5 Ways To Prevent Data Breaches

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Businesses need to prioritize data security especially these days when high profile information security breaches are almost always making the headlines. Organizations today face a one in four chance of having an information data breach that would cost about $2.21 million over the next two years. The aftermath of a data breach includes distrust, revenue loss, decreased loyalty among customers, and a negative reputation for your brand.

Prevent Information Security Breach

Asset Inventory

Visibility of what software and hardware assets you have in your network, as well as physical infrastructures, would help you get a greater understanding of the security posture of your organization. An asset inventory could also be used to create ratings and categories around the vulnerabilities and threats your assets may come across with. Ratings and categories for these vulnerabilities could assist you in prioritizing the remediation efforts that would occur on these assets.

Information security breaches add emphasis to endpoint protection. It’s not enough to have an antivirus installed to prevent a major breach. As a matter of fact, if you depend only on your antivirus software, you’ll be leaving your endpoints such as your laptops and desktops, widely exposed. Your devices would become the entry points for breaches.

An in-depth endpoint solution would utilize encryption to stop data leaks and loss, implement unified policies to protect data across all your endpoints, networks, servers, thereby lowering the possibility of a data breach.

Vulnerability and Compliance Management

Using a VCM or vulnerability and compliance management tool or at least completing a vulnerability assessment can help you pinpoint weaknesses, gaps, as well as misconfigurations in the security within your virtual and physical environments. VCM could check your IT assets and infrastructure continuously for compliances, vulnerabilities, as well as configuration best practices. An effective VCM lets you develop an action plan for remediating such vulnerabilities and designate them to the appropriate employees.

Audit Security Posture Regularly

Undergoing audits on a regular basis to determine potential new openings in governance and compliance would help in your security posture validation. A security audit would be a more comprehensive assessment of your business’ security policies compared to the penetration testing or vulnerability assessment. A security audit will take into account the dynamic nature of the business and how the company deals with disaster recovery as a service.

Common Questions During A Security Audit

• Does your business have documented policies about information security?
• Did you set up escalation profiles, management processes, and processes document and monitored, and a playbook in case there’s a breach?
• Did you prepare network security mechanisms?
• Did you set up a log and security monitoring?
• Did you come up with a Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity Plan?
• Did you test your applications for security flaws?
• Do you have a change management process set up at each level within the IT setting?
• How do you back up your files and media? Who can access the backup? Have you tested your restore procedures?
• Have you reviewed the auditing logs? When do you review them?

Employees Must Be Trained and Educated

Once you have completed your security policy audits, you can now implement a written employee policy that involves data security and privacy. You need to conduct security training regularly or hire an IT support Fayetteville NC expert who can do that so that all of the staff members know about these newly created policies since they won’t comply with policies they are not familiar with. When you are setting up your security policy for your staff, you should take into account training on these things:

• Using different unique passwords on devices that are used at work
• Enforcing a documented system for employees, contractors, or vendors who are set to leave your company (laptop access, key cards, passwords, etc.)
• Training staff on the importance of reporting data security leaks or information security breach
• Developing a policy that will describe how your staff should deal with, get rid of, restore, and even send data

Your staff requires training on the kinds of phishing attacks that take place these days. Phishing is a common method used by cybercriminals to spread ransomware in an organization. If you could train and educate your staff about the signs to search for in a dubious email, your business will be well served. Work with a reliable IT services Fayetteville NC that can help you achieve this objective.

Call SpartanTec, Inc. now and let our team of IT experts help you establish security measures and protocols to mitigate online security threats.

SpartanTec, Inc.
Fayetteville, NC 28304
(910) 745-7776
http://manageditservicesfayetteville.com

Serving: Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach, Columbia, Wilmington, Fayetteville, Florence

Disaster Recovery vs. Disaster Recovery as a Service

 

Several factors come into play when you’re considering whether on premises Disaster Recovery solutions are better than working with a Disaster Recovery as a Service provider. The primary consideration is always the cost. Do you have the budget to own and run your own DR solution? Are you capable of designing, implementing, or managing a DR solution effectively and make sure that it adapts to your company’s evolving computing needs? Does is it make sense, in terms of your finances, to handle Dr, rather than invest your money and employees in other aspects of your business?

A lot of companies are starting to realize that in-house DR solutions are unable to offer ROI on capital. They are searching for something else that’s more affordable and Op-ex-based services. The IDG research said that 77% of the CIOs claim that they would like to cut the overall expenses of DR solutions, and these executives prefer to work with disaster recover as a service providers to take care of this issue.

Are managed DRaaS solutions more affordable? You should first understand the architecture and management of your DR solution. Generally, your company’s DR solution must replicate the functions of your company’s production environment. A DRP solution, at a high level, will need IT support Fayetteville NC employees, facilities, administration, as well as the infrastructure. Such as setup will involve a substantial amount of capital to buy all the networking, data centers, software, and hardware, needed to support your DR solution.

The Costs of Disaster Recovery

Generally speaking, your DR solution becomes idle if there’s no returning value on your investment. The software maintenance, infrastructure, power, connectivity, labour, and data center are the ongoing costs that you have to deal with. Such elements mean making a large upfront payment as well as ongoing operating expenses linked with owning the solution. Compounding such expenses is required to make sure that your DR solution upgrades in line with your company’s production environment. This will double the price of every upgrade. To make things more complicated, new DR solutions cannot be taken in until the current purchased solution has reached its amortization.

DR Solution Vs. Monthly DRaaS Subscription

When comparing a DR solution to a DRaas Subcription, you should consider preconfigured hardware, enterprise-grade, maintenance, as well as support linked to your DR requirements. The burden of having to maintain the other site will be moved to the vendor thanks to the DRaaS subscription. This way, upfront costs are eliminated and the overall operating costs are reduced. Backup and managed DRaaS will reduce the capital as well as the labor intensive expenses of an on-premises DR.

Apart from the advantages in the cost savings that come with utilizing DRaaS instead of having your very own DR solution, you have to think about the downtime costs. It can be effective to implement your DR plan onsite but DRaaS that uses cloud computing can offer quicker recovery times when providers customize the process properly.

Service and Convenience Considerations

Users would also like the level of the IT service Fayetteville NC from the customer support of the DRaaS to meet or even exceed their expectations. Small providers that have a well managed customer support program have the highest customer satisfaction ratings. Meanwhile a large DRaaS provider with several clients may be at risk of becoming overwhelmed when their clients require customer support at the same time.

Even if the one time expenses associated with the DR hardware seem to be appealing compared to the DRaaS subscription fees, a real comparison will take into account the solution’s overall operational cost. If you take all of these costs under consideration, the results will tell you that DRaaS is the most responsible option.

 

Stop worrying about your business and client data when unexpected events happen. With our Disaster Recovery services, your company will be better equipped at handling unforeseen disasters. Call SpartanTec, Inc. now for more information.

 

SpartanTec, Inc.
Fayetteville, NC 28304
(910) 745-7776
http://manageditservicesfayetteville.com

Serving: Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach, Columbia, Wilmington, Fayetteville, Florence