With the news today, just about everyone is worried about their network security. Businesses especially need to work closely with their information technology (IT) department to pinpoint weak areas in their infrastructure. IT services at most companies is fairly small, as only 2.9% of the labor force are IT workers.

If your business is on the smaller side, the IT department might be comprised of less than five people. Very small businesses may only have found need for one IT employee. The size of an IT department doesn’t need to correlate to the size of a business.

If fact, many companies are choosing to forgo their own IT department entirely and instead use a supplemental business IT support option. As you might imagine, this decision definitely saves on office space; it also puts a large portion of the stress of cyber attacks on someone else’s shoulders.

Business IT consulting offers network support remotely, which means the cloud plays a big role in IT consulting services. Typically, there will be no large servers housing company information on site, but instead that information will be stored in the cloud. The appeal of handing the IT requirements off to another business to handle might sound appealing, as it allows your company to focus on its mission, however network security is still a concern.

The cloud is a fairly marvelous idea. It allows information to be pulled from wherever there is an internet connection, which is especially attractive if you have employees out in the field who need quick access. But it is this very appeal that makes the company vulnerable without the right protection.

While cloud services do offer ease in accessing company information, without proper protection network security can easily be compromised. The size of your company may matter, and it is not the bigger businesses surprisingly that need to watch out. The 2016 Symantec’s Internet Threat Report, 43% of online phishing campaigns specifically targeted smaller businesses.

That puts a small business in a tight spot. There may not be enough funds for a large, dedicated IT department, and yet the business is more at risk for a breach in network security simply because of its size. In that same study, about one in every 40 small businesses risked being hit with a cyber crime.

A solution presents itself with supplementing your current IT plan. Depending on the size of your business, the cost-effectiveness of hiring a dedicated IT department could be unconvincing. The bonus to this path is that someone else is staying on top of the IT employees training, meaning that your business will benefit from well-trained analysts.

With today’s world being run mostly online, it pays to have an airtight network security. Hiring a supplemental IT consultant to take a look at your system allows you to focus on running your business.