Every year, businesses encounter various cybersecurity challenges, from phishing attacks to ransomware, which are getting more sophisticated. In 2024, we’ve experienced the emerging threat of artificial intelligence attacks due to impersonation risks and spear-phishing. Therefore, companies must enhance their cybersecurity more often to withstand the ongoing challenges.

Unfortunately, not enough companies realize the importance of IT services in organizational culture. That’s why industry leaders, such as TikTok or MGM, struggle to keep their businesses safe. Not even governmental bodies can control how their servers are used, leading to considerable problems.

While there are many solutions to these issues, one of the most approachable strategies is learning how to scale your IT department through proper services. We’ll briefly present the challenges and benefits of this method.

What does it mean to scale your business from a cybersecurity perspective?

Scaling is usually done in consideration of profitable growth. As businesses expand their footprint, they must coordinate future movements to manage risks. This is also applied to cybersecurity, in which businesses adopt scaling to adapt their networks and processes to new challenges.

IT support can scale your business’s cybersecurity by preparing to respond to future risks while the company grows. Therefore, it helps align opportunities while integrating security. Cybersecurity scaling provides the following benefits:

• Accommodation to changes;
• Addressing security incidents as they happen;
• Formalization of incident response strategies;

Finding the best cybersecurity partner for your business can be overwhelming. However, few agencies can ensure ongoing security, efficiency, and productivity in your IT department as Cyberduo does. Its services can allow business growth without needing expensive IT infrastructure maintenance. At the same time, you benefit from comprehensive reporting and analytics to know where you stand among the competition.

Still, cybersecurity scaling requires perseveration

Employing cybersecurity scaling objectives must be done accurately because not every company has the same path. Planning is one of the biggest challenges in the scaling process because it involves understanding your business so deeply that you can approximate the time and resources needed, and that’s not that simple to assess.

For example, the cybersecurity workforce shortage is a massive challenge. According to the World Economic Forum, the worldwide worker demand of about four million is the cause of $8.5 trillion in unrealized annual revenue. Companies should be able to attract talented people in the area, but they lack the ability to do so because they cannot retain talent or educate them at the office.

Skills such as cloud security, cyber threat intelligence, and malware analysis are the industry's top three most demanded skills. Still, since most technologists consider hands-on learning ideal, many companies expect employees to be equipped with all the expertise they need without much effort.

So, what’s the solution?

Scaling your business from a cybersecurity perspective means taking small steps to acknowledge your problems. If you cannot work with professionals at the moment, whether you’re a small business or struggling financially, you can at least deploy a comprehensive scaling plan and work on small but specific threats the company faces.

Therefore, businesses should approach a layered method of managing cybersecurity instead of ignoring it altogether. There might be many reasons for which companies undermine cybersecurity, but there are none for not approaching the problem as it is.

Managing your cybersecurity risks now is the best thing you can do for your business, especially since risks are always roaming around companies. Unfortunately, whether your business enters the mainstream or not, it’s still exposed to becoming the next hacker target.

Some industries are more vulnerable than others

While all industries can make efforts to protect their data and brand image, some are simply more exposed than others. For example, despite its importance to the world, manufacturing is sadly one of the least protected from cyberattacks. A simple ransomware attack on one of the most prominent manufacturing companies can immediately disrupt the supply chain, with recovery taking time and leading to compromised data.

Of course, finance and insurance follow closely despite their continuous efforts to employ the best industry standards on cybersecurity. Common attacks in this sector include web application attacks, which are difficult to identify and neutralize.

Energy and utilities are also considerably attacked by malicious actors, especially during moments of digital integration in traditional systems, when networks are the most vulnerable to attacks. Common challenges include operational technology (OT) systems that leverage phishing or malware to disrupt operations.

Other industries exposed to cybersecurity risks include the following:

• Retail is prone to low-security standards;
• Healthcare and pharmaceuticals are prone to human errors;
• Public administration is exposed to data breaches;

IT infrastructure is also exposed to problems

Although introducing modern IT infrastructure is important for companies, they often fail to do it properly due to some issues. For example, traditional infrastructure, which leads to ongoing bureaucracy, makes it difficult to adopt new technologies. Companies also need new hardware and software to better scale up their networks.

At the same time, managers must know how to manage costs effectively in order to balance efficiency with expenses. That’s because the IT department brings considerable value within a business, but it should be monitored in terms of costs.

Finally, the IT infrastructure must also be scaled and closely managed because it can match costs with the needed resources without hindering innovation. For instance, Infrastructure as a Service (SaaS) can help companies shift their usage levels in accordance with services without disrupting them and exposing the company to risks.

What’s your take on IT scaling?

As businesses expand, they need to scale their strategies to balance the newness of profit with the challenges that arise. While this is considered a financial point, it can also be employed in cybersecurity, where companies struggle to keep their data and networks safe. IT scaling cybersecurity allows experts from the field to manage vulnerabilities while allowing the company to monitor the process closely and adjust goals on the go. However, due to the current traditional systems, it might be difficult for them to introduce it.