Capstone Works Blog

A Message for Business Owners:
Please pass this blog post around to your staff, as it raises many important issues that will not only help protect them as employees but as typical Internet users as well. Most cybersecurity incidents today are caused by user error, which means that many problems could be avoided by simple awareness.

In today's interconnected world, the Internet serves as an indispensable tool for communication, commerce, and entertainment. However, with great power comes great responsibility. The convenience of online transactions and social interactions is tempered by the risks posed by cybercriminals. This guide aims to arm you with the necessary strategies to navigate the web safely, ensuring that your personal information remains private and protected. By understanding and implementing the recommended safety measures, you can confidently engage in online activities without compromising your security.

We put together this guide to educate business owners and decision-makers on the core tenets of cybersecurity. While this might seem like a boring topic, it’s becoming increasingly important for business owners to understand. We tried to keep this as technologically simplistic as we could. If you have any questions at all or want to sit down and discuss your organization’s cybersecurity, we’re happy to book a call.

One quick fun tangent before we start—we originally had 6 pillars, and since all of them happened to start with the letter C, we almost called them the 6 C’s of Cybersecurity. When we added the 7th, which also happened to start with C, we figured we were starting to sound like pirates roaming the seven seas. We ultimately switched to calling them pillars, but kept some of the sailing motifs.

The 7 Pillars of Cybersecurity are the fundamental principles that form the backbone of any robust cybersecurity strategy. Putting them all together will give you a comprehensive, well-rounded defense plan for your business that is actionable and sustainable.

Depending on who you ask, you are going to get different opinions on the remote work vs work-from-the-office debate. On one hand, there has been evidence that it increases productivity, and other experts claim it does the opposite. While most workers see it as a perk, other professionals make career decisions based on whether they can work from home or not.

Either way, remote work in some form or fashion is here to stay for many businesses, and that means shifting the security dynamic to accommodate it.

We originally set out to talk about specific IT security best practices to have for organizations that provide work-from-home options, but really, 99% of these security practices should be in place regardless of where your employees are sitting. There are some configurations to consider, sure, but generally, the stuff your business implements for security is going to look pretty similar either way.

In the world of cybersecurity, zero-day exploits are the hairline cracks in your armor that you can’t see. They are the unseen flaw in your perfect strategy that the other team has a planned counterattack for.

These exploits can be found in virtually any type of software, from your operating systems like Windows, to your web browser, to your business applications. 

For small businesses in Austin and Central Texas, these threats are especially real. With limited resources, staying ahead of these cyberthreats can feel like a daunting task.

In this article, we'll shed light on zero-day exploits and share tips on how to guard your business against them. Stay alert, stay informed, and stay one step ahead.

Earlier this month, a local healthcare system comprising dozens of Austin-based hospitals, clinics, and other facilities suffered a cyberattack. We wanted to share some lessons that local business owners can learn from this situation, because a single attack like this can result in a snowball effect that can end up costing you a lot of time, money, and reputation.

When you think about the data your business processes and stores on a day-to-day basis, it’s pretty easy to disconnect it from the people you do business with. After all, it’s your company data. That being said, a lot of the information that businesses collect comes from their customers. If something happens to that data, whether it is lost, stolen, breached, or sold, it can have a negative impact on your customers, which not only looks very bad for you, it can also result in legal action.

We all use email almost every day for work. Day after day, week after week, our inboxes are flooded with notifications, password resets, correspondence, invoices, marketing stuff, and countless other types of information. Have you ever thought about what a cybercriminal could accomplish if they had access to your email inbox?

A newly released report reveals that there were over 3,000 reported data breaches in 2023. This resulted in the personal information of millions of people being stolen. The average cost of one of these data breaches was $4.45 million. Almost every single organization polled (97 percent!) reported that they have seen an increase in cyber threats since 2022.

Cybersecurity is absolutely critical today, and it’s a problem that everyone needs to be aware of. As a regular person, going about your day, you might not even notice if you are the victim of a data breach.  Because of this, most people have a big forcefield of blissful ignorance that makes them feel immune to the bulk of cyberthreats.

