Ransomware, Other Threats Drive Business

Proofpoint’s Joe Sykora said ransomware and other threats are never going to stop. Ransomware attacks continue increasing year over year, with 2021 seeing a huge increase over 2020.

“Does it help drive business?” he said. “I think most people in the cyber industry, if you look at our results, stock prices, how we’re doing, everything else, I would say that it does help as far as that. But I don’t think that’s necessarily anything that we want. I think none of us want that. We’re here to help the good guys from the bad guys. We continue to do a lot of collaborationamong each other. We do integrations, and so we try to help with that. You combine that with our MSP partners and other partners out there … a lot of them, that’s why they’re doing services. If it’s an SMB play, there are 100,000 MSPs out there right now.

“When I talk to them, they’re all doing well. Everyone seems to be doing well. So it does drive some behavior. But I don’t think anyone’s going to say it’s a good thing. The reality is it will continue to grow and it will always be there because the weakest link of all of it is the people. No matter what systems we develop or put in place, it still comes down to education and the people are going to be the weakest link. So education is key.”