Small to medium sized businesses in Darwin do not all have a fully comprehensive IT departments to ensure that their machines and gadgets are running on tip top shape mainly due to budget constraints, that is why it is a great option to get outsourced assistance from a dependable Darwin IT services team to avoid downtimes and protect businesses from losses in terms of client base and revenue.
Whether or not you already have a Darwin IT services team protecting and supporting your enterprise in Darwin, here are some of the latest issues that may affect your Darwin business:
Nation’s Cyber Security Strategy Worth $230 Million Doesn’t Help Australian SMEs Much
The government recently allocated a $230 million budget for cyber security but industry experts feat that not enough has been done to protect SMEs in Darwin and the whole of Australia. $30 Million from the allocated funds will be spent on building a Cyber Security Growth Centre in cooperation with the private sector in creating an innovation network for cyber security. $47 Million will additionally be allocated for establishing intelligence sharing centre in the Nation’s capital cities. Industry experts feel that small business owners all over, especially local enterprises with Darwin IT services support teams, will not really benefit from these efforts. The programs will allow for better collaboration between the private sector and the government in a joint effort to thwart potential attacks from hackers but it focuses more on big businesses rather than aiding SMEs in Darwin who do not have IT Services support or small businesses in Australia who are more vulnerable to cyber attacks.
Check Point Software Technology’s David De Laine says that this is a step towards the right direction and that they are hoping to see more support to be offered to small businesses. He said that small businesses are the busiest business engine of our country and our country is only as strong as our weakest ink, cyber attackers view small businesses as weakest links, especially ones that do not have support from Darwin IT services team to keep their business data safe. The private sector cyber espionage rate has risen dramatically in the past few years and small businesses are not exempt from the high risks. It was only last month when a pro-Islamic hacker group attacked more than 20 Australian SMEs defacing their business pages and leaving pro ISIS images and messages. A group called United Cyber Caliphate also attacked mostly tyre retailers, a herbalist website, and a Mexican catering group. If these businesses had proper support and security from a dependable Darwin IT services team, then these attacks may have been avoided.
As part of the cyber security strategy, the government is offering to give the nation’s largest companies a cyber security risk assessment or “health check” to find out if they have vulnerabilities and asses other risk factors. De Laine is of course appreciative of such measures but he says that big companies in Australia, Including Darwin, have their own IT Services departments with enough skills and budget to protect their enterprise, unlike small to medium businesses. It is good that the Turnbull administration understands the value of such an important concern for Australian businesses but it does not address the problems of the basic business engine of the nation, which are our SMEs. He added that there should be more efforts to help small businesses when it comes to cyber security.
De Laine believes that the administration and the government should extend the program of the cyber security plans to include more focus on small businesses nationwide. Small businesses in Darwin, especially ones that currently do not have Darwin IT services teams employed yet, are also hoping for such efforts from the government.
De Laine mentioned that he is looking forward to seeing something as basic as having a taskforce for cyber security to help educate SMEs of the risks and give them incentive to sign up and acquire protection and maintenance from a Darwin IT service team or their local providers.
The government estimated that it costs Australians a loss of more than $1 billion every year due to cyber crime. Do not wait for your Darwin enterprise to become part of that statistic and seek help from a capable and dependable Darwin IT service team as soon as possible!
