FALL 2023

26 THE DISTRIBUTOR’S

26 THE DISTRIBUTOR’S LINK Joe Dysart Joe Dysart is an Internet speaker and business consultant based in Thousand Oaks, California. A journalist for 20 years, his articles have appeared in more than 40 publications, including The New York Times and The Financial Times of London. During the past decade, his work has focused exclusively on ecommerce. Telephone: 631-256-6602; web: www.joedysart.com; email: joe@dysartnewsfeatures.com CYBERSECURITY: MANY FASTENER DISTRIBUTORS ARE DOUBLING-DOWN ON RISK TRAINING Given that punking humans is still one of the easiest ways for a hacker to penetrate the most sophisticated of cyberdefense systems, many fastener distributors are doubling-down on training their employees to be on the look-out for the latest hacker scams. “Most security and risk leaders now recognize that major disruption is only one crisis away,” says Richard Addiscott, senior director analyst, Gartner (www.gartner. com), a technology advisement firm. “We can’t control it, but we can evolve our thinking, our philosophy, our program and our architecture.” Granted, most of us know by now that we need to exercise care when clicking on external links, deciding whether or not to download an attachment, or offering up password and other information to someone on the phone who seems like an employee who simply got locked-out of the company’s network. But the plain fact is that despite this common knowledge, hackers keep tricking many of us into allowing them to penetrate our business networks in just these ways to wreak havoc, steal critical company data or hold an entire system hostage with a demand for a ransom. This vulnerability has become even more troublesome in the post-Coronavirus Era, in which millions of employees worldwide are now ‘remote workers. In the process, that change also instantly made innumerable corporate networks at fastener distributors and other businesses even more vulnerable as remote employees log onto business computer networks with non-cyberprotected personal smartphones, personal digital assistants, laptops and other computerized CONTRIBUTOR ARTICLE UNFORTUNATELY, HACKERS CONTINUE TO PLAY CAT-AND-MOUSE WITH BUSINESS COMPUTER NETWORKS devices. Add an increase in hacker break-ins on cloud-based systems, a jump in hacking attacks orchestrated by nation states -- and increasing hacker access to tricks and techniques powered by artificial intelligence -- and it becomes clear that nothing less than 24/7 vigilance by fastener distributors will be needed to simply thwart the cybercriminal threat moving forward. Fortunately, if you’re looking to refresh or deepen the cybersecurity training you give to employees to help safeguard your business, there are a raft of training service providers that offer a number of different approaches to realizing that goal. Some training courses can be completed in an hour-or-so. Others can be permanently embedded in a fastener distributor’s computer network, continually probing employee ability to identify – and avoid – common hacker tricks. CONTINUED ON PAGE 122