If you run a small business, you know that staying lean with expenses leaves you with more capital for marketing and growth. IT support and cybersecurity are two areas where many SMBs trim as much “unnecessary” fat as possible, but it often comes at the expense of cybersecurity and business continuity. With 93% of small businesses’ cyber-incidents resulting in a data breach, it’s clear that having experienced and competent IT support is crucial for SMBs, especially when costs to remediate incidents can put them out of business.

Risks of Letting Family Manage IT

It’s tempting to cut costs by hiring family or friends to support a small business. You could cut costs this way and give an up-and-coming IT person their first job. When you have only a few PCs to support, you might also think the job is easy and doesn’t require the help of a professional. 

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For simple support, your family might be a good resource. Trouble comes when infrastructure is configured with vulnerabilities, or they don’t perform necessary maintenance to stop vulnerabilities. A common theme in cybersecurity is “you don’t know what you don’t know,” and this issue becomes apparent only after a cyber-incident.

Let’s take an example. Suppose that you decide to use Amazon Web Services (AWS) for cloud storage. Cloud storage at AWS is known as S3 or S3 buckets, which are similar to the directories you see on your PC. A common issue with S3 buckets is that they are often misconfigured to allow public access to data. The issue is so common that anyone can simply download an S3 scanner to find vulnerable buckets.

When an inexperienced person misconfigures an S3 bucket, all your data is exposed to the open internet. You wouldn’t be alone. As recently as December 2024, two large cybercriminal groups, ShinyHunters and Nemesis, stole over 2TB of data, including source code, credentials, and secrets from misconfigured S3 buckets. It should be noted that the recently stolen data could be used in future attacks that these businesses won’t even see coming unless they take mitigating measures immediately.

As you can see from this example, the simple act of having family or friends manage your IT could snowball into a larger issue where your small business is managing cyber-attacks targeted at your vulnerabilities. The savings on IT support can turn into six or seven-figure costs in remediation, litigation, and reputation loss.

Some other risks you might not realize without a professional:

• Endpoint protection for all mobile devices connected to your network. This includes smartphones, tablets, and laptops.
• Patch management to keep software updated to avoid vulnerabilities from outdated applications.
• Multifactor authentication (MFA) deployment to mitigate credential theft and phishing.
• Secure connections to any cloud services.
• Backups and disaster recovery planning

Why Professional IT Support is Now Essential for SMBs

Poor cybersecurity isn’t the only risk of DIY IT. Scalability and deploying tools that you can use now and in the future are also important. Let’s say, for example, that you want to deploy a server for file storage. You need a solution that not only supports the speed and space you will use currently, but also a solution that scales. Deploying too many resources is a waste of your IT budget, but too few can be a bottleneck in your productivity.

Compliance is another issue. An inexperienced IT person would not know how to design infrastructure to follow compliant requirements. As an example, a small doctor’s office might not need many computers configured, but HIPAA has specific requirements for the way the internal office handles data and the network environment. You must keep office guest Wi-Fi separated from the internal network, employees must never connect to guest Wi-Fi from work computers, and strong encryption must be configured on the Wi-Fi router. Requests for data should be logged, and any protected health information (PHI)  must be stored in encrypted form.

Just like the consequences of a data breach can be long-term costs, having an inexperienced IT person set up a network without taking compliance and scalability into account can be an expensive mistake. The cost of HIPAA violations varies widely from $141 to $2 million per violation. More serious consequences include criminal penalties.

Professional IT support is more important than ever, as any mistakes come with a high price tag. Ensuring infrastructure is configured correctly, deploying infrastructure that scales with your growing business, staying compliant, and managing infrastructure after it’s deployed are some common ways managed service providers can help. To properly manage resources, you need someone with the experience of a professional and people who have seen different issues for quick resolution when you need help.

Here are a few other ways IT professionals can help:

• 24/7 support for any IT issues
• Deployment of proven infrastructure so that you don’t need to do research into the right products
• Deployment of infrastructure to fix your issues without requiring you to determine the root cause of the issue
• Quick resolution within potentially hours for some issues instead of days
• Backup solutions to restore data should you suffer a data breach or experience lost data
• Audits of your environment to check for any compliance issues
• Licensing management to optimize your costs

Managed IT vs DIY: What’s the Real Cost?

DIY IT support is arguably the most cost-effective, but the real costs come from mismanagement of your infrastructure. Every company has a unique environment, so you can use our managed IT services calculator to estimate your costs. Costs depend on the number of users, computers, servers, compliance concerns, offices, and the services that you want.

IBM reports that the average global cost of a data breach is $4.4 million, so the true costs are in failed IT support. Using managed service providers might seem like an unnecessary expense, but it can benefit you in the long run. Should your organization see massive growth, professionals at an MSP can still support expansion to new offices, hundreds of new employees, and computers, and an increase in data.

Do you think your IT is in good shape? Take our free three-minute IT readiness quiz to find out.

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