IT security consists of multiple facets and is crucial in today’s deeply digitized world. As a business owner, your IT components—the sensitive data, software, and hardware—are the backbone of your company’s success. So, it’s crucial to protect them beyond just hack attacks. Other problems that can easily strike include data loss, customer data leaks that filter onto the dark web, and incorrect IT management of your assets.
While all of these can become very costly very quickly, ALL of them are also perfectly solvable. Let’s cover a few scenarios and how you can keep your company safe from each.
The Threat of Dark Web Leaks
Phishing email scams, credentials theft, or plain old-fashioned brute force hacks can all be used to access your most sensitive company and client information. You likely won’t be able to prevent all of them if you’re handling your own IT security. Worse still, you may not even know when you’ve been the victim of a hack-based data leak until the damage done is catastrophic.
Think we’re joking? Between 2020 and 2021, data breaches against organizations all over the world rose by 68%, with many firms never obtaining legal compensation afterward.
This is where periodic dark web scanning can come into play as a tool to minimize the damage caused by leaks that have already happened. If you want to know whether your confidential business data is already released on the dark web (clandestine illegal data brokerage sites) powerful tools exist to help you. A periodic dark web scan, with the help of a third-party IT security firm and its advanced tools, can let you know when you’ve been compromised. You can then plug the holes before the damage becomes disastrously worse.
Say for example that you manage financial profiles for thousands of customers with your own IT platform and save their sensitive information on in-house databases. In this scenario, knowing as soon as possible that data is being leaked online will let you take immediate countermeasures to stop the leak before it ruins your reputation and company finances.
The Importance of BCDR
BCDR is Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery, and it’s one of the crucial IT security aspects that any organization needs to keep in mind. This two-part digital security protocol essentially consists of hardening your IT systems so that business continuity can always be maintained with minimal downtime, while also being ready for the recovery of crucial data after disaster strikes.
Imagine for a moment if your company’s main (or only) office is located in a geographic region with frequent earthquakes. This very disaster hits, the building that houses your office gets partially ruined, and while fortunately, your staff wasn’t on site, all of your hardware is damaged or destroyed. While you may not be able to do anything about preventing the quake-induced physical damage, a robust BCDR plan could let your keep running your business—even in the face of something this catastrophic.
Business continuity can be maintained by running remote versions of all your essential data, hardware, software, and servers. On the other hand, disaster recovery can run smoothly by having backups of all your vital data in the same or other remote locations. A key aspect of effective BCDR is a full data security audit, followed by a close partnership with a third-party provider who can ensure that your remote IT systems keep running effectively. This is how BCDR works, and it can keep your IT safe even when you’re confronted with some of the worst possible scenarios.
A Preparedness Self Assessment for Hidden IT security flaws
Business continuity planning, hack alerts, dark web scanning, and disaster recovery measures are all superb tools for fortifying the internal digital security of your organization…but the first step to planning them all out to fit your needs is with a Preparedness Self-Assessment. This can be done for free with the help of a dedicated IT security and managed IT services provider, who can then guide you to the right steps for even more powerful protection against bad actors online.
Finding a complete solution through managed IT services is one of the most secure steps you can take to know how well you’re already protected and how you can improve. Managed service providers like Great Lakes Computer offer options for preparedness self-assessments, dark web scanning, general IT data security, and unauthorized intrusion protection to fit your business needs. Contact us now to review your options!
