Picture this. You own a beautiful restaurant. Your kitchen is state of the art. Your chef is world class. The dining room? Immaculate. People walk in, and they know this place runs smoothly. That chef? That’s your IT team. They keep things hot, fresh, moving. They make sure the ovens work, the orders go out, and the experience runs without a hitch. But what if someone walks in through the back door with a stolen key? What if a delivery guy isn’t who he says he is? What if someone skims the card reader at the register, or worse, poisons the food? That’s not your chef’s job. That’s security.
Cybersecurity and IT are two different jobs. Your IT person sets the table. Your cybersecurity person watches the door. One is about function. The other is about trust. Too often, small business owners believe they’re covered just because they have a tech person. That’s like saying, “My waiter locks up at night, so I don’t need an alarm system.” IT keeps your business running. Cybersecurity keeps your business from stopping.
Here’s why the confusion happens. IT and cybersecurity sound the same. They both work with computers. They both deal with software. Sometimes, they even wear the same hoodie. But here’s the truth: Your IT team is measured by uptime. Your cybersecurity team is measured by how resilient your business remains under pressure. It’s not about avoiding every incident, it’s about how quickly you detect, respond, and recover when something does happen. Because the truth is, we will have incidents. We will face threats, events, breaches. Not because we’re careless, but because that’s the world we live in. Cybersecurity isn’t about perfection. It’s about progress. It’s about building muscle memory for when, not if, something goes wrong. That’s how you lead. That’s how you stay in business.
Now think about the risks. You wouldn’t serve food without knowing it’s safe. You wouldn’t hire someone without checking their background. But every day, businesses open emails they shouldn’t. They click links without thinking. They run outdated software and don’t know it. And then one day, everything stops. Your systems are locked. Your customers’ data is gone. Your reputation is on fire. And everyone asks the same question: “How did this happen?”
The real answer is that you didn’t separate the jobs. When the dishwasher breaks, the kitchen doesn’t call the chef, they call someone trained to fix it. When the cash register comes up short, you don’t ask the chef to investigate the theft. You bring in security. Cybersecurity is a different mindset. It’s about preparing for the worst. It’s about assuming someone will test your locks, rattle your windows, and find your soft spots. You don’t call your chef to deal with a break-in. So why are you relying on IT to handle cyberattacks?
Here’s what you need to do. You need a second set of eyes. Someone trained to think in threats, not tickets. Someone who wakes up wondering, “What if?” That’s a cybersecurity professional. Not a generalist. Not a multitasker. A specialist.
Because risk isn’t just a possibility. It’s a business problem. When something breaks in IT, it’s a hassle. When something breaks in cybersecurity, it’s a crisis. If any part of this made you pause, even for a second, let that be the sign. It’s time to separate the chef from the security guard. It’s time to bring in someone who sees what others miss. Because the biggest risk in cybersecurity isn’t the hacker. It’s putting your faith in the wrong expertise and discovering, in the middle of an attack, that no one was guarding the front door when it mattered most.
