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Four Steps to Staying Safe in the BYOD Workplace

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Embrace the BYOD workplace, and plan appropriate security measures.The mobility of the workforce has completely exploded in recent years. Productivity gains, more options for remote work, constant availability, and better communication are all perks of the BYOD movement. However, it doesn’t come without drawbacks.

Hackers have found the BYOD movement to be an easy target. For the cybercriminal, mobile devices offer an “in” to the organization’s system. All is not lost, though. With a few key steps, you can keep your organization safe.

1. Educate
Ignorance is probably the biggest obstacle. Employees don’t normally show up to a job with everything they need to know about cybersecurity. If they’re not properly educated, they’re likely to fall victim to a phishing scam on their personal devices, which opens your system’s doors to the hackers.

Make it company policy to follow safeguards, such as never clicking on a link from an unknown person.

2. Monitor
You should be invested in bringing in the latest technology that helps you monitor what’s going on with your system. The right technology will provide you with the visibility you need to spot suspicious activity. This gives you the ability to stop an attack before anything too serious occurs. Furthermore, it can help you plan for tying up the loose/weak areas in your system.

3. Best Practices
Organizations that follow best practices are at less risk for attacks through the BYOD workplace. For example, require that all mobile devices being used on your network be password-protected and screen locked when not in use. If a device is ever lost or stolen, make it a requirement to notify the company, because the majority of lost devices are accessed, either to discover the identity of the owner or to pull data from the device.

4. Control Access
Instead of assigning network user rights to an employee account, the user rights should be assigned a role. General users shouldn’t have access to every piece of data in the company. Keep highly sensitive information for upper management only. Also, if your IT employees have access to everything, make sure they know their BYOD use should be kept separate.

At Access Tech, our goal is to make sure our clients are protected, yet not at the expense of productivity. We’re focused on making sure our clients have the best technology for their communications needs. Contact us today and let’s talk about how to put you in touch with the right technology and best security practices.

A Better Strategy for Successful Incident Response

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The best incident response strategies take a multi-pronged approach that accounts for all the factors leading up to and dealing with incidents. From hiring the right staff to deploying the right tools and everything in between, what are you doing to improve your strategy?

1. Know Your Objective
Without clearly defined roles, team members aren’t going to know what direction they need to be going for proper incident response action. You must make sure each team member is aware of the priorities you’re putting in front of them and that there is no crossover, as that can cause confusion among the team.

Organizations that get this right approach it from a tiered system where each staff member can operate from a position of flexibility. In this way, they can respond quickly while also keeping in mind the differences between security devices, analysis management and security data.

2. Observe and Learn
When all incident responses are recorded, there is an opportunity to learn from what’s occurred in the past and make improvements. When done right, this will help minimize the damage caused by future incidents.

This is a great way to measure various key indicators to see if your efforts in one area have more value than those in others, thereby giving you fact-based data to make alterations to your incident response strategy.

3. Hire Smart
How diversified is your team? Does everyone have a specialty or are you just parsing out duties randomly?

Your investment in tools and processes can be negated if the people you rely on to work with the tools aren’t up to the task. Make sure your analysts have abilities that account for everything that is needed to cover all your bases.

4. Gear Up
The best way to tackle a task is to use the right tools for the job. This is generally a continuous effort as technology evolves quickly.

The tools you use need to provide you with context and visibility, but also give you controls to gain the right information from the right places. Furthermore, your team needs to have the experience necessary to get everything possible out of these tools.

5. Be Aware
As we all know, the end user can be the weakest link in the chain. Therefore, it’s important to push very specific rules, such as password hygiene, which is often the Achilles heel for many systems.

Your security staff should have the innovative thinking that helps to create new ways to ensure guidelines are being followed without being a burden on workflow.

At Access Tech, we’re the point of contact to manage the carrier, problem-solve issues and create new strategic solutions. Contact us today to discuss customized solutions that will impact your organization.

