Over the past 24 months, Barbados as well the rest of the Caribbean, has experienced a rise in data and network breaches. Organisations in both the private and public sectors in Barbados, like the well-publicized hacking of ATMS, Government agencies and departments as well as banks – as these entities remain the most desirable for hackers due to financial and other personal information – have lost thousands of dollars as a result.

No matter the size of your company, the type of industry, or location, everyone is a target. It’s just a matter of time before your company becomes the latest victim of a cyber attack. And defending a company’s assets from the attacks of cyber criminals is not an easy proposition. It requires a proactive and planned approach, which embraces IT security best practices, access to industry experts and to advanced intelligence against threats as well as an incident response plan.

When it comes to IT security, both large and small businesses tend to purchase, install and manage an on-premise security solution or product like a simple antivirus product, or the more sophisticated solutions like intrusion detection and Unified Threat Management solutions. But the maintenance of these products or solutions tend to require specialized knowledge and often are not integrated after spending thousands of dollars.

Low level of threat awareness, high cost of implementing security solutions that work, lacking laws and legislation as well as financial and human capital all adds to this growing problem. Therefore, the need for a managed or outsourced security service, which allows organizations to log, monitor, detect and protect against threats in a proactive manner, is of utmost importance in our region.

So what is the answer to this problem?

Columbus Business Solutions (CBS) has the answer with a Managed Security portfolio of Solutions that allow customers to outsource the monitoring and incident management processes at an affordable cost, while getting a deeper real time visibility, based on scalable and state-of-the-art solutions. This allows an organization to quickly improve their security posture and improve the defense of the company’s critical assets, reducing the risk exposure of the business.

• Continuous identification of vulnerabilities on a customer’s network;
• Improved processes and workflows to proactively mitigate risks;
• Financial benefits by accessing state-of-the-art technology without any upfront investments;
• 24×7 availability of CBS’ certified security experts;
• Cost savings by outsourcing time-consuming manual correlation and analysis; and
• Improved security awareness and reduced risk.”

Mr. Dass also mentioned that the managed security service is scalable; working well for a 2-man operation or 2000 employee enterprise.

Additionally, he said “In a typical organisation where databases, routers, firewalls, and so on, generate hundreds of thousands of logs per day, our core business is to enable our clients with a dedicated security organization than will have the resources and focus to detect any risk and mitigate it in real time.

This way, we are able to detect and protect against threats in a truly proactive manner, avoiding negative impacts to the business”.

CBS is the first provider in the region to offer a managed security solution.

These services are world class and use the same IT and Network Security Best practices that many organizations use internationally to reduce the risk of being a victim of a cyber-attack or crime.

Dass further pointed out that, “Regardless of whether a company wants to keep their actual security hardware or renew it with CBS, our Managed Security Solution can analyze security logs and other devices’ logs, providing alerts and advising clients about critical security events before they materialize into threats.”

“By using CBS managed security services, clients will be able to focus their personnel in the core business and rely on CBS experts for operational security matters”.