PCSOFT Blog

In business, meeting customer demand is essential; but doing it efficiently can significantly improve your business. This isn’t always easy since there are a myriad of problems that businesses have to face. If you can improve your business’ proactivity, it can go a long way toward mitigating problematic situations. Let’s discuss how to get out in front of risk by using technology. 

These days, it feels like there are risks around just about every corner that could affect your business. This can make it hard to navigate the challenges of running your company in an efficient way. Let’s examine some of the risks your average small business might encounter, as well as what you can do about them.

The holidays are a great time to give technology to your loved ones. One of the most popular smart devices for each of the past few years is the smart watch. While they are extremely useful and make great gifts, they may have an effect on an organization’s cybersecurity.  Let’s take a look at some of the possible threats smartwatches may present for IT administrators.

In 2018, enhancing cybersecurity has to be at the top of every business owner’s to-do list. If your business relies on Internet-connected computing at all, you need to invest, and invest wisely in innovative security constructs. Fueled by demand, organizations from around the world have made a point to protect themselves, their data, and their customers’ personal information against some of the most sophisticated threats ever created. They’ve done so in many ways that include utilizing cloud computing, biometric identification and authentication, security analysis, and managed security services.

There is more to it than throwing money and time at the problem. Here is a comprehensive list of some of the ways organizations from around the world have prioritized cybersecurity.

• Education and training - By training your staff on the fundamentals of cybersecurity, you are doing your company, your vendors, and your clients a big favor. They just may take some of what they’ve learned and use it for their own protection. Understanding the risks that are prevalent today, will help your business see tomorrow.
• Prioritize risk management - Making risk management, that is in this context the action of mitigating risk brought by threats that include software vulnerabilities, hacking attacks, and malware, a management-level responsibility makes cybersecurity governance an organizational priority.
• A multi-layered security approach - By tracking the movement of data out of your network, and prioritizing the protection of said data, you also protect the architecture that runs on that network.
• Threat monitoring and sharing - Sharing threat data with vendors, clients, and other entities, can have a positive effect on your organization’s ability to mitigate risk because, by-in-large, those organizations will share the threats they encounter with you.
• Effective breach response - With the use of innovative tools that include enterprise firewalls and spam filters, the moment a breach is reported, a breach response plan will eliminate the danger quickly and quarantine any data that shows any sign of corruption.
• Testing - Routine penetration tests to the network, as well as staff breach awareness tests can go a long way toward limiting your organizational exposure to cyber threats.

Innovative solutions and practices to ward against malware and other threats are essential for today’s business, and can endanger you company if not made a priority. To learn more, reach out to us at 02 98730080.

Each business has some common risk factors, be they from hackers, natural disasters, or user error. It’s your responsibility to ensure that your business can recover from dangerous and threatening situations with minimal damage to your infrastructure. We’re happy to help your business assess risks to your network and inform you on what you need to do to ensure your organization’s continued functionality.

Defining Risk Management
Risk management is the process of identifying, understanding, and solving issues that present danger to your business in the long run. Risk management can include the following:

• Business continuity: This is a term for the act of planning for the future of your business. Of particular importance are backup and disaster recovery, workforce retention, and other problems that could negatively affect operations. Basically, your business must be prepared to handle all worst-case scenarios.
• Network security: Network security is important for protecting your organization’s sensitive data and critical assets from all types of online threats, including viruses, malware, spyware, ransomware, trojans, and others. As such, it’s an imperative part of handling risk management.
• Asset management: Asset management consists of ensuring that your technology, as well as your IT budget, are on track and capable of handling a worst-case scenario. For example, if a major server unit were to go down due to hardware failure or a hacking attack, would your budget be able to accommodate the purchase of a new one?

What to Watch Out For
It’s made painfully clear that risk management is an all-encompassing part of managing any business. The good news for you is that many of the above services can be provided by PCSOFT. Our managed IT solutions are designed to take a proactive approach that eliminates many of the troubles associated with risk management. Here are some of the services that we offer:

• Backup and disaster recovery
• Security solutions - firewall, antivirus, spam blocking, content filtering
• Penetration testing
• IT management and roadmaps
• Remote maintenance and workstation/server management

PCSOFT gets that you’re a small business, and that you don’t have the time to deal with the technical difficulties that come from managing an IT infrastructure. If you have your hands full, we can assist you with preparing your systems for a catastrophic scenario. For more information, reach out to us at 02 98730080.