3 Signs Your Business IT Network Needs Improvement

A recent industry report found that 73% of surveyed firms failed cybersecurity readiness tests. For your business to thrive in today’s volatile cyber-environment, you have to make sure to have practices in place that address the various threats to your IT network. Here are 3 obvious signs that your network needs improvement:

1. The Only Cybersecurity You Have is Cookie-cutter.

An out-of-the-box approach to cybersecurity doesn’t suffice when 50% of businesses in 2016 reported suffering a cyberattack at least once. Instead, many businesses are turning to managed service providers (MSPs) to develop more focused solutions for individual businesses.

The best cybersecurity solutions involve an in-depth analysis of your current network and infrastructure. From there, a professional managed services provider will be able to pinpoint your network vulnerabilities and create a full-scale cybersecurity solution that addresses your business needs.

2. Your IT Support Clocks Out at 5:00 p.m.

Your office might close at 5:00 p.m., but your IT network, the nervous system of your business, is always running. If you wish to compete with hackers and cyber criminals who will attack your network at any time, you need network monitoring and a help desk that both operate 24x7x365.

Network monitoring is essential, because it allows technicians to protect your business in real time, all the time. Whether it’s a sudden influx of traffic or an isolated virus on a specific user device, monitoring allows your MSP team to act promptly to resolve network issues.

Where network monitoring operates on the back end, managed help desk services provide direct assistance to your employees for daily technology issues.

A managed help desk operates as your on-call problem solver. For example, If your employee needs help restoring a secure connection from a home office, they will call help desk.

If your current network assistance includes a combination of Google and Wikipedia, you will definitely benefit from a help desk solution.

3. You Have No Full-scale Data Backup Plan

Even something as simple as hardware failure can destroy your data if you aren’t fully backed up.

In the USA, historically as many as 140,000 hard drives fail every week. If you aren’t backing up to the the cloud and backup servers, you risk losing data with your hardware. That loss multiplies when a disaster strikes your entire business.

There are several types of disasters that can impact your business data. These include cyberattacks, natural disasters, insider threats, and user errors. The variety of attacks that come from both inside and outside of your business affect data on your physical components as well as your network.

You have to address possible vulnerabilities on both fronts. The only way to keep your data in the event of an attack is with a solid data backup solution and disaster recovery plan.

Plans to keep your business running in the event of a disaster are typically called a business continuity plan. If your business doesn’t have this plan, then you need to speak with your MSP. They will help you build a plan that works for your unique business operations.

A business continuity plan will address data backup, as well as operational relocation, and communication process, roles and responsibilities.

If you aren’t backing up your data, and you have no plan for restoring operations after a disaster, then your IT network is running the risk of failure during a crisis.