By Samantha Woollard (Internet Security Specialist) 30 January 2017
Companies may be aware that they need to have penetration tests and vulnerability assessments at least annually, but what about your security every other day during the year. Security is an ongoing process and while both these measures help to secure your company, new vulnerabilities are uncovered every day.
80% of external attacks take advantage of known vulnerabilities that have either have not been patched within the software or systems that are misconfigured. Continual monitoring and scanning of your systems are encouraged within your company. This preventative method in turn will make a huge difference in increasing your security.
Software may be safe and secure one day, and the next it could be riddled with new found vulnerabilities. Just as security experts blog about new threats and alerts to everyone, this also alerts hackers about the weak points present. Using this information, they can generate new attacks and exploits against software that has not been updated.
Implementing firewalls and IDS/IPS (Intrusion detection/prevention systems) is a good step to securing your company, however do not solely rely on them. These also come with their weaknesses and often hackers can get around them without being detected. Continual monitoring of the traffic within your network can quickly identify unusual activity that could result in the compromise of sensitive data. Anything strange such as a large data transfer or unapproved encrypted requests should alert your security team and be looked further into.
Companies should be on top of their vulnerability management to ensure rapid updates to software and if needed, fixes to networks and/or applications. By frequently scanning and evaluating the state of your security, you can pick up fresh emerging threats, constant changes to software and help you mitigate the risk your systems are under. Without it, many holes could go undetected until the next vulnerability assessment or penetration test, leaving you wide open for attack.
To perform a precise process of protecting your company, you need to implement the right tools to your system as well as scheduled vulnerability assessments and penetration tests. These tools need to be convenient and easy to use, provide accurate results, be affordable and not impact the day-to-day operations of your business. Vulnerability scanners are the most effective when implemented into a company that are determined on strengthening their security. Applying a good strategy to tighten your security can save you money. The costs of damage and repercussions of an attack can be extremely severe.
Intact Security have a wide range of highly recommended tools for all situations and will help reduce your attack surface. Be it to stamp down on malware on machines, detect active lurking threats in your systems or monitor devices connected to your network, we will help patch your security. Get an advantage over the cyber attackers!
Relax. Your security is Intact.
Author: Intact Security
