2019 Was Just the Beginning

Cast your mind back, just for a moment, to 2019. Think about how your business operated back then, and the technology that you and your workforce used day-to-day.

Some may say it doesn't do to look back, but the resulting seven years have been nothing if not transformational.  The pace and scale at which businesess have changed, feels like it is much longer.

If you remember, back then working in a Security team looked something like this, especially so for small and medium-sized businesses:

●    Fully on-site for office-based roles
●    Still using on-premise servers, with relatively limited cloud adoption
●    Installing key software applications on each device
●    Relying on PCs, laptops and mobile devices provided and secured by the business

Then, through a combination of COVID-19 restrictions and major technological advantages, things changed incredibly rapidly. But has the pace of change brought risk as well as reward?

Breaking down productivity barriers

In a very short space of time, many of the structures and constraints around office work were consigned to the dustbin of history. As remote work became a necessity (and then a preference post-pandemic), the use of the Cloud and browser-based SaaS solutions for data, systems and applications expanded rapidly. Today, these are generally considered SMB staples, irrespective of whether firms have largely returned to on-site office work or stayed predominantly remote.

With the ability to access key applications anywhere and at any time, employees no longer had to use company-supplied hardware to do so. They could use their own tablets and smartphones, from their home office or on the move, connecting through domestic and even public WiFi.

And then there’s the game-changer very few people saw coming: AI. A UK Government report, issued in February 2026, suggests AI adoption has been relatively modest so far (around one-sixth of businesses, and predominantly larger ones). However, there is plenty of potential for AI to help businesses that is still being explored, especially as AI’s capabilities constantly expand.

This transformation has unlocked new levels of efficiency and productivity for smaller businesses, and in many cases has helped them compete with larger, better-resourced organisations on a more level playing field. But has this revolution happened a bit too quickly from a security perspective? 

How flexibility becomes vulnerability

All of these new solutions and innovations often represent a new technology estate, one where the traditional adoption processes and safeguards are often bypassed in the rush to implement new features quickly.

All too often:

• AI tools are being adopted and used without business approval (or in some cases, even without the business knowing).
• Individual departments and employees purchase and deploy their own software.
• Access to critical systems extends to employees’ personal devices and to third parties like contractors, without security teams being able to control or monitor that access.

These all represent major security vulnerabilities that cybercriminals can exploit. In some cases, security teams won’t have the tools to defend or protect against breaches or attacks. In others, especially those involving ‘shadow IT’, security teams won’t even know a breach has happened until it’s far, far too late.

When security needs to catch up

If your security processes and solutions haven’t kept pace with everything that’s happened in the last few years, then now is the time to do something about it. Having the right approach in place now can ensure that SMBs can thrive and innovate without introducing unnecessary security risks along the way.