GDPR is fast approaching and will transform business operations, with extremely hefty fines being dished out to any business not fully complying with regulations. The main focus must be on maintaining client privacy and managing data breaches.
You would be surprised at how vulnerable networks can be, even within multi-million pound operations. We’ve all heard about the recent ransomware cyber-attacks that have devastated the British NHS, Netherlands’ TNT, Russia’s Rosneft and most recently America’s HBO, yet security still isn’t the top of the agenda for many UK businesses where it should be. Breaches can go undetected for months and it’s getting more difficult for organisations to detect them on their own.
We believe prevention is better than cure, and it all starts by getting your business technically ‘in order’ through a managed proactive approach to meet best practice. It’s crucial that businesses understand the value of investing in security and IT, and look beyond managed service provision to partnering with a Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) who can provide the end-to-end solution they need.
A quality MSSP will deploy the latest Security, Information and Event Management (SIEM) technology to ensure your networks are secure, your IT operations are optimised, and that your business complies with regulations such as GDPR, PCI DSS and CIP. The MSSP should use intelligent security analytics to unify the automated collection, analysis and recovery of log data with network and endpoint monitoring – ensuring cyber threats are detected and dealt with before a material breach occurs.
If we take the analogy of managing a castle and building a fortress to protect the kingdom – all the day-to-day operational activities would be taken care of with a Managed Service Provider. However, the MSSP would go beyond, ensuring that all the layers of security are in place and fully functioning, i.e. making sure the moat is full, the guards are where they should be and that the walls aren’t crumbling as the invaders are approaching. In translation, the MSSP will proactively manage every layer of security they put in place to protect you and your customers, from multi-factor authentication and data encryption to back-up solutions and business continuity.
Make sure you partner with the right MSSP – and that will take care of your system security. You should also ensure the people behind your business are trained in security breach prevention too – so they don’t weaken your defences.