February 7, 2023

Is Outsourcing IT Support Right for Your Business?

cybersecurityIT securityit security auditit security networkit security servicesnetwork securitypenetration tests

The Spring-Summer’22 has demonstrated that if a group of technically skilled people wants to break into the company’s network, it will most likely do so. This was the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the so-called Anonymous group of hackers started chasing Russian governmental, military, and business entities to disclose the most sensitive state data. At the same time, Russian hackers broke into several US business and governmental networks, disrupting work services and resulting in data leaks. This situation showed the IT community how vulnerable the most protected networks are and again pointed out the importance of a high-level IT security audit.MWDN cybersecurity experts are here to help whenever you need to reinforce your in-house team with skilled IT security specialists. We have written this article for those who want to treat their information more cautiously and guarantee severe protection for their private and public networks. See what types of IT security exist, learn about some cybersecurity methods, and find out how your business should outsource IT security.

Three types of IT security

Even tech people sometimes use information security, network security, and cybersecurity as synonyms due to the overlap in their functions and meaning. These notions might have something in common, but there are also a lot of differences between the terms.

Information security

Information security is an umbrella term that often includes cyber and network security. The term appeared when the first secrets started to emerge. Today this term is synonymous with IT security. It includes all the methods and tools used to provide protection of information whenever it is stored – on a cloud, in the server, or on your mobile device.

Network security

Network security is a narrower term that means private and public network protection. Its main asset is an authentication algorithm that allows only authorized users to access or edit particular information.Network security is the first line of defense for your data. Apart from authentication protocols that allow or deny access, monitor traffic in your network, and prevent intrusions, network security also deals with the protection of hardware, like PCs, mobile phones, routers, switchers, and servers.

Cybersecurity

The cybersecurity department is meant to protect internet-connected systems. As in the modern world, there are almost no isolated systems, it becomes clearer why people often mix the terms IT security and cybersecurity. Cybersecurity specialists deal with external intruders into your networks and take care of the data protection on your cloud or server.Suppose a company gathers sensitive data and has a sufficient budget for protection. In that case, it should have specialists from all three directions, including Information Systems Security Officers, Cybersecurity Data Vulnerability Analysts, and Network Security Engineers. However, most companies, particularly small businesses, can’t afford a fully-fledged team of security specialists. As a rule, they have only an IT support department, which works with cybersecurity issues, trains new employees on security, and uploads new releases of antivirus software.

Methods used to protect digital information

99% of all tools and methods used to protect digital information provide testing of your networks and systems for vulnerabilities and malicious intrusions prevention. These principal functions are ensured by three crucial components of IT security that often go under the acronym CIA (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability). The CIA triad is a baseline standard for IT security.Confidentiality means that no unauthorized user will get access to your personal data. Integrity means that all your data remains intact, and no unauthorized user can make amendments to it.Availability means that all those who are authorized to check or amend information will be able to do so by getting relevant access to the data.

Levels of information protection

Let’s move through the security pyramid: From the basic levels of information protection, like authentication, to the more sophisticated tools, like penetration tests and other methods of IT security assessment.

Authentication

The network, app, or website needs to know if you’re authorized to access certain information. This is why you have to sign in or log in almost within every platform you’re using, starting from your office PC and up to your bank account. Authentication can be one, two, or three-factor.

One-factor authentication is when a login and a password are enough to let you into the system.
Two-factor authentication is about something that the user has, for example, a bank card, a PC, or a mobile phone.
Three-factor authentication is about something that the user is, like the face for face ID, fingertips, or the eye retina.

Firewalls

To make sure that users without authorization will not access your data, firewalls are used. These are network systems that monitor network traffic so they can react promptly in case of suspicious activity. A firewall is a kind of barrier that divides protected networks (like your home net) from unprotected environments (like public networks). While you can use a basic firewall with out-of-the-box security rules, you will have to write down more customized rules and algorithms for the enterprise firewall.

