With cyber attacks on the rise, Top 40 promotional products distributor American Solutions For Business (ASB; asi/120075) is taking proactive steps to prevent itself – and the vendors it works with – from being victimized.

On Wednesday, the Glenwood, MN-based company said that it has introduced a Cyber Safe Pledge that’s designed to help ASB and its supplier partners conduct business safely and securely at a time in which hackers are launching more phishing scams, malware assaults and ransomware attacks.

Mike Pfeiffer, VP of Technology, ASB

“We are seeing increasingly aggressive cybercriminal activity targeting our industries,” said Mike Pfeiffer, ASB’s vice president of technology. “American is leading a comprehensive, industry-wide approach to cyber security awareness, preparedness and response. We feel the Cyber Safe Pledge is a great step we can take with our partners in the right direction.”

Overall, the initiative has ten primary focus areas. By signing the pledge, ASB is committing to undertake the cyber-safe practices it details. Going a step further, ASB is encouraging its vendor partners to sign the pledge and take the same precautions. Top 40 suppliers Hit Promotional Products (asi/61125), SanMar (asi/84863) and IMAGEN Brands (asi/47700/93990) are already on board, ASB said.

“We are grateful to work with such supportive vendor partners who understand the importance of this pledge,” said Dana Zezzo, ASB’s vice president of marketing, vendor relations and events. “These early adopters help us establish necessary best practices that help keep not only our employees and sales associates protected, but our vendors, customers and other stakeholders safe as well.”

The Cyber Safe Pledge includes practices like instituting multi-factor authentication on systems that support MFA; enforcing complex passwords; providing and requiring security awareness training for employees and contractors; writing and testing, at least annually, a disaster recovery and business continuity plan; establishing antivirus and malware protections on all systems (and updating definitions daily), and more.

In recent years, hackers have successfully targeted high-profile promotional products firms with cyber attacks. Alphabroder (asi/34063), the industry’s largest supplier by revenue, sustained a ransomware attack in October that disrupted its operations. Fully operational again now, alphabroder paid a negotiated ransom. As detailed here and here, other Top 40 promo firms have also been victimized.