J.P. Schwartz Security Services
Network Security Is Essential
Security risks come in many forms, but can be categorized by how they might affect your organization: loss of the ability to use, access, or trust your information; the possibility that critical company information falls into the wrong hands; or, that your systems are being misused causing public relations or legal problems. Network security is essential to any business operation and the engineers at J.P. Schwartz emphasize security solutions as a critical component of any business technology plan.
Regulatory Compliance Requirements Demand Robust Security Solutions
If your organization must meet government compliance regulations such as HIPAA, GLBA, FDIC, or Sarbanes-Oxley rules, you may have an employee and a set of policies and procedures designated to specifically address the requirements. While the details of each of these regulatory environments varies and often constitute good business practice anyway, they all should include risk analysis, a mitigation plan, an audit, continual improvement, and plans for dealing with security events such as loss of data. J.P. Schwartz has experience dealing with these complex requirements and helping organizations meet their regulatory obligations.
Network Security Begins with Good Company Policies
Information security starts with good policy. Well-designed information security policies give everyone in your organization an understanding of what is allowed, what is not allowed, what the security goals of your organization are and a way to monitor compliance with the policy. Good information security policies also put the company in a strong position legally, if action must be taken in the event of a security breach from within the company or from an external intrusion. J.P. Schwartz can help your organization with the development of a robust, easy-to-implement information security policy. Once a policy is in place, we can help you conduct a risk analysis, develop procedures to follow in case of a security event, complete a security audit, and make technology decisions to support your security needs.
Access Your Data When You Need It
J.P. Schwartz can make sure your data is available to your people when they need it. This is accomplished by making sure your equipment works properly, is capable of keeping up with demand, has redundancy built to cover likely failures, and that the entire workflow process is covered by disaster recovery and business continuity planning.
Protect Your Data From Tampering
We make sure your data is protected from both internal and external tampering, so that you can count on the accuracy of the information. A comprehensive system of backups, encryption, logging, auditing, and proper setting of users’ rights or permissions will give you confidence that the information you rely upon for business operations has not been tampered with.
Prevent Sensitive Information From Being Misused
J.P. Schwartz can help you protect your data so that it does not fall into the wrong hands. Utilizing firewalls, antivirus software, employing device hardening techniques, updated certificates, permission-based authentication, and IPSec or SSL-based virtual private networks (VPNs) are just some of the ways we can configure your network for security. We will analyze traffic leaving the network, not just requests for information coming in at the firewall because a common security problem is that malware or spyware can automatically send data from your computers to unknown external locations. We also look at where data is stored and how it is accessed. When needed, data can be stored in encrypted formats so that if equipment is physically compromised or stolen, your data is not. Storage of backup media is an often overlooked security risk. If backup media is stolen and the data is not encrypted, it’s just as compromised as if the thief came in through the internet, or stole a company laptop.
Misused Computer Systems Can Leave Your Business Vulnerable and Liable
J.P. Schwartz engineers can help protect your critical systems from misuse. Receiving spam unnecessarily uses bandwidth, server capacity and interrupts workflow. And if you don’t want to get spam, you certainly don’t want to send it. A compromised system can be misused to send spam, attack other networks, organize identity theft operations, store pornography or illegal software, and a whole host of other activities that reflect badly on your business and eat up equipment capacity for non-business purposes. Worse than that, your business can be held liable for these activities and for failing to prevent them. Systems can also be misused by employees. Installing games, screen savers, or surfing inappropriate sites can cause system crashes, poor performance, or legal problems that are best avoided. Firewalls, content management systems, desktop security suites, intrusion detection or prevention systems, and a solid acceptable use policy are good methods for preventing misuse of your computer system.
Securing Your System Requires a Comprehensive Approach
Many security technologies overlap each other, or provide solutions to multiple risks. Often your hardware choices, such as the type of switches used, can provide significant security protection. Beyond the hardware, in general, we use two guiding principals to make sure your network is safe. The first is the principle of least access. This simply means that we deny access to critical systems and information as a default, and only allow access if the person or equipment making the request is approved. The second guiding principal is defense in depth. This simply means that we are going to protect your systems in multiple ways. Firewalls, servers, and security methods all have vulnerabilities. Granted, some security methods are better than others, but no one solution is completely secure. Knowing this, we will design a comprehensive, interrelated security system to block viruses at the firewall, email server, and desktop, for example, or prevent users from installing unapproved software, and set workstation permissions so that individuals don’t have permission to change system files. All of these tools in combination provide a much better level of protection than any one alone.
Security Protection Needs are Unique to Each Business
We realize that network security comes on a sliding scale. No system is perfectly secure, and if so, it does not stay that way for long. While it is always possible to spend more money on security, it does not always make good business sense to do so. Our approach is to identify the risks, identify the likelihood of a given risk, and assign a cost to the potential damage of that risk. This allows us to evaluate security products and processes specifically for your business. If a security risk is likely and will cause a lot of damage, it is worth a good deal of protection. If a risk is unlikely and will not cause any real or lasting damage to your company, then a less robust, less expensive solution may be better. Determining the proper level of security for your organization is like investing in insurance – to be protected, you want the right kind and the right amount.
Choose J.P. Schwartz for All of Your Security Needs
Our engineers and designers work regularly with all aspects of network security so that we can help you establish good security protocols, choose equipment with good security features, and use a comprehensive approach to data access and storage to give your organization the level of security and protection best suited to your needs. Contact J.P. Schwartz today. We will evaluate your current security systems, suggest changes to improve protection while maintaining system performance, look for cost-saving alternatives to current approaches, and help you to plan for future security issues or changes.
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