Antivirus software

These are intrusion-preventing or intrusion-detecting systems (two functions go together, as a rule) that help you promptly react to active and passive attacks on your network and gather data for further audit and analysis of your vulnerabilities. Multifunctional antivirus software that automatically collects data about your network traffic can be used as the first step of IT security monitoring.Thanks to the fast development of machine learning technologies, modern antiviruses know how to detect active and passive online attackers.

Security policies and response planning

Mistakes always happen, and there’s no way to eliminate them. But it’s the response to these mistakes that makes the difference. For this reason, you should ensure that your IT security department or your IT vendor knows what to do to recover from a disaster. Security policies and cyber incident response planning should be the first things your Information Systems Security Architect would work on. Your employees (or end users) should also be provided with security guidelines (for example, how should a reliable password look like).

IT security assessment

Security assessment includes testing methods that help you spot vulnerabilities and see how hackers might act to get access to your network.Penetration testing is one of the methods to simulate attacks and identify vulnerabilities in your system. Unfortunately, this kind of test is a challenging task that only highly skilled cybersecurity experts can perform, which is why it is often outsourced to companies specializing in IT security.Honey pot is another mechanism that helps prevent intrusions by detecting, deflecting, and counteracting unauthorized use of information systems. Honey pot is an isolated piece of data that might seem vulnerable to hackers but, in reality, stays under close surveillance of security engineers. This is a decoy that helps cybersecurity experts find out more about attackers’ techniques.If you don’t know where to start your security audit, check out some penetration techniques’ standard frameworks, methodologies, and tools:

Open web application security project (OWASP) that has created a guide for penetration testing.
Information systems security assessment framework (ISSAF) is a step-by-step guide for security assessment.
Open source security testing methodology manual (OSSTMM) will help your cybersecurity department evaluate the state of your networks and systems.

Types of information security your enterprise might need

Whatever your business is, you will need to take certain steps to guarantee the protection of its networks. Your IT security specialists will have to:– monitor your networks;– install software to protect you from fraudulent attacks;– conduct tests to indicate vulnerabilities in your system;– develop security standards and plans for disaster recovery;– make reports to provide further improvement of your IT security network.

IT security for small business

The median salary of a skilled IT security engineer is between $120 000 to $140 000 a year. Presuming that you need at least several experts to guarantee the protection of your data, maintaining an in-house IT security department becomes a luxury that most small businesses cannot afford.If this is your case, opt for outsourcing IT security. To have a coherent protection plan and maintain all security software updated, you don’t actually need a full-time cybersecurity specialist, so choose time and material outsourcing.

Financial institutions and healthcare providers’ protection

Banking systems, e-commerces, hospitals, and pharmacies all have to deal with sensitive data, which brings them to the risk zone. To guarantee the protection of your network and users, you will have to provide a full-scale security assessment. Moreover, the price of a security mistake in a bank network is much higher than in most other industries. So, the reason for outsourcing IT security is not the same as with small businesses. Here, you will have to delegate your IT security to skilled partners just to get access to the best business practices, tools, and talents on the market. Fortunately, plenty of IT security consulting services specialize particularly in protecting sensitive data like bank details and personal medical information.

Information security within governmental agencies

Since private companies are usually more competitive than bureaucratic governmental agencies, most state departments outsource their IT security. Moreover, due to the utmost importance of state information protection, most governmental agencies are in a risk zone and require an even higher level of IT security.We believe that government departments ought to delegate their cybersecurity to professionals who are state residents and have gone through security clearance. But what is a security clearance? It’s not precisely the IT security term; it’s more about the authorization of particular individuals to access specific, sometimes secret, state information.

Summing up

Protect your data without external professional help only if you have a high-class expert in-house. In other cases, do what you do best and outsource the rest to specialists. MWDN tech talents worked with several cybersecurity projects and have a deep understanding of the niche. Contact us now to find out more about our expertise.