How to Conduct a Thorough IT Security Check

The Best Way to Conduct a Thorough IT Security Checkup

Protecting your business against cyber threats is more important than ever before. With the worldwide cybercrime environment expected to cost 23.82 trillion USD by 2027, businesses without a comprehensive IT security system are leaving themselves and their data vulnerable.

To combat issues with your company’s cyber security systems, you need to perform a thorough IT security checkup. This process is one of the most effective ways to identify system vulnerabilities and determine solutions to keep your data safe 24/7.

But what is the proper process to conduct a thorough IT  security checkup? This article will detail the IT security checkup process to ensure that you don’t miss any crucial steps when protecting your organization. Let’s dive in!

Why are IT Security Checkups Important For Data Security?

Many businesses falsely assume that their IT security is good enough because they haven’t faced significant breaches. This mindset means your data security is constantly vulnerable to severe cyber attacks that could destroy your business.

Among the numerous reasons why an IT security checkup is essential for your business include the following:

• Checkups identify vulnerabilities in your IT infrastructure and software systems that are easily exploitable by hackers
• Checkups can prevent data breaches into customer databases and keep your company safe in the long-term
• These checkups can guarantee compliance with industry regulations that your company must follow to protect consumer data
• Checkups can improve your response times in the event of a security breach
• A thorough checkup can reduce costs by preventing incidents that would incur massive costs

Conducting a Thorough IT Security Checkup

There are several practices to implement and test when you’re looking to improve your IT security through a comprehensive checkup. Teams like the security experts at Integrated Computer Services can help you navigate an IT security checkup to identify every vulnerability that could be damaging your organization. Below are some of the most effective options to check for system vulnerabilities and find solutions to guarantee safety.

Perform Regular Risk Assessments

Your IT security checkup should always include a risk assessment to identify and evaluate possible assets vulnerable to cyberattacks. A risk assessment detects and analyzes internal and external data threats and assesses the impact on your company’s data and security. Risk assessments can also estimate the cost of possible cybersecurity breaches.

A comprehensive risk assessment identifies risks in various systems in your organization’s infrastructure, including tests for the following:

• Cloud solutions
• Network security
• Network configuration
• Servers
• Backup systems
• Active directories
• Firewalls
• Workstations
• Group policies
• Software and hardware

Penetration Testing

Another element of a thorough IT security checkup is a penetration test, which often includes tests for system vulnerabilities. These tests address a specific goal or set of goals that your company has for its security systems. Penetration tests occur when a company has an infrastructure prepared for attacks and at the desired security level.

Goals for penetration tests are reached through simulations, where an IT team attempts to penetrate different organizational assets, such as databases and internal systems. Through this simulation, a penetration test can report how, what, and where the system was breached to identify solutions.

Go Through the Basics

While smaller tasks like updating passwords might seem small-scale compared to the abovementioned processes, covering all the basics is essential for a complete security checkup. Set aside time to complete the following tasks to boost your company’s security:

1. Update your operating systems with new patches and address updates for software like antispyware and anti-virus.
2. Encrypt your organization’s devices and media with confidential data. Ensure that all computers, laptops, scanners, tapes, cloud storage solutions, and removable devices are encrypted.
3. Use a firewall to protect your internet connection.
4. Back up your files offline with an external hard drive or cloud platform.
5. Require strong passwords for your system to prevent hackers from accessing sensitive data. Combine upper and lower case letters, symbols, and numbers to ensure that passwords are hard-to-guess for anyone but the authorized user.

Implement User Asset Checks

If you don’t have sufficient user asset checks in your security infrastructure, it’s time to make a change. No checkup is complete without a thorough overview of your company’s asset control protocol--or its lack thereof. Without access control protocol, companies cannot monitor who has access to their systems and sensitive information. User asset checks include multiple practices, including two-factor or multi-factor authentication, user authentication processes, and authorized access systems to restrict access to specific systems.

Review Your Company’s IT Infrastructure for Compliance

Following industry compliance for your company's IT infrastructure is essential to mitigate the risk of a costly cybersecurity and data breach. Compliance protocol is provided for different industries by qualified institutions, including the following:

1. CMMC 2.0 for small and medium-sized businesses based on traditional compliance models
2. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has compliance measures to reflect the best practices for your organization and determine what data requires encryption.
3. Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) for compliance with bidding for Department of Defense (DoD) contracts
4. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) outlines compliance for patient and provider interactions to ensure that patient information remains confidential.x

Though each compliance test has different standards, all of them cover the following categories:

1. Data sharing control
2. Access and identity control
3. Disaster recovery protocol
4. Data loss prevention
5. Protection against malware
6. Monitoring and reporting processes
7. Incident responses
8. Adherence to corporate security policies

Protect Your Business With ICS

A thorough IT security checkup is crucial to sustain and secure your business. Expert solutions offered by Integrated Computer Solutions (ICS) can help you protect your IT infrastructure and avoid detrimental data breaches that threaten your company. ICS provides the best consulting services in New Jersey and can quickly identify vulnerabilities in your infrastructure.

The expert security team at ICS can provide the best solutions to keep your IT system safe. Whether you need help with an IT security plan or managed IT services, ICS has what you need. Contact the team at ICS today for more information about how ICS can protect your system.