itSynergy: Blog
The Cyber Game Changed – Is Your Denver or Phoenix IT Services Team Ready?
The cybersecurity game has changed, and your Denver or Phoenix IT services provider needs to be updating their strategy to keep you safe. It’s foolish for any cyber expert (us included) to think they can build protections around a business that prevents attacks 100% of the time. Today’s hackers are too good.
Top-tier criminals work with organized crime
It’s a drop in the bucket for a nation to pay a hacker $3M to exploit a flaw in software. With backing like this, professional cybercriminals can unleash a relentless barrage of attacks against a wide range of targets. You’ve already seen this play out in breaches like Kaseya, SolarWinds, and Colonial Pipeline. Those attacks caught every type of organization – small business, large corporations, governments – everyone.
The warning signs are present, now is your chance to reconfigure your defensive strategy and call a new winning play. Your first step is to take stock of your current security environment.
How to Affordably Evaluate Your Current Cybersecurity Solutions
Before a new sports season starts, coaches, general managers and team executives sit down to evaluate the roster. They plan out moves for the draft and free agency with the goal of becoming champions. You and your Phoenix IT or Denver IT support provider should go through a similar exercise: a Rapid Security Assessment. If you’ve never heard of one, here’s a quick FAQ-style breakdown.
What is a rapid security assessment?
First, a rapid cyber assessment is not your run-of-the-mill “free assessment.” In an itSynergy Rapid Security Assessment, we utilize what we call discovery tools to scrutinize your on-premise and cloud environments. The process uncovers security gaps a criminal could exploit – like weak password policies or too many people with admin access who don’t need it.
How long does it take to get the results?
If we’re given immediate access to everything we need, a rapid assessment can be completed in a week. Your timeline will depend on how long it takes your organization to grant us permission to servers, your network, etc.
If it’s ‘rapid’ does it cut corners?
No! An assessment is a thorough look at your organization. The evaluation generates hundreds and hundreds of pages of data about your IT systems.
Who evaluates all that data?
The security experts and certified ethical hackers who conducted the assessment will pour through data and distill it down to distinct list of recommendations. They’ll let you know what you can do quickly. Some actions will carry a cost, others won’t. All are designed to decrease the level of risk in your environment.
See How Certified Ethical Hackers Protect Your Business
Who is responsible for carrying out action-items identified in the assessment?
You can either engage an outsourced IT provider, like us, on a project or take the list and give it to your IT company and ask them to tackle each item.
Other cybersecurity companies in Arizona and Colorado say to get a Penetration Test – who is right?
Both. You will still want a penetration test – or PenTest. But you want the rapid security assessment first.
We started recommending rapid security assessments to save clients money
Cybersecurity companies in Arizona charge at least $10K for a PenTest. After watching several clients go through the exercise and get reports that said “we got into your network because your password is “password” we knew it was time to offer an alternative. A rapid security assessment tells you these key, basic recommendations for a fraction of a cost. Then when you go on to your penetration test, it uncovers the advanced, fatal flaws that today’s professional hackers know how to exploit.
As You Budget, Remember the Cyber Game Has Changed
You have your recommendations from the assessment, but you have a budget to think about too. As you figure out the budget for your new cybersecurity and technology strategy, remember that you’re playing a different game against a very formidable opponent.
Building impenetrable walls around your network won’t stop today’s cybercriminals
Your roster of defenses can’t be 100% preventative. Cybercriminals will find a way in. You want to find and isolate their attack as quickly as possible. For that you’ll need detection and remediation tools.
Budgeting tip: Go for a 60/40 or 70/30 split
Look to spend 60 or 70 percent on detection and remediation.
Of course, prevention still matters. It makes you a less desirable target if a cybercriminal sees that you have basic protections in place like:
- A firewall
- Antivirus software
- Multifactor authentication
- Strong passwords
- Data encryption
How to Select a Phoenix IT or Denver IT Services Provider for Your Rapid Security Assessment
At itSynergy, we’re constantly attending conferences, reading industry news, and expanding our cybersecurity credentials. It keeps us up-to-date on the latest threats and emerging risks. We understand what it takes to call the right plays and mount a strong defense against criminals. When a breach occurs, we’re ready 24/7 to kick the intruders out of your network. Use our knowledge base to make sure you have the right IT policies and protections in place.
You have cyber tools, let’s make sure they’re effective against today’s threats.
