Your business's IT security is at risk. What can you do to protect it?

1 Assess your risks

The first step to improve your IT security is to identify and evaluate the risks you face. This involves conducting a thorough analysis of your current systems, processes, and policies, as well as the external and internal threats that could affect them. You can use various frameworks and tools to perform a risk assessment, such as the NIST Cybersecurity Framework or the CIS Controls. A risk assessment will help you determine the likelihood and impact of different scenarios, such as data loss, unauthorized access, system downtime, or malware infection. Based on your findings, you can prioritize the most critical and urgent issues and allocate your resources accordingly.

2 Implement security controls

The next step is to implement security controls that can reduce or eliminate the risks you identified. Security controls are the measures and mechanisms that you use to protect your systems, data, and users from harm. They can be classified into three categories: technical, administrative, and physical. Technical controls are the hardware and software solutions that you use to prevent, detect, or respond to cyberattacks, such as firewalls, antivirus, encryption, backup, or authentication. Administrative controls are the policies and procedures that you use to govern your systems management activities, such as access control, incident response, training, or auditing. Physical controls are the devices and barriers that you use to protect your systems from physical damage or theft, such as locks, alarms, or cameras.

3 Monitor your systems

The third step is to monitor your systems regularly and continuously to ensure that they are functioning properly and securely. Monitoring your systems involves collecting and analyzing data from various sources, such as logs, sensors, alerts, or reports, to track the performance, availability, and security of your systems. You can use various systems management tools to automate and simplify your monitoring tasks, such as Nagios, Zabbix, or Splunk. Monitoring your systems will help you identify and resolve any issues or anomalies before they escalate into serious problems or incidents. It will also help you measure and improve your systems management effectiveness and efficiency.

5 Educate your users

The fifth step is to educate your users about the importance and best practices of IT security. Your users are the people who interact with your systems, such as your employees, customers, or partners. They can be either your greatest asset or your weakest link when it comes to IT security. You can use various systems management tools to train and test your users on IT security topics, such as phishing, passwords, or backups, such as KnowBe4, Wombat, or Duo. Educating your users will help you raise their awareness and skills on IT security and reduce the likelihood of human errors or negligence that could compromise your systems.