The World Economic Forum's 2026 Global Risk Report places geoeconomic confrontation and state-based armed conflict as the biggest dangers to the world. Also in the top 10: cybersecurity and cyber misinformation and disinformation. The report shows how evolving threats are, quote, redefining the global cyber risk landscape at unprecedented speed.
Sounds like it's time to check in again with Chris Wright, partner and lead security engineer at Little Rock-based Sullivan Wright Technologies, to gauge how we can at least secure our personal and business cyber lives. Good news — there are easy steps to take to prevent cyber insecurity.
"Don't take everything at face value."
Wright says far too many of us take what's on our screens at face value, or simply don't think before we click. From there, it's easy for mis- or disinformation to spread.
"They start kind of building that belief system, and so they go looking for things that prop that up rather than contradict that. So they're not really critically thinking when they're looking at these — they're just looking for evidence that supports what they already believe. So it's kind of the joke, you know, people say, 'I did my research,' now you just watched some YouTube videos."
A think-before-you-click approach can go a long way to protection. But it's 2026 — shouldn't there be ample protection in place to protect us already?
"A lot of the protocols and a lot of the tools were built at a time of trust, when the predecessor to the internet connected government agencies and academic research institutions and military bases, and didn't have everybody on earth connected to the internet."
And now, he says, there are plenty of patches of digital quicksand out there in smaller businesses and in your personal life.
"The biggest threat is more of that social engineering aspect — the phishing emails, the phishing texts, the scam phone calls, scam ads in Google search, the fake websites that they trick you into clicking on in a search engine or something like that. It's always about compromising the human. I mean, it's not always, but a lot of the times when we're talking about individuals and when we're talking about small businesses, it is still compromising the human there."
Chris Wright preaches caution about where you click, and he urges the practice of patience when it comes to digital adoption. His advice is don't over-tech. Not every small business has to immediately jump on every new platform.
"Go back to the basics — I think that's probably the little catch phrase you would say there. Everybody wants to implement all these newfangled things. But it really kind of depends on where you are as a small business owner. I would say if you're an established small business owner, like many of our clients — they've got an email domain, they've got a professional email service, they're working off Microsoft 365, Google Workspace or something. And that suits them. You need to make sure that you are keeping your software and your systems up to date."
Make sure, he says, you have the highest embedded security available running on every platform to the greatest extent possible.
"Go through each of those platforms and make sure that you have things like multifactor authentication turned on. All of the different tools that are in there — you've got it configured in such a way where you can't just share anonymously anything. You don't have accounts that are just kind of hanging out there that nobody's using, especially administrator accounts that are hanging out there that nobody's using."
In short, create at home and at work a culture of security.
"It really starts with that awareness training. So make your staff — make yourself — aware of the things that are out there."
And finally, he says, communication is a big key for keeping cyber emergencies at bay.
"Something happens and you're not just immediately, as the boss, out there firing people. You don't want your staff afraid of you, because then something will happen and they won't report it. And the longer something goes unreported, the more damage it can do."
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
