Hartford Business Journal

20 Hartford Business Journal • September 21, 2020 • www.HartfordBusiness.com OPINION & COMMENTARY EDITOR'S TAKE Post Labor Day, Hartford businesses return to a new normal T he end of summer and passing of Labor Day typically signals a return to normal for many businesses. Not in 2020. The coronavirus pandemic continues to cast a long shadow over Connecticut's economy, even though the state has done a better job than most of containing the virus. Still, Hartford office buildings are underoccupied and remote work remains the norm for many professional workers. In May, I penned a column stating I wouldn't return to the office full time until at least the start of September. That turned out to be accurate. I did go to our Lewis Street office downtown on occasion during the warm-weather months and it was a nice reprieve from working from home. But Hartford was eerily quiet during the dog days of summer, with some marquee restaurants remain- ing closed through September — Max Downtown and Black-Eyed Sally's — and major city hotels sitting rela- tively empty and on the edge of financial ruin. Still, it's not all doom and gloom out there. There are plenty of industries and businesses doing just fine despite the challenging environment. For example, in this week's issue, HBJ highlights accounting and law firms that are seeing steady or even increasing business amid the pandemic. As we head into the crucial final months of the year, it's a good time to take the economic temperatures of both Greater Hartford and the state. And one of the best ways to do that is to assess the region's office space market nearly seven months into the pandemic. It's no secret that COVID-19 has thrown Hartford's office market into limbo as many companies, par- ticularly early in the pandemic, delayed or postponed lease expansions and renewals and shifted to remote work. At the end of the second quarter, downtown Hartford's overall vacancy rate stood at 18.4%, which is up from 15.9% in the year-ago period, according to CBRE data. The central business district's vacancy rate was even higher at 20.4% compared to 17.6% a year ago. Overall, downtown Hartford tenants shed 43,781 square feet of space during the second quarter, which isn't great but was still better than the second quar- ter of 2019, when businesses shed nearly 100,000 square feet of office space. The overall numbers are trending negatively but they aren't apocalyptic, at least not yet. There have also been some new tenants downtown, with Liberty Bank recently signing its first Hartford lease at 100 Pearl Street, and Hartford HealthCare debuting new space in the same building. For broader context, downtown Hartford's office vacancy rate peaked at 25% during the Great Recession last decade. Could we get there again? In time, I think we could as more companies adjust to permanent remote work environments and reduce their office footprints, but that won't happen overnight. Greater Hartford's suburbs didn't fare much better as tenants shed a combined 63,203 square feet of office space and the vacancy rate increased to 20.9% compared to 18.6% a year ago, CBRE data shows. Statewide, Connecticut's job market remains fragile with a double-digit unemployment rate. So, what's this all mean? Economic indicators won't be pretty anytime soon and the current business environment is challenging. Still, opportunity exists. Most of us can't wait to turn the calendar but we can't give up on the rest of 2020. Keep focused. Don't get distracted by negative headlines. And in- novate your way to new business. The region's and state's economic prospects depend on it. Greg Bordonaro, Editor EXPERTS CORNER Staying ahead of a cyberattack threat By Arvin Chaudhary C yberattacks aren't just a nuisance. They can ruin your company. A cyberattack can clean out your bank account or theft of sensitive data. It could paralyze a company's phone and computer networks, causing a full-scale shutdown. A ransomware attack may en- crypt your essential business data in return for a ransom payment. Resolving these hacks can cost a company considerable time and resources. In fact, accord- ing to IBM and the Ponemon Institute, $7.68 million is the average cost of insider-related cyber incidents for smaller companies with less than 1,000 employees. Unfortunately, these threats will continue to exist as long as cyber- space exists. And the attacks are get- ting ever-more sophisticated. What are the weakest links in companies large and small? The employees. Those who perpetrate cyberat- tacks are good at what they do. Properly training employees, amongst other practices, typically makes it possible for organizations to stay one step ahead of them. How does an organization protect itself? Here are the steps to consider: Successful companies that per- form better on cyber-resilience tend to put 40% or more of their secu- rity budget into sustaining what is working. Instead of being attracted to new, unproven security software, keep what works and build on it. Frequently, organizations don't put the same level of emphasis on increasing cybersecurity awareness and training as they do on setting up security infrastructure. It's impor- tant to note that 94% of attackers gain entry through successful phish- ing scams. Most of these malicious attackers can be kept at bay by train- ing users on how to avoid them. Vulnerable users are tricked into clicking unscrupulous emails, un- knowingly granting privileged access to the organization's assets or data. It is easier to breach a user's security fence than the vulnerabilities in the firmware of a perimeter firewall. Security awareness training must be a core focus of employee education. The most common way hackers dupe employees is by getting them to download or open an infected file, in an email or even on a website. Once inside, they use that person's email or access to infect other net- work computers. Phishing attacks start with a fake email sent from what appears to be a real company. These scams can be very credible-looking with even sophisticated computer users falling for them. Many organizations already invest in state-of-the-art Next-Gen Firewalls (NGFWs) to enable security-driven networking. These systems allow or- ganizations to reduce complexity and help to manage security risks. Another technique for protection concerns geolocation. IP addresses often are tagged with the geograph- ic location of the email's country of origin. If the company does not con- duct business in a region, you may block IP addresses for those coun- tries to reduce risk. This technique can help but is not foolproof since hackers can route traffic through commandeered servers in the US. Sandboxing also is worth consid- ering. Sandboxing allows companies to send suspicious traffic to a re- mote, electronically isolated location — a sandbox. The traffic can then run its course on this independent server while being safely examined. Network segmentation also can help limit damage if there is a breach. For example, a com- puter network for finance will be protected from a breach in the manufacturing network if they are not interconnected. While organizations need to keep innovating to stay ahead of the curve, it is also prudent to take a step back and examine your existing cybersecurity framework, allowing you to prioritize the cybersecurity investments based on the ROI. Arvin Chaudhary is CEO of technology services agency Nadicent Technologies in Glastonbury. Arvin Chaudhary

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