South Florida Technology Today

from Comprehensive Business Systems

Creating a Comprehensive Security Strategy for Your South Florida Business

Posted on: November 3, 2015 by: Stuart Hill

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Many South Florida small and medium sized businesses find themselves at a disadvantage when it comes to having a security strategy. SMBs can’t afford to pay someone to solely handle IT security concerns. Achieving a comprehensive security strategy involves incorporating multiple layers of protection.

These are the 5 main layers of security you must incorporate to protect your network:

Re-set passwords. Sounds simple right? But this topic causes more complaints from end-users than anything, Resetting passwords regularly can be a first line of defense that keeps unwanted programs and people from accessing company data. If you’re able make sure to set rules to ensure your team sets strong passwords so they avoid passwords like “password” or “123456.” Check out a list of the worst passwords from 2014. If you don’t set proper protocols your end users could be using some of these!

Update anti-virus and firewall software. Updates are too often ignored and pushed aside.  Your IT network will not be protected from the latest threats unless you make these basic updates. This is a critical line of defense between your company’s network and the new malicious threats that pop up on the internet every day.

Access points. An important part of securing any network is securing your access points. Avoid internal and external data breaches by limiting user accessibility to your most sensitive data. Make sure every piece of equipment has access point controls set.

Maintenance and system-wide clean-outs. How long has it been since your company underwent a system-wide clean-out? You should try to perform this activity every month. Get rid of replaced hardware, clear out old user accounts, and find any other non-essential or undesirable information and clean it out.

Data Backup and disaster recovery. Mother Nature plays a role in destroying critical business data from time-to-time. Back up your data. When the next flood, fire, or hurricane strikes you’ll be ready if you have Backup and disaster plans in place to safeguard your data. This is like your insurance policy for your data. Building and budgeted for a formal plan might be cumbersome, but it’s going to be far less of a burden than trying to recover the health and profit of your business after a major data loss.

Security is an on-going process. Password changes, security checks, regular maintenance are a necessity for any modern business. Just because you’re a small business doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t put the safeguards in place that large businesses have. There are some simple ways to secure your network and protect your data if you take the time to understand where you’re vulnerable and take appropriate action.

Comprehensive Business Systems offers Security auditing and risk assessments. We help businesses detect problems that your company never knew existed. For a complimentary Comprehensive IT Analysis contact us and find out how we help other South Florida organizations save time and money.

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