Regular IT Audits are a great way to get a comprehensive overview of where your business is at. Doing the same for your security systems can make all the difference in protecting your organisation’s data. After all, prevention is always better than cure, especially when it comes to cyber-attacks.
Know your IT infrastructure Even the most up-to-date and advanced IT infrastructure needs tweaking to stay that way. Sleepless regularly carries out IT Audits for its customers to get a detailed cross-section of how every system is performing and what areas need improvement.
During these sessions, we uncovered many unresolved issues and potential threats, some of which would have remained undiscovered until it was too late.
The Audit Process
An IT Audit generally takes one working day to complete. Our usual process is to spend half a day reviewing the existing solutions in place, examining everything from MS licences to backups and user access protocols.
We spent the second half of the day going through each user and categorising how they interact with the system and what areas needed optimising. In a recent Audit, one of our clients had been having cyber attack issues, so we suggested a more comprehensive security review.
A recent survey revealed that almost half of Irish companies had been the victim of a cyber-attack in the past year, with the frequency of these attacks increasing by 26 per cent each year. We have always taken cyber security seriously, and such sobering stats only highlight how important it is.
The next step: Security Reviews
We decided to conduct a more granular assessment of their security infrastructure, in this case, this meant reviewing all users across the entire network. Every account was checked for correct access protocols and this is where we unearthed the glaring security breaches that were the cause of their cyber-attack issues.
Uncovering the issues
As the business grows, new employees are added, sometimes without removing access for the outgoing staff. This had left several accounts with admin privileges and access to sensitive company data even though these employees had long since left the organisation. After resolving this issue, we reviewed the mail client and backup systems again to ensure that everything was secure and access was limited only to authorised accounts.
Improve your IT Security by changing your habits
Thanks to the IT Audit and subsequent security review, we were able to identify and rectify the issues. One year on, our client has had no further cyber security issues.
While the systems we put in place, and the regular reviews, go towards creating a more secure IT setup, a core part of maintaining this level of security is the mindset of our clients.
Being aware that hastily emailed login details or forgetting to remove access for outgoing employees can create security loopholes is a big step in avoiding issues down the line. Get in touch with Sleepless to get your IT security systems assessed, and we will soon have your security mindset rewired too.
