Too Busy To Bolster Your IT? It Could Already Be Too Late…

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Owning a business means everybody wants a piece of your time. Good business owners discover what areas of their businesses they can take care of personally versus those they hire experts to handle. When deciding and delegating throughout your departments, be sure your IT isn’t overlooked.

Network security is of critical importance these days. The first step to ensuring your IT is working and protected is to analyze how your IT is currently set up, then identify areas that could be bolstered to prevent security breaches.

Analyze Your IT Security Setup

Locked down network security begins with ensuring your equipment is up to date and your software is current. The longer that hardware and software exists out in the wild, the more time hackers have to discover exploits, engineer viruses, and discover ways to subvert, crack and shut down your security measures. Legitimate technology can also be troubled by old equipment. Most developers program for modern software, so ensuring you’re keeping up with compatibility requirements and industry best practices means you can take advantage of new features to make your life easier.

Monitoring usage and setting up firewalls is a good start to IT security, but for your system to truly be on point, you need to get proactive. Usage reports and firewalls are like locks on the door. They slow down intruders—but determined invaders just need enough time to get inside, either by disassembling the mechanism or exploiting an unexpected weakness elsewhere in the structure. Proactive monitoring functions as active security. It’s the watchdog that walks the perimeter or the security guard on the grounds. When a threat arrives at your system, proactive monitoring adjusts to face it and knows how to remove it.

One threat that never really goes away is the threat of losing data. While much of the focus of IT security is about external threats, data loss can be caused by many other elements. Equipment failure, user error, acts of God and other natural disasters can all leave you hanging. If the loss is catastrophic, it can put your business down for the count. Anyone who works with computers will tell you the golden rule: Backup Everything. If you lose your data, you lose your business. The faster you get back up and running, the less business you lose. Having a comprehensive disaster recovery plan in place is a good sign to your customers: you’re thinking ahead and can anticipate trouble.

Analyze Your Budget

If time is one of the main challenges small business owners face, money is the other one. The choice often comes down to doing something quickly versus doing something cheaply. IT is the foundation upon which your business is built, so be sure you’re not skimping or settling for a quick fix. Increasing your IT budget ensures you can better keep up with both network security and advancing technology.

An experienced managed services provider can be an affordable alternative to increasing your full-time IT staff. They’ll proactively monitor your systems for potential threats and downtime, handle complete system backups, your disaster recovery plan, and so much more to keep your business up, running and secure. Working with a great managed services provider ensures you’re getting experienced and knowledgeable IT professionals who keep the network security of hundreds of businesses locked down every day—so you’re not only saving money, you’re getting peace of mind.

Now that you’ve given some thought to your IT, it’s time to take action. Better technology equals better business. The more you streamline your IT processes, the sooner you can focus on the other important elements of your business: like providing your clients with the level of service they expect.

Need help with your IT? Contact SWICKtech for a technology consultation.

Want more great information on network security?

View our on-demand network security webinar HERE and learn the key steps your company can take to prevent cyber security threats from compromising your infrastructure. This 35-minute presentation will give you solid, step-by-step solutions for preventing your business from being compromised.

Stop potential hackers in their tracks.

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