails drops remarkably by the six-month mark.
As a growing business, it’s important to prioritize cybersecurity alongside operational efficiency and speed. By striking a balance among these things, your organization can expand with greater confidence while strengthening its security posture against sophisticated threats.
If your company is dealing with any of these security gaps, Techmedics can help. We’re your reliable managed security services provider that helps you fortify any vulnerable areas of your IT infrastructure by delivering the following solutions:
We support growing businesses across Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Phoenix across a wide range of industries. Talk to Techmedics today and see how we can strengthen your organization’s security posture and reduce cyber risk.
Technology challenges rarely have one-size-fits-all solutions. A consultation with Techmedics can help you better understand your options and identify practical next steps for your organization. Start with a conversation about what you're trying to accomplish and where technology may be getting in the way.
