One thing I often think about during the Christmas holiday period is who is looking after the systems at small businesses, schools and even medium sized companies that don’t / can’t afford someone to be on call.
In New Zealand most businesses & schools close their doors on the Friday before Christmas and don’t have anyone on site until the first Monday after the new year period. This is usually a two and a half to three week period, we are told we need to have a work life balance but for some companies they only have small IT teams or even a single person.
This time of year is perfect for cyber threats to occur because technically the car is left running with the doors locked which is ideal for someone to pick the lock and drive away so to speak. Not only are cyber threats an issue but also equipment failure, the last thing anyone wants is a server room AC unit to fail in the height of summer with no one around to do anything.
So do you as the IT manager go on holiday with your company phone and laptop just in case or do you delegate some poor soul to be on call or are you a lone wolf and delegation isn’t an option but after a busy year you really need that time off so just cross your fingers.
For enterprise and those with budgets to have MSP’s monitoring / on call this isn’t an issue but for the smaller / less funded it’s actually a bit of an issue. While we are sitting around the table eating a Christmas ham or turkey is there someone sitting behind a keyboard stealing your companies files…..
It’s food for thought.
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