Review Policies and Procedures for Backups, Firewalls, Data Ports, and Email Security

 

 

Do you know for certain how vulnerable your IT systems are? The fact is that computers and other modern devices are becoming more vulnerable to cyber-attacks week over week. Hackers are eager to explore vulnerabilities in the age where most sensitive information at exchanged and stored digitally. As a business leader, you understand the value of knowing your IT system cannot be easily manipulated and all connections are safe. Not just that, but you would also like to be confident that your backups are working as expected and you can indeed retrieve your data safely and quickly should a cyberattack threaten it. 

 

Creating and maintaining a reliable security system is a long-term commitment for most businesses. The aim is to achieve a reasonable environment where businesses can rely on a set of policies and procedures that can be used to verify compliance and proper functioning of backups, firewalls, data ports, and email security. These policies will help your business safely handle the risk associated with the latest technologies they want to adopt.

 

 

Review Policies and Procedures 

 

Companies normally appoint a person to be in charge of cybersecurity while setting the infrastructure for a security program. This person will be in charge of developing a strategy for monitoring their company’s vulnerability using security systems, fully transparent work processes, and detailed policies and practices. If a separate cybersecurity specialist is not in your budget, a managed service provider can engage a team of IT and cybersecurity experts in a review project to get all your policies up to speed. 

 

These policies are particularly important in public corporations or organizations that work in regulated sectors like education, banking, insurance, or healthcare. If their procedures and policies are considered insufficient, these companies risk facing significant financial penalties and legal consequences. 

 

 

Why Review Your Firewall Policies? 

 

Firewall policies and audits are receiving a lot of coverage due to criteria like SOX, PCI DSS, ISO 27001, and HIPAA. If you’re not following these requirements, you will be required to demonstrate that the system infrastructure is safe to maintain business partnerships with specific suppliers and customers.

 

Reviewing the firewall security analysis identifies bugs, firewall software design, and security policies. It will help you identify vulnerabilities in your data security strategy and decide where strategies have to be modified. They will also help you demonstrate proper diligence in updating your network protections and policy in the case of a dispute or other situation that brings your security protocols under scrutiny.

 

Advantages of Reviewing Firewall Policies

 

• Improves the efficacy of firewall policies
• Assists in assessing when the best standard is being used
• Confirms that no bugs or flaws exist
• Identify challenges that a standard solution cannot
• ENsures compliance with HIPAA, PCI DSS, and NIST CSF.

 

 

Why Review Your Backups Policies?

 

Your software, applications, network information, files, security specifications, and other aspects of IT infrastructure are being regularly backed up by your IT department or an MSP. But what do you know about their data backup policies?

 

A backup policy identifies the significance of data backups, establishes the basic standards for backup management, execution, and validation. Reviewing the data backup policies also guarantees that sensitive data is backed up to protected storage devices in a secure place and can be retrieved in a complete state and on a reasonable timeline. This procedure includes a complete backup of files onto disk followed by a sequence of gradual or conditional regular backups.

 

This implies that information from software systems like email server servers, Oracle, and Microsoft SQL is saved to disk (which can be hosted on a remote secure server) to ensure data recovery in the case of data loss, manipulation, or a device malfunction. Servers, network modules, and other network equipment and sensitive applications are protected by the policy’s standard protection scheme.

 

 

Advantages of Reviewing Data Backups Policies

 

• The backup policy specifies the contacts that are in charge of backups, as well as their details.
• You get complete control over the backup procedures.  
• A backup protocol outlines unique rules, and obligations, as well as a well-defined backup plan, resulting in a more reliable operation.
• Comprehensive backup policies are more likely to result in complete data restoration.

 

 

Why Review Data Ports Policies?

 

Every hacker’s first step is to gather data, and port scanning and other similar methods are used to extract pertinent data. There are around 65,000 types of ports available and it is a challenging task to check them all. Checks of ports are often overlooked in review policies. But it’s commonly thought to be irrational to neglect network, traffic, and port surveillance.

 

Although checking open ports is an important security feature, it is far from simple, as ports open and close depending on the network or firewall operation. For communication, several protocols and programs utilize different ports. Reviewing the port policies can set a benchmark for port activity and enable automatic notifications for any unusual activity by using an appropriate port/network management solution.

Advantage of Reviewing Data Ports Policies

 

• Tracking becomes almost completely automatic with time
• Easy to detect any deviations in processes, software, and hardward
• Allows IT staff to concentrate on other business-critical tasks

 

 

Why Review Email Security Policies?

 

Aside from correspondence, email is used to transmit sensitive documents and information. Moreso, did you know that email can now act as proof against a corporation in legal proceedings? In other words, you want to keep your email safe and secure. E-mail security policies address such aspects of daily email use as unauthorized user entry and delivery, the introduction of malicious software, ransomware as well as other privacy concerns and productivity decreases.

 

You can enforce a rigid e-mail security policy to provide maximum protection. The company will minimize residual threats by precisely defining what activities constitute permissible usage of organization-provided devices, systems, processes, and e-mail accounts, as well as the consequences that arise from policy violations.

 

Advantages of Reviewing Email Security Policies

 

• Excludes the possibility of a message replay and other attacks
• Creates protocol for repudiating sent messages
• Eliminates the potential business threats
• Secures your sensitive data

 

  

Your organization’s privacy policy should cover a wide range of issues including system and information segmentation, identification and access control, and more. When the new policy has been developed and introduced into the organization, it should be revised at least 2 times per year to keep it up to date. Additional analysis can also be conducted in the case of major updates. Reviewing your policies for backups, firewalls, ports, and email is critical for ensuring the security and efficiency of your systems. 

 

Ready to conduct your first policy audit? Get in touch with security experts at 3nom to get started!