Data Security Tips for Protecting Your Organization

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We’re at a point now with data security that it takes an “all hands on deck” approach to keep an organization safe from cybercriminals. In some cases, it’s not even the outside threats that are the danger — it’s simple housekeeping items that are forgotten that lead to security issues.

Too many examples are out there today that prove how a cybersecurity incident can be detrimental to an organization. And the examples span many industries, so it’s not like cybercriminals are interested in only a handful. This requires everyone to have at least some knowledge of how to minimize their risks, even if that isn’t something that falls under their specific job description.

Organizations that are having success in being proactive in their approach all follow similar steps, which your organization should consider as well:

·         Clear Your IT Infrastructure
While it’s practically impossible to account for every data breach because innovative cybercriminals find new ways to infiltrate on a daily basis, you can take steps to encrypt your data and remove anything sensitive from your IT infrastructure. How you handle your customers’ credit card information and other personal and sensitive information needs to be carefully thought out.

·         Develop a Vision
Fully examine all the ways in which a data breach can affect your daily business workflow. Look for areas that represent a weakness and develop a strategy for how you’re going to address the weak points. Discuss these issues regularly with your IT security team and executives. Take proactive measures to protect yourself and develop a business continuity plan should you be attacked.

·         Get Management on Board
While your executives will know a great deal about your organization, getting into the minutiae of IT security is probably not going to be their strong suit. However, when you address the costs associated with experiencing a data security issue, they’ll be all ears. You need their buy-in if you’re going to be fully supported, so speak in terms they’ll understand and don’t get too deep in details that will make their eyes glaze over.

When you bring on a cloud communications expert to assist you with your IT solutions, including data security, you can get ahead of the curve. The best providers will conduct a thorough audit and analysis to reveal what your organization needs. They will be systematic in their review and propose the best solutions.

At Access Tech, we have years of experience providing end-to-end objective support. Contact us today and let’s talk about your organization’s needs.

Digital Transformation and Secure Systems

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Organizations face a number of challenges with regard to digital transformation, many of them related to managing massive volumes of data while trying to stay clear of cybercriminals. Threats have become more complex, forcing businesses to look deeper into how they can protect themselves.

It’s been almost 25 years since the development of the first network security solution. These early solutions focused mainly on network connections. The use of firewalls played heavily into controlling who could connect to a network. Eventually, Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) became a source for encrypting traffic.

A milestone in the history of security solutions and digital transformation came with the advent of Fortinet, which developed anti-virus and intrusion prevention solutions that became widely popular and are still employed on systems today.

Now that digital transformation has really taken hold and the Internet of Things (IoT) is a reality, we’re forced to apply even stricter security measures on our systems, all while trying to stay productive in the ways that we access our tightly locked down data.

It wasn’t that long ago that all data was stored in-house on company-owned servers. These servers and all the applications residing on them had to be managed by a team of IT professionals. Data breaches were not uncommon. The biggest evolution in terms of data today is that we’re relying more on cloud-based solutions.

Thanks to the cloud, data no longer has to reside on-site on expensive and tough-to-maintain servers. The cloud takes the management of all infrastructures out of the hands of the client and into those of the vendor. Furthermore, scalability is no longer an issue as cloud providers have virtually limitless amounts of space for data.

However, security remains an issue despite the fact that data doesn’t reside locally. Your network is still vulnerable to attack. Endpoints and IoT devices are areas where malware can be introduced. There is a need for a more dynamic scaling of security in an effort to respond to resources within networks that tend to change frequently.

The basic firewall is no longer safe, as data must be protected remotely. There also needs to be a shift in how we think about our devices and infrastructure. This includes physical and virtual devices extending to multi-cloud ecosystems.

At Access Tech, we can help you manage your digital transformation while keeping your data safe and secure. Our consultants are comprehensive in their approach, tailoring each solution to the unique needs of the client. Contact us today and let’s let talk about how we can streamline your services while saving you money.

