WINTER 2021

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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
SECURING YOUR COMPUTER NETWORK: KEY MOVES
FASTENER DISTRIBUTORS SHOULD MAKE FOR 2021
Always a pressing challenge, the security of your
fastener distributorship’s computer network is facing
an even greater threat in 2021 given the stubborn
persistence of the Coronavirus, according to security
pros.
Ever creative, hackers are riffing on Coronavirus fears
by sending employees officiallooking
emails pretending to
feature new business policies
on the Coronavirus.
Also showing up in
inboxes are new Coronavirus
announcements
from
government agencies and
the latest updates on free
government financial support
during the epidemic.
Unfortunately, all those
hacker emails turn-out to be
malicious. And they often
result in the penetration of
your computer network by
hackers, the installation of
malware on your computers –
and worse.
Meanwhile, fastener distributors are also facing
increasing break-ins on cloud accounts in 2021, more
personalized ransomware attacks that use employee or
manager credentials to penetrate your network.
In addition, there’s also the age-old problem of
employee insistence on using passwords that are
ridiculously easy to guess.
The upshot: Fastener distributors need to get current
on The expected to surge in new computer network
security threats in 2021 – and then make the necessary
moves to ensure they’re protected.
HACKERS ARE RIFFING ON CORONAVIRUS FEARS
WITH NEW TRICKS
HACKERS ARE SENDING MALICIOUS EMAILS PRETENDING
TO BE COMMUNICATIONS ABOUT NEW CORONAVIRUS
BUSINESS POLICIES.
Says Kasey Panetta, senior content marketing manager,
Gartner, a consulting firm
specializing in tech (www.
gartner.com) “Focus on
business requirements. And
understand how users and
groups access data and
applications.
“Now that a few months
have passed since the
initial remote push (due to
the Coronavirus), it’s time
for a needs assessment and
review of what has changed
to determine if access levels
are correct and whether
any security measures are
actually impeding work.”
Towards that end, here
are the key moves fastener
distributors need to make to ensure their computer
networks are protected from the coming storm:
¤ Secure Your Remote Workforce: With so many
more employees working from home these days, an IT
department needs to take special care to safeguard
network connections between work and home.
CONTRIBUTOR ARTICLE
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