Most veterinary clinics don’t ignore IT risks on purpose.

They’re busy.
They’re clinically focused.
And most IT problems don’t announce themselves clearly — until the day everything slows down or stops.

The reality is that many IT risks in veterinary practices sit quietly in the background, gradually increasing pressure on staff, systems, and workflows without triggering alarms.

There’s no denying that IT support teams are crucial for keeping an organisation’s IT infrastructure such as networks, devices, and data storage running efficiently. Their offered technical assistance is also a service that is valuable for both employees and customers. But with malware threats continuing to rise, the role of IT support services has evolved to more than just ensuring smooth technical operations.

Tech support teams now often function as a business’s first line of defense against cyberattacks. Whether it’s verifying phishing emails, dealing with ransomware attacks, or investigating system vulnerabilities, IT support teams are at the forefront of the enterprise’s IT security.

When evaluating cybersecurity risk, we tend to focus on technological factors: patches and upgrades, vulnerabilities, attack vectors, and so forth. Yes – technology solutions are vulnerable, and cybersecurity breaches are usually facilitated by advanced hacking technology.

However, the perpetrators behind cyber-attacks are human. These human actors have human motivations: greed, or a political agenda. Furthermore, cyberattacks often rely on human weaknesses – socially engineered cyberattacks, for example.

Social media is the new black and everybody wants to be part of it. Posting one’s activities, sharing one’s thoughts, and reacting to other people’s posts have simply become part of our daily lives.

But to those who know what they’re looking for, this social media content can lead to a goldmine of information. It is through this goldmine—terabytes upon terabytes of data, that cyber criminals flourish, using such data to attack individuals and even companies.

How exactly can cyber criminals use social media to compromise online security and attack business organisations? Let’s discuss their methods.

The internet of things (IoT) is undoubtedly growing rapidly. According to Gartner the typical CIO will be looking after triple the number of IoT devices in 2024, compared to the number of IoT devices under their security remit in 2018.

This influx is caused by a mix of repurposed consumer devices, IoT devices that support infrastructure and business-specific IoT devices. Dodging the explosion of IoT devices is impossible, and yes, IoT does deliver a lot of advantages – but the security implications can be serious.