As businesses rely on technology more and more, the "if it's not broke, don't fix it" mantra is becoming obsolete.
IT has evolved beyond simply maintaining a working system; it now must also focus on security, vulnerability management, and proactive scanning of infrastructure. Managed services are the key to bridging the gap between business as usual and security, ensuring that clients and businesses receive the best of both worlds.
Here at The Missing Link, we’re constantly striving to remain at the forefront of the intersection of IT and cyber security.
So, let’s take a look at some of the ways in which the IT industry has evolved towards combining security awareness and managed services – and how your organisation can follow suit.
The shift from "never touch a running system" to security awareness
The mindset around IT maintenance has shifted over the past few years. The days of "never touch a running system" are gone, and security awareness has become a top priority.
IT professionals must consider vulnerabilities, exploitation, hackers, and other attacks when it comes to setting up and maintaining their infrastructure. It's essential to understand:
- How you will back up and restore data in the event of an unexpected outage,
- Different levels of restoration; and,
- The risks around data loss.
By diving deep into these considerations and taking control, IT professionals can build confidence around maintaining and hosting services.
Automation and monitoring: freeing up space and building confidence
As IT professionals have become more security aware, they have also transitioned from manually restarting servers on the weekends to relying on automation.
The emergence of automation tools such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and innovative endpoint management vendors like HCL BigFix are incredibly helpful.
An RPA solution, for example, could generate a daily email highlighting new security vulnerabilities (CVEs), saving approximately two hours of a real team member’s time (something that is already a reality here at The Missing Link. Sourcing information about security vulnerabilities is task traditionally completed by manually scanning the news, industry blogs and other sources as often as possible.
The potential of automation for the IT department doesn’t stop there. Tools like HCL BigFix are allowing restarts to occur without manual intervention, freeing up space in the calendar to focus on manual actions that require attention. Monitoring tools have also been essential in building confidence around IT services, informing IT professionals when critical services are not coming up.
Proactive scanning and vulnerability management
New tools and platforms have emerged to aid IT professionals in proactive scanning of infrastructure for vulnerabilities. With these tools, IT professionals can generate an attack plan, evaluate criteria, and build metrics to make services more secure. Patching and reconfiguring settings are some examples of security measures that can be taken to address vulnerabilities.
Managed Services: Bridging the gap between business as usual and security
Managed services are the key to bridging the gap between business as usual and security, ensuring that clients and businesses receive the best of both worlds. With automation, monitoring, proactive scanning, and vulnerability management, IT professionals can confidently maintain and host services while also keeping them secure.
The Missing Link understands the confidence and control needed to maintain and host services securely. We regularly guide clients in achieving their patch goals in two or three weeks. When you work with a managed services provider like us, you gain access to experts with a deep understanding of infrastructure and the needs of modern businesses, who can guide you towards the right solutions.
The "if it's not broke, don't fix it" mantra no longer holds in the world of IT. The shift towards security awareness has created a need for IT professionals to focus on vulnerability management and proactive scanning of infrastructure.
Contact us to see how we can help you break the status quo and become more secure today.
