Network security is paramount to a business’ success with the number of security incidents and data breaches that could potentially upend it. While this sounds like a task of marginally epic proportions, managing your security can be greatly simplified via a few basic activities. Let’s go over four such security-boosting actions that you should direct your attention to.
Patch Management
Despite being an essential tool for business use, software can always be improved… as evidenced by the endless stream of updates and patches that software developers release. Cybercriminals have taken notice and will try to use these software issues to their advantage. This is what makes it so important to promptly install the update packages that will resolve these vulnerabilities and prevent them from causing any ill effects.
While many businesses will test the update before implementing it—assuming that their patches are managed at all—these tests need to be completed expeditiously to avoid as many risks as possible.
Device Control
If a device connects to your network, you need to have some say over its security. This needs to be a universal policy with both company-owned devices and those that belong to your employees. This will enable you to prevent any vulnerabilities from gaining access to your business by coming in on devices that have connected to an insecure network in the past.
With more people than ever before now working remotely, you need to make sure that all your team members can complete their responsibilities without undermining your security. As their home networks are likely far less secure than your business one should be, implementing a virtual private network should be seen as a priority.
Benchmarking
You need to keep track of the solutions you are using, and how well the security you have implemented is protecting your solutions. Accomplishing this is as simple as comparing your own performance with that which should be expected with the protections you’ve put in place. These evaluations can provide the data you need to inform your security improvements so that the largest vulnerabilities you possess can be resolved expeditiously.
Identity Management
Finally, we need to discuss how well your users and their permissions are managed. Controlling access to different data by virtue of an employee’s need to access said data can offer considerable benefits to your overall security.
As for how these permissions should be granted, many security professionals will recommend that you require multiple authentication measures to be provided before allowing access, rather than a password requirement alone. Shifting to multi-factor authentication will help keep unwanted visitors out of your systems by making it far more difficult for them to obtain and input the proper credentials in time. Some common MFA approaches include the use of time-sensitive generated codes also being required for account access, or the use of a physical security key or biometric pattern.
Your security is crucial to your success. Trust us to help protect your network.
At Macatawa Technologies, our IT experts are well-practiced with the solutions that can greatly improve your security, as well as the best practices necessary to maintain your infrastructure’s viable productivity. Ready to find out what we could do for you? Give us a call at 616-394-4940 today.
