CMIT Solutions is a managed IT Services provider that offers innovative, third-party technology solutions for small- to medium-sized businesses. CMIT provides personalized services that enable businesses to scale without worrying about complex IT issues and cybersecurity.
The industry leader includes more than 250 franchise locations and 900 top technology practitioners. Dom Sanfilippo launched the Jacksonville CMIT Solutions in 2008.
Since that time, CMIT has helped Jacksonville small businesses across the gamut to streamline technology and protect against outside threats. Whether it be for profit or non-profit, hospitality or professional services, CMIT has supplied solutions.
Now, one of CMIT’s top cybersecurity experts, Jennii Kosmowski, sits down with the Business Journal to discuss where small- to medium-sized businesses might be vulnerable and what they should do to protect themselves.
This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Can you tell me a little bit more about why CMIT focuses on small- to mid-sized businesses?
There's a couple of reasons. One of the biggest is, the way cybersecurity is moving, small businesses are the most at risk. If you look at the bigger picture, it's also because of budget.
Cybersecurity is kind of seen as a superfluous spending, almost like marketing, where you don't realize what you're missing out on. Cybersecurity isn't really where a lot of people plan, especially when you're starting out as a business. Small businesses are the biggest targets for cyber attacks because they have an avenue of approach into big businesses that impact a lot of people.
People also think that it's outside of their budget, or they don't really need to spend on it.
CMIT approaches your IT infrastructure with cybersecurity in mind so you develop a strategy and management operations around cybersecurity. We make sure things are set up in a way that keeps you safe, but doesn't interrupt your operations. We get to know what happens in your day-to-day flow, and build the infrastructure and networking around that.
How do you keep up to date on the changing cybercrime scene?
I keep my eye on the news. I constantly research and continue with cyber awareness training, so that we can bring new materials every time we come to any sort of community events. This last May, we went to a community event and had a little game to teach people about what to look for in an email.
The next game that we're going have is the safest payment system. When you're out and about, and you're doing a swipe, a tap or a scan of your card, which is the most safe to use? I think that's relevant for everyone, regardless whether you're a business owner or just a consumer.
Where do you typically hold community events?
We've actually started with arts markets. The idea is to not be in an oversaturated environment for technology. If business owners walk through a tech conference, they're waiting for everyone to come and sell them, but at an arts market, you've got a whole variety of people that are stopping by just out of curiosity.
We’re not selling anything. We're handing out things like water bottles and ice packs because it’s hot, and then having a quick five-minute conversation about cybersecurity.
If you are a small business owner, you're probably out with your family or your kids. They're playing a game, you're having a conversation, you're learning something together. That's why we target the small-, the medium-sized businesses — it has a lot of impact on the community directly.
What would you say is the most urgent thing about cybersecurity for small and medium businesses?
What are all businesses going to use? Email. And email security is one of the biggest avenues where businesses get compromised because it's very easy to forge an email. It is one of the most insecure methods of digital communication. It has no security protocols. You can encrypt an email, but it's a simple code that everyone already has access to and knows how to break. Probably 85 to 90% of cyber attacks that have been successful required human or user interaction. Email is that first step.
The number one thing I say to businesses is to get a really good plan on your email security. That doesn't cost very much and that's the minimal you should do. Have a good filtering system that can distinguish between a spam email versus an actual client and continue teaching through your filtering system about emails that you want to avoid. That's an applicable lesson to all business owners, and anyone who is a consumer as well.
The other thing that is vital to Florida specifically is a data recovery or disaster recovery business continuity plan. We have outages all the time because of hurricanes. What is your plan if you're in the middle of the workday, and now you've got a giant storm coming? Everyone needs a customized plan.
Is it easy to convince businesses of the importance of this?
Yes and no. The big one is, they don't see a need for it right now. You’re waiting for a cyber attack to happen, then you're going to scramble when you should have had a plan in place a while ago.
Insurance is also a false sense of security because they haven't built a lot of policies that protect what kind of attacks and damage someone can suffer from a cyber attack. Reputation loss, for example, there's no way insurance can cover that.
Is there anything else that businesses should be doing to protect themselves?
If nothing else, the most cost effective thing that you can do is to stay informed. There's lots of good resources out there to stay in the know about cybersecurity, understanding how cyber attacks work and what cyber attackers are looking for.
I'm actually working on a podcast for the company about cybersecurity. They're short episodes to demystify this monster called cyber attacks and cybersecurity, make it accessible for anyone to listen to and understand when it happens and how it happened.
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