Best Practices for Mitigating Cyber Threats

In a worldwide survey of more than 1,000 Microsoft 365 administrators, almost half indicated that they had been the victim of a ransomware attack last year. With statistics like that, it’s not surprising that security remains the top priority for leadership teams. As organizations are increasingly moving their data to the cloud and entrusting third parties with their intellectual property, protection against ransomware attacks and data breaches has become a business imperative. How prepared is your organization? What steps are you taking to mitigate the inherent risks of the modern workplace? What are some of the best practices for collaboration security, regardless of company size?

In the next #CollabTalk TweetJam taking place on Thursday, April 28th at 9am PDT (UTC -7), the community will once again join forces and have a focused discussion on the topic of “Protecting Yourself and Your Data from Ransomware” to discuss both the risks and mitigating factors in data and collaboration security. In this 1-hour Twitter-based panel discussion, we’ll bring together MVPs and Regional Directors, community experts, partners, consultants, and practitioners to share their perspectives on this important topic.

Anyone can join this community discussion using Twitter and the #CollabTalk hashtag or your favorite Twitter platform. You don’t even need to be an “expert” to participate in the online conversation. Anyone can ask questions, comment on the questions posed, or just “lurk” in the background. These online discussions are open to anyone — you do not have to be on the panel to participate.

As always, this month’s tweetjam is being sponsored by tyGraph and AvePoint. Thanks for your support!

If you have never participated in one of these tweetjams, it’s pretty simple: anyone can jump in and share their thoughts, or just lurk in the wings and absorb the wisdom of the crowd. Either way, it’ll be a TON of content to consume in a single hour. You can follow the live session using the Twitter UI of your choice (Twitter.com, Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, whatever). How it works is that I’ll post a series of questions every few minutes, and people will respond to Q1, Q2, Q3 and so forth with A1, A2, A3, always including the #CollabTalk hashtag with their answers. Feel free to reply as often (or as little) as you’d like, ask your own follow up questions, share relevant links, re-tweet others, and engage with the audience.

The questions we will discuss during the session include:

1.  How vulnerable is the modern organization to cyber threats (phishing, malware, data exfiltration, ransomware)?
2. In your experience, what are the primary challenges that are driving the worldwide increase in cyber threats?
3. Is cloud adoption outpacing our ability to properly secure our data?
4. What are your technology best practices to mitigate cyber threats?
5. What are your policy best practices to mitigate cyber threats?
6. What are your people best practices to best mitigate cyber threats?
7. If your organization has had a data breach, what should be your immediate next steps?

As always, there will be side questions, side conversations, and wise-cracking throughout. This is open to the public, so please join in the discussion! The dialog is always thought-provoking and fun.

Participating on this panel (so far):

• David Patrick (@DavidEPatrick),  Office Apps & Services MVP, user group organizer, subject matter expert with DSA, Inc.
• Fátima Blancas Velázquez (@JaydithBV), Office Apps & Services MVP and ceo of iTProve Corporation
• Nicki Borell (@NickiBorell), Microsoft MVP & RD, evangelist & consultant for SharePoint, Office 365 and Azure
• Dana Simberkoff (@danalouise), chief risk, privacy and information security officer at AvePoint
• John White (@diverdown1964), dual SharePoint and Data Platform MVP, cto at UnlimitedViz and tyGraph
• Shari Oswald (@shortcutshari), co-founder and productivity evangelist at PowerUP! Learning
• Tobiasz Koprowski (@KoprowskiT), Data Platform MVP, founder and consultant at Shadowland Consulting
• Richard Harrison (@ACGGROUP_CL), consultor de Microsoft en ACG Group Ltda.
• Stacy Deere-Strole (@sldeere), SharePoint MVP and owner of Focal Point Solutions
• Nati Papirovitch (@NatiPapirovitch), SharePoint and Office 365 MVP, productivity specialist at U-BTech Solutions LTD
• Norm Young (@stormin_30), Office Apps & Services MVP, director of collaborative analytics at UnlimitedViz
• Matthew Bookspan (@mbookspan), CEO at BlacktipIT
• Jay Leask (@jayleask), Office Apps & Services MVP and US federal director, strategic accounts & solutions for AvePoint Public Sector
• Tamara Bredemus (@tamarabred), evolve 365 learning & adoption specialist at Planet Technologies
• Eric Overfield (@ericoverfield), Microsoft RD & SharePoint MVP, founder of PixelMill
• Hal Hostetler (@TVWizard), Microsoft MVP and senior field engineer and social media coordinator for Roland, Schorr & Tower
• Ed Senez (@edsenez), president at UnlimitedViz and tyGraph
• Kurt Kragh Sørensen (@KurtKragh),  intranet consultant and owner of IntraTeam.com
• Jeff Willinger (@jwillie), Office 365 MVP and digital experience director at Withum
• Paul Keijzers (@KbWorks), a Microsoft Teams and Office 365 specialist, and the founder of  KbWorks
• Mike Maadarani (@mikemaadarani), Office Apps & Services MVP, cloud solution architect at MCM Consulting
• Matt Varney (@thevarnish), intranet manager at KCTCS
• Robert Hedblom (@RobertandDPM), Cloud and Datacenter Management MVP, cloud and solution principal architect at sumNERV AB
• Richard Harbridge (@rharbridge), SharePoint MVP and cto of 2toLead
• Patrick Guiomonet (@patricg), Microsoft 365 MVP, CEO and founder at Abalon
• Wes Preston (@idubbs), SharePoint MVP, evangelist,  and owner at TrecStone
• Ben Stegink (@benstegink), SharePoint, Office 365 and Azure consultant, owner of Intelligink, LLC
• Ryan Schouten (@ShrPntKnight) Office Apps & Services MVP, MCT, and senior technical consultant at Xilio
• Eric Riz (@rizinsights), SharePoint MVP and ceo of Empty Cubicle
• and your host, Christian Buckley (@buckleyplanet), Microsoft MVP & RD, #CollabTalk founder, brand alliance director at AvePoint

If you would like to be included on one of these panels, please drop me a line via email, LinkedIn, or Twitter. And thank you again to tyGraph for your support of these CollabTalk tweetjams! And finally, if you are interested in being a sponsor of a future tweetjam, please contact me.

We’ll be back on Tuesday, May 24th with another CollabTalk TweetJam so be sure to follow me (@buckleyplanet) for news and updates.