Minimizing Corporate Risk through Technology

by Dave Moorman

Risk is all around us. It’s beside us as we step off a sidewalk and cross a street; it’s seated next to us every time we fly in an airplane or drive a car. It’s our constant companion, and some experts say this causes humans to inadequately recognize the importance of risk mitigation.

In life, that’s a good thing, to a degree. It’s gotten humans where they are, today. For example, if we stopped to adequately assess the risks in hurtling ourselves across town in a metal bucket (a car) at 60 miles per hour, we might never go anywhere.

In business, the opposite is true. Inadequate risk mitigation can be highly destructive to a company’s future prospects; it should be one of every company’s top objectives. And, with technology playing such an important role in business achievement, it must be a core consideration in this process.

So, where are you in the risk management and mitigation process? Do you have valid reason to believe you have adequately shielded both your business assets and technology infrastructure from possible loss, damage or theft? For most businesses, the answer is either “No,” or “I don’t know.” (If you answered “Yes,” give me two minutes to persuade you otherwise.)

What constitutes risk management and mitigation as it relates to technology? A successful approach encompasses all the following activities, and more:

• Network security management (including but not limited to virus blocking, spam filtering, intrusion detection, firewall monitoring and management, network device monitoring and management, and remote access—e.g. virtual private networks—management).
• Infrastructure security (restricting virtual and physical access to your servers and other core hardware)
• Monitoring and application of system changes, modifications and upgrades.
• Effective, replicable backup and recovery within a timeframe that works for your business objectives, both on-site and remotely.
• Desktop and device management (securing and managing access to the hardware and system resources that employees use for daily activities without hampering productivity).

Nested within these line items are many other operations, from policy management to data deduplication. Collectively, these activities represent the technology component of corporate security. And, although they are limited to technology, for most companies they protect against 90-95% of the most persistent and harmful threats.

Such a broad list of items may seem overwhelming to many, but when incorporated into a systematic approach to security, they are highly manageable. In fact, DynaSis manages all these activities for dozens of customers on a daily basis, without a hitch.

The gut-wrenching reality is that risks to businesses and their assets are greater than at any previous time in man’s history, and the task of protecting critical resources and precious intellectual property is more daunting. Fortunately, the weapons available to fight this war and its many battles are more robust and comprehensive that ever. Are you ready to enlist?