Picture this. You are taking off your reading glasses, putting down a good book, and are now ready to close your eyes and get some rest after a long day. Then you start thinking about a conversation you had earlier with a friend whose business recently got hacked. They lost data and they are now tirelessly trying to recover important files. Hopefully, they can recoup these files right away and get back to business as usual.
Just as you are drifting to sleep, thoughts about your IT and what would happen to your business start to creep in. Some of the thoughts that might be circulating in your brain are the following…
“IS MY BUSINESS SECURE?”
This is a question that you should be asking yourself and your IT professionals often as things like technology can change rapidly. Understanding what is needed to keep your business secure and how your IT partner supports this is important. Are they identifying things like expiration dates for your hardware like firewalls and switches? Items like these may seem simple but they are essential to keep your business secure. A large investment of your IT professional’s time should be focused on identifying and mitigating risks to your business.
“DO I HAVE CURRENT BACKUPS?”
One of an organization’s most valuable assets is its information. Without information, it becomes significantly more difficult to successfully run the organization. Server backups are an important part of a business’s continuity strategy. Since it is so important, you should be aware of who is checking your backups, how the backups are being done, and how often. There should be additional offsite secure data backups you can access if the original backups result in data corruption or hard drive failure. Your backups should be as current as possible so you can restore information right where they left off.
“HOW LONG CAN MY BUSINESS SURVIVE IF MY SERVER CRASHES?”
As server hardware ages, it becomes considerably more unpredictable causing crashes and failures. Recovery is possible but can take up to several business days. Knowing the action steps your business would take if your server crashed is critical to your business continuity. By identifying what your priorities are, your IT professionals can provide all of the steps necessary after a server crash. For example, if your business has five applications on five servers, and each of them takes two hours to recover, which applications do you need running first? You may also want to consider leveraging technology like cloud services which can improve access to and reliability of company resources.
“WHO HAS ACCESS TO FOLDERS WITH IMPORTANT INFORMATION?”
When staff members have access to file folders they don’t need, it is easy for confidential information to either go missing or shared with those who shouldn’t see it. For example, Jenny at the front desk should not have access to the Human Resources folder that holds sensitive information unless it is necessary for her to complete her job duties. Having good folder security, roles clearly defined and kept clean can help a company’s confidence that confidential information is restricted to only those who need access.
These topics can sound like a lot in your head but when broken down and discussed with experts in the IT field, they become simple and invaluable. These thoughts are common and that is why we have a team at Yardstick that focuses on creating strategies that cover all the IT questions that you might be losing sleep over. At Yardstick, you can expect an approach to your technology that considers all risks to your business and puts a strategy in place to mitigate these risks.
Contact Yardstick today to learn more about our services and find out how we can help you shed the late-night IT what-ifs.
