CEOs, Do You Have Keys to Your Own Network?

With the mountain of responsibilities in front of modern CEOs along with the lack of time that many have, it's no wonder lower priority initiatives take a backseat or get outsourced. But are you overlooking some critical aspects of your business that keep it running and secure? Can you answer the following question:

Who's holding the keys to your network?
If you can't answer that confidently then you could have a potential problem on your hands — a big problem. You have heard about cybercrime and threats to your business on the web, but do you have a clear idea of how your network was set up, who holds the keys to your network, and how you can access your network?

Keeping in direct contact with your IT department whether internal or external is extremely important. Your team might know who holds the keys to your network, but if you don't know, then who are you going to call? How will you have a potential security threats dealt with if you don't know who to turn to?

How much access should my employees have?

A lack of communication can be harmful in many ways, especially when it comes to network security. Imagine an employee with key info about your network quits his job, falls sick, or even worse, passes away. This would leave you without the knowledge of accessing your own network, causing a time consuming task of getting back into your network. If you give network and security access to everyone, many other problems could arise when people change settings or investigate. Without proper identity and access management controls in place, employees may end up with excess access to data that they should not be in control of.

Turning to a third party to handle your network security can be beneficial but you shouldn't see this as a completely hands off experience. You need to be able to trust that they are making the right decisions about your network and your business, after all, they're the barrier between the threats of the online world and your company's profits. Do you know which platforms your vendor is using, if you are nearshore outsourcing is there a suitable overlap in order to know if they are online?

Leaving this responsibility solely in the hands of a single IT employee is not advised either, with a heavy workload on their hands, security management may not be at the top of their to-do list. Don't let the login information for your network get lost because you are overworking your teams, and always insist on knowing best practices.

Outline responsibilities of network access
Always have a clear understanding of who has the keys to your network, know best practices when it comes to passwords and login codes, and always communicate with your IT team. The security of your network isn't something you can just think of once and then forget about. These days, the condition of your network is in direct correlation with the health of your business. With the routine maintenance, patching, upgrades and constant monitoring required, it's a task that can be too much for your IT department to handle. But not for the IT experts at Coordinated Business Systems, we perform routine maintenance, patches, upgrades, and proactively monitor your network to ensure it stays in top condition. Preventing your network from going down is significantly more cost-effective than trying to recover from downtime or even cyberattacks. Why not request one of our free consultations today?