Understanding the importance of cybersecurity is more crucial than ever. In this week’s news round-up, you’ll learn about recent data breaches, distributed workforce challenges, and a detailed report about the cost of these breaches on businesses across a broad swath of industries. You’ll get a better understanding of the importance of prevention and the best strategies to get there.

Huawei Phones Unlikely to Receive Security Updates as Trade Ban Begins

A trade ban that lapsed briefly allowed US companies like Google to send automatic updates to customers using Huawei devices, but that window of opportunity is now closed again. The goal was to provide a stopgap while customers found other suppliers besides Huawei. The ban is an attempt to protect American IP, but without access to updates, everyone using Huawei is vulnerable to cyberattack. Read more at Infosecurity Magazine.

How to Revolutionize Your MSP Business with Identity Access Management

Identity Access Management (IAM) offers a solution to the ever present problem of insecure passwords. By using a centralized software to manage user identities and passwords rather than relying on each end-user to come up with her own, companies are able to tighten security around their corporate applications. IAM also streamlines tech support by providing a self-service platform for password reset and other associated requests. Get a better understanding of both the problem and the solution at Channel Futures.

Trust and remote working: The new frontier for security professionals

With COVID-19 sending workers home for what feels like the rest of time, it’s more important than ever to have a trusting relationship between companies and staff, management and their teams. It remains to be seen what the actual long-term effects of the pandemic will be on the American workforce, but the shift to remote work is likely here to stay. This means that companies have to adapt in order to keep their workers and their IP secure at access points all over the map. Read more at Teiss.

What is the Real Cost of a Data Breach? New Report Indicates It’s About $4 Million to $9 Million for SMEs

The annual Cost of a Data Breach Report, sponsored by IBM, was recently published, unveiling these staggering numbers. It seems irrefutable that the cost of prevention is much, much lower. This year’s report covered 524 breaches that spanned between August 2019 and April 2020. It showed that data breaches are more expensive to remedy in the US than in any other country in the world by a matter of many millions of dollars. Whether the breach is a result of employee error or malicious attack (the latter far more common than the former), the most expensive information that’s ever retrieved is personally identifiable information (PII) of customers. Find out what else the report revealed at CPO Magazine.

Looting Causes Data Breach at Walgreens

Over 72,000 Walgreens customers’ personal health information (PHI) was accessed in a data breach that resulted from over 200 stores being looted across the country. Prescriptions were stolen along with paper records. Walgreens is working with local law enforcement and has taken steps toward fraud prevention that could result from these thefts. Get the full story at Info-Security Magazine.

Read our last Weekly News Round-up.