When it comes to your Digital Ecosystem, it is not a question of if your environment will be attacked but when, and by what vector. In fact, it is estimated that there is a digital attack on networks and online accounts every 39 seconds. If these attacks were all similar, they would be easy to identify and resolve but hackers are disturbingly clever. This means that your Cyber Security strategy needs to be dynamic and comprehensive to effectively repel the bad guys.

When implemented fully, our Cyber Security strategy has a 100% success ratio over the past 3 years. While this is an impressive stat, there are multiple components that must be employed in order to ensure the safety and security of your data.

Let’s review:

PERIMETER SECURITY

Most organizations have one or more offices and the first step is to lock these physical locations down. Much like locking the doors and turning on the security system for your building at the end of the day, we also need to lock-up your digital office as well. Employing real-time packet inspection with virus detection and intelligent firewalls at each location helps to secure your perimeter and keeps unwanted visitors from getting in. Employ a secure VPN as the sole means of access and boom, you’ve taken a huge step in the right direction for pro-active security.

EMAIL SECURITY

Typically the biggest security risk for any organization is email. The reason why? Because humans love to click on things and download stuff. It is not a criticism but a fact that must be dealt with in order to properly secure an environment. Nearly 80% of all data breaches begin with an email so we consider this possibly the most important aspect of your pro-active security strategy. Now you may be thinking “But wait, I have SPAM filtering through my email provider!”. While this may be true, we are yet to find an email provider that properly secures email on a user level. Remember, their priority is providing email and reliability…security is secondary and often seen as the user’s responsibility. Our email security suite employs link check and AI controlled real-time learning to inspect and protect every email.

ANTI-VIRUS PROTECTION

Every computer should have a strong centralized anti-virus software to round-out a complete Cyber Security infrastructure. That said, anti-virus software is fundamentally a reactive solution which means the only time you use it is when you are already infected. For this reason, we see this as the least important part of a security platform because it is always better to prevent an infection than to fight it. At the end of the day, you still need it so we make sure to provide the best.

DOOR ACCESS

While Door Access systems are not traditionally considered part of a Cyber Security solution, they are encouraged for physical location security and compliance (especially HIPAA). Integrating your door access into your network allows it to become part of an overall strategy and gives you granular control over your physical assets and onsite information.

PASSWORD SECURITY

There are two components to password security that are worth mentioning here:

  • Centralized Password Database and
  • Password rotation policy.

Centralized password databases are key to managing and reporting on the security of those oh-so-annoying passwords that we all love so much. A good MSP should always offer this and you should have access to everything that they have access to. Your password rotation policy is important in order to make sure that stale passwords do not inadvertently become a weak-point in your security plan. If you would like us to take a look at your password security, just ask for a dark-web scan and prepare to be surprised!

CAMERA SYSTEMS

Much like Door Access systems, cameras are often seen as the black sheep of the Cyber Security world. Also like Door Access, they are encouraged for physical location security and compliance (including HIPAA). If you have them, great! If not, we can help you out.

RESTORATION POINTS AND DATA RECOVERY

Sometimes things do not go to plan and a bad actor gets their grubby little fingers into your data environment. When all else fails, you always want to have a system that employs roll-back points to restore your data. This is covered more extensively on our “Backup and Disaster Recovery” page but we thought it was important enough to mention again.