If your dealership is still running on an on-site server, this is the year to upgrade to the cloud. According to a Gartner report , 85% of businesses will migrate from on-premise to cloud hosting by 2025. This trend is also reflected in the DIS survey of Ag dealers across North America, in which 66% of respondents said they are already using cloud hosting. But many dealers are reluctant to make the switch. According to the same survey, 27% of respondents are not currently on cloud and don’t plan on switching in the year ahead. For some, it’s because they worry moving to cloud computing will be expensive. Others are simply used to their on-premises server and aren’t sure they can trust their system to be hosted by a third party. But there are some major benefits to adopting cloud computing at your dealership. HERE ARE SOME OF THE BIGGEST REASONS WHY DEALERS ARE MAKING THE SWITCH TO CLOUD HOSTING:
Server Security: In Q3 of 2021 alone, ransomware attacks rose by over 140% . Small to medium-sized businesses, especially those that host their servers on-premises, face the greatest risk. But no business is immune, and several major OEMs have been targeted by ransomware in the last year. Moving to a third-party cloud service provider gives you the benefit of having your system protected by their security measures. Cloud providers are responsible for monitoring system security, performing regular backups, and routinely updating the system to protect it against new threats. Cloud environments are also safer because the cloud server is segmented from the user’s workstation. Typically, hackers enter a network using phishing or social engineering threats via the user’s workstation, rather than at the server level. Because cloud servers are segmented from the user’s workstation, it makes it harder for hackers to enter via the corporate network where the data is held.
One of the most common questions that people have is why do hackers hack me? They’ll say, ‘my company is small, I don’t have as much money as them attacking somebody else. Why do they attack my company?’ The answer is most of the time it’s just that you were randomly selected. You were a victim of opportunity. The scammers, the social engineers, are literally sending out tens of millions of phishing emails every day and hundreds of millions of malware programs trying to break in and on that particular day – if you got hacked – it’s because you or somebody else around you accidentally responded to a social engineering email and you clicked on a link that you shouldn’t have clicked on or you didn’t have your software patched and a malware program came by and tested that particular vulnerability. So, the vast majority of people that are hacked, it really was just random – almost accidental – but they [the hackers] were able to break in.
ROGER A. GRIMES Data-Driven Defense Evangelist at Knowbe4
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