You put on the parachutebeforeyou leave the plane. The helmetbeforethe bike ride. In much the same way, the key to staying cyber-safe is assessing risk long before anything scary happens. Safety can't be an afterthought.

Though we're approaching the end of National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, we and our customers can't stand down, not even a bit. Everyone needs their digital safety patrol looking out for them, 24/7, 365. Cisco Security -integrated, automated and backed by Cisco Talos threat intelligence, never stands down. It's our job to see the cyber threats coming and offer our partners the best solutions to keep their businesses growing, and customers of all sizes safe. Yes indeed, customers of all sizes...

Preach: beware the small to midmarket security breach

In a recent blog post, John Stewart, our Cisco cyber-guru, cites findings from our first-ever, highly shareable Special Edition Cybersecurity Report (SMB) for small businesses:

". . . Every organization, large or small, is at risk for an attack. Increasingly, small and midmarket businesses are the focus . . . and often serve as a launch pad or conduit for bigger campaigns."

He says cybersecurity must become an integral part of every business operation, including sales.

Small and midsized companies report:

• 53% have experienced a breach
• Their high volume of alerts means only about half of breaches (56%) are investigated
• 29% of breaches have cost their company less than$100K
• 20% say their cost is closer to$1,000,000-$2,499,999

Customers are counting on us to protect them from threats, no matter how big, small, or in between the size of their business.

Umbrellaoffers a key piece of the solution they're looking for

Umbrella  is a favorite product (and an easy sale for you) for small and midsized companies. It's also a great fit for MSPs and MSSPs, and part of our Connectwise Unite platform. Umbrella recently earned rave reviews and a Cloud Security Award from industry watcher, Channelnomics, for blocking malware, phishing, command and control callbacks, and for activating early-at the DNS layer. It's one of our key cloud offers, because it's cost effective and easy to implement.

Whether you sell it alone as a simple starter solution, part of a managed services portfolio, or within one of our complete sales plays, it's clear that small and midmarket customers need help, and cloud security is a great way to start delivering the value and starting relationships. So, get out there and grab those small and midsize opportunities, and remember, safety first!

And finally, as you think about securing customers of all sizes 24/7, 365, just know that there's a lot of exciting security news coming at Partner Summit 2018 in Las Vegas November 13-15. If you're not attending, make sure you register for Virtual Partner Summit.