Cyber attacks can be expensive. How expensive exactly? Experts put the figure at an average of $200,000.
That’s chump change for a big corporation like JP Morgan Chase or Amazon. Their stock may take a hit, but at the end of the day, they’ll stay afloat. For a small business, though, $200,000 is a lot.
Solid business IT services and security is the solution. Everything begins and ends with your network, so the sort of network security solutions you choose will determine your security posture.
In this guide, we’ll discuss the 6 major benefits of an effective network security service.
1. Effective Network Security Helps Ward Off External Attacks
The internet continues to be the wild west. While certificates and strong authentication have mitigated much of the risk, bad actors are always lying in wait. As the saying goes in the cyber security community: it’s not if they’ll hack you, but when.
Like all criminals, hackers look for novel ways to compromise a system. The most common method of doing this is through a zero-day exploit. This is an exploit that security companies are not yet aware of.
Hackers may also try to compromise you with phishing emails. These are what appear to be official communications that trick your employees into giving up vital information. Or, they convince the employee to download malware disguised as a legitimate file.
The point is, there’s a lot of scary stuff out there. Network firewall security is not enough. Here a just a few things your managed IT team can do:
- Update software on a regular basis
- Lockdown high-level privileges
- Encrypt all data
- Use strong passwords and two-factor authentication
- Hire third parties for penetration tests and a cyber security threat analysis
2. It Helps Ward Off Internal Threats, Too
Believe it or not, almost half of all security breaches happen from an insider. That means there’s about a 50% chance that one of your employees will cause a security breach.
This is not always malicious. It may involve a high-level employee who is not careful with their credentials. A hacker could blackmail them to obtain access.
In other cases, it is intentional. An employee makes a deal with a competitor to sell your information. There’s a lot of financial incentive sometimes for a disgruntled or unscrupulous employee to make some extra side money.
Fortunately, you can mitigate inside threats, too, with the following:
- Regular employee training
- Limiting high-echelon credentials to a select few
- Pro-active firewall network security and monitoring to detect malicious behavior
- Investigate suspicious behavior
3. It Saves You Money
This may be the most obvious one on the list, but it’s the one small businesses never think about twice. Using a managed IT Los Angeles service saves you money in the long run if your business resides in Southern California.
As mentioned at the outset of this article, the average breach costs around $200,000. Even if you could bounce back from that, things would be tight. This would be a devastating blow, whether to a public or privately traded company.
Further, that puts doubt in investors. A security breach might give them cold feet or might lead them to believe that your company is incompetent. The media attention would likewise do great damage.
But if you come prepared with a network security service, you have nothing to worry about.
4. It Keeps Your Reputation Strong
Following off the last point, a security breach puts doubt in your abilities. It’s not just investors or the media that should concern you. It’s your current and future customers.
Failure to prevent a breach does not inspire confidence. The black cloud of a successful security breach will follow your company around for years.
Obtaining industry-leading IT support services in Los Angeles can prevent that.
5. It Keeps Your Company Running
What often goes unmentioned after a cyber attack is the hit to your efficiency. When a breach happens, work might often come to a stop. A cyber post-mortem involves a lot of investigation that will interrupt normal operations.
You can attribute much of the cost of a cyber attack to lost profits. Lost profits mean customers get their services late–or don’t get them at all. There’s a huge risk that your services may even be subpar.
Network firewall security from a trustworthy managed IT service can keep your company running smoothly.
6. It Keeps You Compliant
What often happens after a security breach is the discovery that you failed to stay compliant. Compliance can be related to how you handle customer information, to how you store it. You may not even realize you weren’t compliant until the breach happens.
Managed IT services can help you to identify ways that you are failing compliance. They can help you build a strategy to get compliant and stay that way. Then you’re prepared if a breach happens.
Compliance protects your customers, too. It’s much harder for a hacker to compromise you if you’re following the correct security standards. There’s a smaller chance personal information will make its way to the internet.
Get Managed IT Security Services
Network security is the be-all and end-all of a safe, secure network. Taking the time and effort to ensure that your company is protected from hackers will pay dividends. It will save you a lot of money in the long run and help your company to run smoothly besides.
The easiest way to put a security network into practice is with managed IT services. This offloads the stress of managing an IT team to a third party, freeing you up for what you’re best at – building your brand.
Contact Be Structured and see what difference managed services can make.
