We currently face a growing IT security threat landscape. Therefore, organizations of all sizes need increasingly professional and threat-specific solutions for their IT security needs if they really want to stay protected. The cost of failing to do so can be enormous. As IBM’s 2022 Cost of Data Breach Report found, an average organization-level data breach this year cost $4.4 million. This is a 2.6% increase over what an average breach cost last year. In other words, for many organizations, particularly smaller ones, just one such incident can be catastrophic. The bottom line is that neglecting IT security is not a safe or wise business strategy.
Fortunately, help is available for any company or organization that wants to make their IT protection as robust as possible. This help takes several forms, each suited for different IT infrastructure segments. Let’s explore these and their possible solutions.
Network Operating Systems Protection
The network operating system (NOS) behind any organization connects all of its networked points. These include computers, tablets, payment terminals, and other devices, bundled into an internal network with its own user interface, software, and hardware.
Your organization’s NOS lets you manage user accounts on that network, control access to different nodes of the network, and manage communication or data transfer across those connected devices. This same network operating system is also a gold mine for hackers and cybercriminals. The fundamental reason is, once an attacker breaches any one of its endpoints (where the NOS connects to the wider internet and other networks), they can often use that access to hack multiple devices on your network.
Because NOS networks can be large and complex, securing their entire possible attack surface area can be very difficult if not done professionally. Fortunately, managed service and IT security provider Great Lakes Computer offers endpoint protection solutions. These are specifically designed to keep your network operating system’s many nodes carefully monitored for unauthorized use and protected against external breaches or infiltration. With Great Lakes Sentinel One endpoint protection, you can fortify your entire NOS against outside threats regardless of how complex it is.
Operating Systems Security
Inside your organization’s IT network and its network operating system, you will have multiple devices connected that each have their own operating system. As your employees use them, they will often have to stay connected to the wider internet for email, data downloads, and other work-related tasks. The devices themselves will also usually contain reams of extremely important organizational data.
Hackers trying to infiltrate your overall IT network and NOS will often take advantage of these individual machines and their specific web-connected operating systems to infiltrate specific devices or your whole network. To avoid these threats and to preserve the data, you need IT security that protects against threat vectors. These include email accounts and any possible source of unintentional malicious data downloads.
Great Lakes Computer’s above-mentioned Sentinel One endpoint protection offers part of the solution, but it’s even stronger if combined with email security solutions. These rigorously monitor the biggest sources of data breaches in the world today: your business email and application login accounts.
Human Actors & Process Handling
Your organization’s team of employees, consultants, and others with direct access to your IT network are all possible weak points for data breaches. They can find it difficult to keep up with daily cybersecurity procedures. This is normal among staff that aren’t specifically trained and qualified to handle IT security professionally.
However, it doesn’t mean that your staff can’t be trained to drastically reduce their chances of accidentally inviting hackers into your systems. While employee training should not be your only security solution, a robust effort to teach best practices can make a huge difference. It can at least reduce the number of threats your wider IT security measures have to protect against.
To help you achieve this, Great Lakes Computer offers comprehensive security awareness training as part of its cybersecurity compliance and penetration testing services. Through this course, you can teach your staff to avoid common IT security pitfalls in their daily operations and process handling operations.
How vulnerable are you really?