But that’s the point—the best cyberthreats are hard to spot. You don’t realize you are being scammed.

Austin, Texas is among the best places in the country to start and grow a business, and for good reason. We’ve got a great situation; we’re in a great place to raise families, and we have some of the best and brightest people in the talent pool. With all this growth and potential, however, Texas businesses have a proportionate risk to fall victim to cybersecurity threats.

With the increasing number of cyberattacks and data breaches, it's more important than ever for companies to prioritize cybersecurity compliance. In this article, we'll explore the importance of cybersecurity compliance and the role it plays in protecting Texas businesses and their customers.

The time when businesses could ignore cybersecurity has long since passed. For over a decade, the general consensus among decision-makers for small and medium-sized businesses was that cybersecurity was a luxury item; a want but not a need. Ten or fifteen years ago, this wasn’t too far off, as typically just covering your business with some basic protection was usually enough to stop most problems. Today, we’re in a very different landscape.

Ransomware is every business owner’s worst nightmare. It not only brings with it an aura of desperation, but it also brings with it numerous practical issues that can really harm a business. It is not overstating that it is one of the most abrupt and serious problems that a business can have with its technology. 

Most people these days are somewhat familiar with the traditional attack vectors of cybercriminals. Because of this, the bad guys are always exploring alternative options for spreading malware and stealing data, often in places where you would least expect it.

Here are three unexpected cybersecurity risks that you and your staff need to be aware of.

Austin, Texas is undeniably one of the world’s largest tech hubs. Some of the largest tech companies in the world have installed themselves in Austin thanks to a large number of factors. For instance, the cost of living tends to be much more reasonable compared to other tech-based cities, the lack of state income taxes attracts business, and the generally nice year-round weather and recreational scene attract great people who want to accomplish great things. We love it here, from the growth opportunities, the talent pool, right down to the Keep Austin Weird bumper stickers.

But Austin businesses do face some additional challenges that come with being some of the brightest, most forward-thinking organizations out there.

AI has been the buzzword of the year when it comes to the technology world, and for good reason. While what we know of as “AI” isn’t necessarily new, and it isn’t even technically artificial intelligence, it’s definitely becoming a groundbreaking new industry that is changing the way a lot of businesses and individuals do things. That being said, like all technologies, it can and will be used for nefarious purposes.

For most people, the only thing protecting all of their personal data, their email, access to all of their online accounts, their bank, and more, is just a handful of characters. It’s estimated that there is about a 20% chance that any given account doesn’t have any sort of multi-factor security, so if you can figure out a person’s password, you might be able to gain access to whatever you want.

Data and network security has to be a paramount consideration for any organization that depends on its IT. This means doing whatever it takes to keep unauthorized entities, whether they be human or machine, out of your network. One strategy that can help you strengthen your organizational cybersecurity is to enact a feature that is found on many password-driven accounts: two-factor authentication.

We’ve been talking about cybersecurity quite a bit lately, and for good reason. Any organization that doesn’t acknowledge the threat that comes with being ill-prepared in the face of a cyberattack is basically sitting on a ticking time bomb. 

Business cybersecurity, and all its assorted intricacies and requirements, can be a real challenge for organizations of all sizes to deal with—particularly because it depends so much on employee engagement. That being said, there are a few things you can do to help boost your team’s cybersecurity awareness by promoting more secure behaviors.

Here’s the scenario. Your business insurance provider may have reached out to you, asking questions about your IT and overall cybersecurity. In our experience, this has caused some confusion for a lot of organizations, so we wanted to chime in and help Austin business owners get a better understanding on why your insurance provider is even getting into the weeds with this, and what they are actually looking for.

The last few years have seen an unsettling jump in cybercrime rates, with more businesses struck by various attacks, ransomware, and data breaches. Phishing attacks against end users haven’t slowed down, either—in fact, they’ve become effective enough that even the pros can be tricked. Let’s consider some of the cybercrime trends we anticipate to see in 2023.