What You Can Learn from an IT Network & Security Assessment

Security Assessment Checklist
Posted by: Nauticon Office Solutions Comments: 0

Fact: *40% of companies today do not have disaster recovery plans in place. Considering the security risk landscape today, this is pretty scary. You have critical assets to protect but if, like many small to mid-sized businesses, you don’t have in-house resources that can handle a risk assessment, not to mention the follow-up disaster recovery plan the assessment may dictate, it’s time to consider bringing an IT support company like Nauticon on-board.

 The assessment will accomplish a number of things, in addition to laying the groundwork for a recovery program:

Long-Term Cost Reduction: When companies start thinking about bringing in third parties, they often assume that the end result will be increased costs but this is not necessarily so. By identifying real and potential security flaws in your company’s infrastructure and attacking them proactively, you can be saving your firm from significant future costs that can be associated with both technology failure and compliance infraction fines, aside from the long-term costs of negative public relations and customer/client dissatisfaction.

Improved Future Assessments: Having an assessment completed now can make future assessments more productive. Your IT support provider should be creating a document that can be updated on a regular basis, including ongoing reviews of structure, security, and the ability for corporate self-analysis.

Critical Self-Analysis: An effective IT support and security analysis will guide your employees towards self-analysis and how they are figuring into your organization’s risk and security. Attention will be focused on any risky practices of which your people may be guilty, and will direct them towards the proper way to accomplish their tasks and goals, including strengthening passwords, and the handling of sensitive information.

Cyber Security Risk Avoidance: Your IT support and security assessment will point out security weaknesses within your company. It will also provide recommendations on how to strengthen your security, eliminating potential breaches, thereby saving you from the PR, financial and regulatory disasters mentioned above.

What You Will Learn from an IT Support and Security Assessment

Your Assets: This will include hardware such as servers, workstations, and remote devices. It will tell you how secure (or not) your customer/client information is. Are your company’s trade secrets secure or vulnerable? How secure is your financial information?

Disaster Preparedness: This will include preparation for natural disasters, such as floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and fires. It will also deal with potential man-made disasters, such as building fires, water damage, etc., as well as accidental and/or malicious human actions. The assessment will let you know if your disaster recovery plan will effectively deal with all these situations.

Vulnerabilities: Where do they exist and how do you and your IT support team fix them? Do you have older equipment that is no longer supported and that no longer receives automatic security updates? Is your staff properly trained? Is there evidence of employee carelessness?

Improving Your Overall “Security Posture”: Do you have the in-house personnel to assess this on your own and make suggestions and improvements that are meaningful and effective?

Cost is always a consideration but we have found that when we are retained by new clients, our fees are almost always the same as or less than the total annual cost these companies have been incurring anyway. Why? Once we are involved, we take over the financial responsibility for all your hardware and security. By proactively maintaining your IT infrastructure, we significantly cut down on the incidents that one way or another cost you money, plus we put you in a better position to sleep better at night!

Here is a basic reality: there is no way a small or mid-sized company can afford the same level of security and IT support that they can achieve by hiring a highly qualified managed IT support provider such as Nauticon. Call us today at 240.499.2546. 

 

* Source: CIO | Insight (www.cioinsight.com/it-strategy/infrastructure/slideshows/disaster-recovery-plans-and-testing-are-lacking.html)