With the threat of ransomware and cyber-attacks in general growing daily due to worldwide unrest and economic insecurity, Kennedy Intelligent Data (KID) has allied with Blueshift Cyber Security.

This alliance allows KID to provide comprehensive and turnkey managed security services for companies like those in the auto industry that are at significant risk of data theft and financial harm to their customers.

Ransomware attacks have cost companies an untold amount of money, certainly in the hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years, as the attacks have shifted from stealing data to making fraudulent purchases and selling the information on the dark web to simply locking owners out of their systems. The attackers then require a ransom to get access to the data back. The attackers threaten to destroy it, sell it to other bad actors, or release it to the public, generating a public relations nightmare for the target of the attack.

“We have all seen the news reports of companies large and small dealing with these crippling cyber-attacks,” said James Kennedy, CEO of KID. “Organizations of all types, especially those handling large quantities of client data, must do everything they can to protect that data, or they could face massive financial liabilities that cyber security insurance might not cover.”

The approach of most cyber-security firms in the past has been one of prevention, stopping an attacker from getting into the network or endpoint and then compromising the data. That approach has proved to be unreliable against advanced cyber adversaries. Firms that are responsible for successfully protecting a company’s IT infrastructure and data must now assume there will be a breach and focus on detecting and responding to intrusions as early as possible in the “cyber kill chain.”

Kennedy has worked with the auto industry for decades as a consultant and is aware of just how much sensitive customer data the auto dealerships collect and often store as they sell and service vehicles for customers. But this risk looms large for any company that deals with customer data, including schools, hospitals and health organizations, retailers’ brick and mortar or web-based of all kinds, and virtually any organization that collects data at all.

As the automation and ease of customization have grown, the cost of cyber-security measures, originally only affordable for the largest of companies, has come down to the point where services like Blueshift XDR™ are cost-effective for even small to medium size businesses.

“Partnering with KID allows Blueshift to further our mission of providing enterprise-grade cybersecurity protection to small and medium-sized businesses,” said Brad Rowe, CEO of Blueshift Cybersecurity. “SMBs are often poorly equipped to detect and defend against a cyberattack. The Blueshift XDR platform fills the protection gap for SMBs. We quickly detect and automatically respond to cyber-threats before these inevitable intrusions evolve into full-scale cyber-attacks. Our clients can focus on running their business while we focus on defending it.”