Avi Vaserman, CEO of Sytex, sat for an interview with Safety Detective’s Aviva Zacks and explained how much of a threat humans are.
Safety Detective: What has your cybersecurity journey been and what motivated you to start Sytex?
Avi Vaserman: My expertise, the sophistication of services, and client satisfaction pushed me to open my own company. At the time, I had helped a company with an IT solution and needed to issue an invoice for the services. I visited a neighbor of my client’s office, who provided legal services, to ask for advice on their invoice program. When I mentioned that I was the IT person providing software and service for their neighbor, they asked me to help them too. They told me about their accounting program, and I helped them find a solution. They had previously worked with a traditional IT company in Winnipeg but weren’t satisfied with the service. After helping them, they were very pleased with the resolution and my work.
We work with various companies: CPAs, lawyers, the financial industry, manufacturers, plumbing, heating, and other businesses. We get a first impression to see what is going on in their world, how they are running things, and how the business is performing. In most cases, we find a significant lack of security.
SD: What are Sytex’s cybersecurity services?
AV: We protect our clients from malware, ransomware, and hackers. We use specific technologies and policies to safeguard them from these cyberthreats. We believe people should avoid using personal computers and stick to business computers and websites. They should not visit websites unrelated to their business.
SD: How does your company stay ahead of the competition?
AV: My goal is to keep our clients safe and stay ahead by following updates, reading the news, and participating in various webcasts, seminars, and gathering information. We try to exploit opportunities by using rule-specific programs and running soft scripts. Sometimes, this triggers the antivirus protection or makes a customer feel an attack, allowing us to observe how they react.
SD: What do you think are the worst cyberthreats today?
AV: The number one cyberthreat is people. It doesn’t matter how much education someone has or how smart they are—humans are the top threat. We’ve found that the front desk—the office administrators—pose the biggest risk in every company. The second highest threat comes from the accounting and finance industries because they work with third-party providers. The third major threat is the company owners. These individuals can be very sophisticated, but we’ve found that some of them subscribe to third-party websites and struggle to recognize phishing threats, scams, malicious sites, or legitimate services.
SD: How do you think cybersecurity is going to change now that we are living through this pandemic?
AV: Cybersecurity should change significantly. The major issue we’ve found when people work from home is their inability to separate home and business. When someone works from home on their laptop, they often leave it open. I believe this is the number one cybersecurity threat because when the machine stays open, everything is vulnerable. A child could access the computer and visit a website, unknowingly installing unwanted software that can lead to bigger problems.
Cybersecurity should evolve, but people also need to change their perspective on how it can protect them and their sensitive information.
