The Threat Within

What’s the biggest threat to a company’s network security? Viruses? Hackers? Worms? The NSA? It’s none of the above. The weakest point are the users. That’s right, the same people that you trust to use the computers that you want to protect are the ones that are putting it at risk, according to a recent study by the Ponemon Institute. 78% of companies that took part in this study blame their employees for being careless or negligent when following the company’s security policies. Think about it; no matter how secure a computer is (within reason, otherwise the user cannot do their job) the user is the one making security decisions every minute they spend in front of that computer. “Should I click on this Facebook banner ad?”, “This email looks official, let me download the attachment and unzip it”, “Looks like I won the Lottery, even though I’ve never played”

Email is one of the most likely vectors to get a computer infected. Some estimates say that 90% of all email traveling through the internet is spam. Even though that statistic is probably overblown, the amount of spam out there keeps growing by the day. A lot of that spam is not just trying to sell you prescription pills or knockoff watches, but they are also trying to get your personal information and/or delivering an infection. The worst thing is that they spammers are getting smarter and making some of their emails more and more difficult to tell from the real deal. This method of spamming is called Phishing, which is very common and can even evade most spam detectors.

Educating the users is the best solution to keep computer and networks safe. There are many ways to keep a network safe with different devices and programs that will do an excellent job. However, at the end of the day, it’s the user who holds the power with their keyboard and mice to keep the computer out of dangerous situations. Now that companies are beginning to realize just how important is for their employees to be aware of the responsibility they have keeping the company safe from intrusion, it’s up to the company to find a way to better educate the employees at staying safe. This does not mean that traditional methods of security need to go out the window; these two philosophies are complimentary, not orthogonal, to each other.

Spending money in security is not the waste of money a lot of SMB’s (and even some big corporations) think it is. In fact, it’s the opposite; it helps the business to not lose money. Just like the saying, there is more than one way to skin a cat, there is more than one approach towards network security. Whatever your philosophy is, making sure it is well implemented is the biggest hurdle.

At TRA consulting, our philosophy is to be proactive when it comes to desktop and network security. We combine end point tools which can monitor, alert, patch, script, and have the ability to provide remote support. All these tools and more can help you keep your computer and network safe at a fraction of the price of a full-time IT staff. We have many satisfied customers in the Long Beach, Orange County, Southbay, Greater Los Angeles Area, San Diego, Arizona, and Midwest.

Our Motto is “Maximum Satisfaction, Minimum Fuss”. Call us today for a free consultation!