Taking Control Of Your Company’s Infrastructure Security

With each passing day, another company is being forced to deal with a breach, a cyber attack, or some other type of damage/threat to their organization's infrastructure. In this article, we'll discuss how to take more control over your company's infrastructure security and why it matters now. Keep reading to learn more.

Definition Of Infrastructure Security

To be better equipped to handle your infrastructure security, you must take the right steps to understand your needs and what cyber/infrastructure security actually means. In most organizations, the concept of infrastructure security pretty much refers to techniques the companies use to safeguard their critical infrastructure. This can include cyber and physical threats. Infrastructure isn't limited to cyber assets, cloud assets, or technology. It can be related to power grids, transportation systems, internet of things, communication networks, and more. The goal of infrastructure security in this context is to help organizations develop plans to protect their critical systems from attack or disruption. A disruption can cause damage to finances, reputation, employees, customers and even cause potential legal problems in some cases. Effective infrastructure security means taking a comprehensive approach to monitoring, risk management, threat assessment, and incident response plans. It also means developing mitigation strategies to keep fallout from problems / attacks to a minimum.

Identifying Risks & Vulnerabilities 

Part of infrastructure security involves identifying risks and vulnerabilities. According to cyber security experts, performing regular risk assessments and risk audits can be helpful for setting up an overall infrastructure security plan. Such activities can help identify potential threats, identify vulnerabilities, and help you understand the likelihood or impact of an attack on your systems. Moreover, infrastructure security requires monitoring systems for suspicious activity, anomalies, or just plain weird activities. Regular monitoring and education on current / emerging threats is a big part of this endeavor. Whether it's using intrusion detection / prevention systems, firewalls, antivirus systems, restricting privileges, or taking other security precautions, you can create better security by using the tools at your disposal

Training Employees

Infrastructure security is a critical aspect of any organization's risk management strategy but some of that success largely depends on training employees on proper risk management and mitigation procedures. Employees must also understand the importance of the company's infrastructure and the best possible ways to protect it through their own actions. Employees can accidentally cause issues for a company's infrastructure. They can also do so intentionally through insider threats. Limiting access and ensuring employees understand best practices and protocols for protecting infrastructure is essential to safeguarding your assets. Employees should also be alert to any unusual activity and understand reporting or mitigation procedures. Effective training can come in many forms. You can set up a learning management system, create workshops or seminars, or create a set of documentation that employees can reference anytime they work. By ensuring employees are aware of how to check for risks and manage them, you can ensure proper infrastructure security throughout the organization.

Creating Access Controls

Creating access controls for your company's infrastructure is another critical component of infrastructure security. Access controls pretty much ensure that only authorized personnel can access your critical systems data. This requires setting privileges, establishing multi-factor authentication codes, setting up password best practices, creating identity and access management systems, encrypting end points, creating backups, and using other types of access controls to limit access to privilege systems. This can be something like Discretionary Access Control (which allows only administrators and owners to access resources), Mandatory Access Control (rules defined by an administrator) or role-based access. Whatever the case, controlling access is critical to security and doing so will be significantly helpful to overcoming the challenge of creating better infrastructure security.

Reinforcing Infrastructure Security 

Reinforcing your company's infrastructure security doesn't have to be difficult but it does require some commitment and prioritization. Companies must implement the culture of security and auditing to stay on top of emerging threats. It's also important to patch vulnerabilities, test for them, and utilize the right tools / technology to get the job done right. Using infrastructure security and monitoring can be a valuable way to keep track of your remote workforce, maintain visibility into your infrastructure, and automate monitoring/reporting for potential threats. It's a good way to identify gaps and provide insight into any potential problems so you can minimize damage, downtime, or other concerns. Overall, infrastructure security requires continuous monitoring and improvement to protect your company's most vital assets.