Avoid These Common Cloud Migration Mistakes

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When an enterprise is planning a migration to the cloud, anticipated benefits are often discussed in epic terms. Scalability and no hardware investment are key statements that excite both IT personnel and line-of-business managers. With benefits ranging from reduced maintenance costs to increased agility, discussions of cloud migration can motivate your team.

It’s important that enterprises anticipate the bumps along the road in their journey to the cloud. Some of the common mistakes can turn what should be a positive experience into a costly venture with critical consequences. Take a look at a few common problems encountered in a cloud migration:

Migrating to the cloud without a governance strategy. While a governance strategy doesn’t have to be perfected before moving to the cloud, there should be steps in place for the most basic considerations, such as data backups and security monitoring. When companies begin using the cloud without taking steps to address the three major areas of governance (finance, security, and monitoring), costly problems can quickly start piling up.

Moving everything to the cloud. This move may be appropriate in some cases, but many enterprises make the mistake of implementing sweeping transitions to the cloud, without enough consideration of whether or not an application is cloud-ready. It’s easy to negatively impact performance, customer experience, and even the bottom line if cloud migration is pushed too quickly. Many companies work out a hybrid approach as they get settled into cloud systems and find that it is both efficient and cost-effective.

Assuming the cloud services provider handles everything. It’s ideal when an enterprise finds a cloud services provider that feels like an extension of their own IT division, but it’s critical to have a clear understanding of the responsibilities of each party. For instance, cloud services generally include some security features, but the enterprise needs to know exactly where those begin and end. They need to know who is responsible for damages in the event of a breach and what measures are in place to prevent one.

Making assumptions about performance. Don’t wait for end users to complain that order processing has slowed down. Develop key performance indicators (KPIs) to help you determine performance with the cloud versus your legacy system. Consumers have high standards when it comes to system performance, so it’s important not to lose ground when you move to the cloud.

At Access Tech, we begin by performing an audit of your current systems, identifying its weaknesses and strengths. We then can pinpoint areas for cost reduction and performance improvements. By taking a disciplined, comprehensive approach, Access Tech helps you sidestep common cloud mistakes. Make an appointment with us to talk more about your move to the cloud.

Cybersecurity Risks at the Enterprise Level

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Dtex Systems recently released a study that shows how inadequately prepared enterprises are for an insider cybersecurity attack. The Dtex study found that nearly half of the cybersecurity professionals surveyed see detection and mitigation as their major focus. However, there is a growing concern related to insider attacks in organizations across a variety of industries.

Almost 61 percent of security teams find that insider threats are easy to overlook as they are difficult to detect, but external attacks are easier to identify. A big concern for these professionals is employees who make careless mistakes that lead to data breaches. These are situations where the employee doesn’t even know they’ve compromised the system until it’s too late.

Many enterprise organizations continue to struggle with bring your own device (BYOD) challenges. More than half of respondents in the report said there are BYOD concerns related to devices with access to sensitive data, and that these devices have led to an increase in cybersecurity attacks at their organizations.

Training isn’t enough to prevent these issues from coming up. While user training is the leading method used in preventing attacks, nearly 60 percent of those surveyed say it’s not enough.

Cyberthreats are becoming more and more difficult to defend against as the methods through which systems are breached become more intelligent. Hackers know how to leverage technology to find weak spots within enterprises and retrieve valuable data. Yet humans are proving to be the pain point when it comes to vulnerability. It’s critical to pinpoint the most effective methods for detecting threats inside your company before the damage is done.

Everything from better training to more advanced malware detection tools and antivirus platforms has thus far failed to provide a defensible position for enterprises. Advanced user behavior intelligence solutions could be a more advantageous approach to gaining visibility and context with regard to how users are utilizing the system.

At Access Tech, we’re keeping an eye on the threats that are occurring today and a finger on the pulse of what’s happening in the future. As the telecom industry grows more complex, we’re committed to making sure our clients are safe, secure, and satisfied. Contact us today to discuss your concerns, your goals, and your needs.

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