Monday, 10 June 2013

How to secure network services in small and medium businesses?

Keyword: network security, small and medium business, network security software, wireless network security, enterprise network security, techvedic

Description
Amidst growing e-threats and cyber snooping, network security is matter of concern for small and medium businesses. Techvedic, a leading IT support provider for home and small and medium business mulls on to discover security measures that can make a difference.

Solution:
Go through the below step-by-step solution to know about the network security measures required for your small and medium-sized business:

1.    Network Access control: Protecting LAN should be the priority. Setup a Windows domain and give authentication based access to every individual in your network. Remember, not to create any generic user-name in the network. Every network resource, i.e. computers, servers and printers need to be a part of the domain.
2.   Workstation access control: Every employee in the organization should access his/her workstation using the assigned username. This will ensure that all the access gets locked, when queried in an unauthorized manner. Administrative access should be denied to individual users. Thus, it would resist any unauthorized installation of any software or configuration of any hardware piece, which could invoke potential threats to your business.
3.      Disable media drives connectivity: It is practically impossible to put a watch on employees, and resist them from using any sorts of   floppy disk, or USB drive or CD drive, so it’s wise to disable any such accessibility right that could put your network security at a stake.

4.   Install a network firewall:  Different firewall options are available from big and small players. After consulting with an IT expert (services required, convenience, and scalability might factor in to the final design of your firewall), you should go for installing a suitable network firewall that can effectively check incoming and outgoing traffics. Further, make sure that desired ports are enabled/disabled as per business needs.

5.      Anti-virus protection: All workstations must be equipped with compatible security software. Apart from that you must ensure that the automatic product renewal and update features are enabled. Considering the lab testing results from independent testing agencies like AV-Comparatives, AV-Test, VB100, or others, you can conclude about the right kind of antivirus protection.
6.   Install an e-mail / web security software: You must ensure that all the incoming and outgoing e-mails are scanned before entering or leaving the system or network. To make it happen, you should install a suitable Web security solution from a reputed brand.
7.      Avoid Internet-based e-mail usage: It’s hard to maintain a record of messages exchanged via Internet-based email service providers. These e-mail services elevate the vulnerability quotient as such communication are not scanned or monitored by your enterprise e-mail security software. Hence, such Internet e-mail sites should be blocked on your network. Similarly, you should prohibit Internet message boards, blogs and Chat systems, which are often responsible for network intrusions.
8.    Secure other network devices: Facilities regarding “work from home” or “work on the move” may also invite subtle risks. Hence, if you are entertaining such business, you need to actively monitor or examine the logs of such device accessibility.
9.     Devise a backup strategy:  Irrespective of the network security, you should be prepared to combat any unpleasant situation. And for that, you need to regularly create backup of all valuable data with a reliable data backup solution either desktop-or cloud-based.
10.  Network security patch management: On regular basis, you should keep updating the operating system and installed applications and integrated cloud-services for secured and stable computing performance across the network.
11.  Physical security: Often, you skip network physical security aspect. But you must not.  Your organization should at no cost entertain any unknown or unauthorized individual. The security may also incorporate equipping individual PCs with privacy screen, practicing standard process like locking the machine when not in use, and others.
12.  Network Security Policy- Each and every step discussed above must be implemented strictly into your network. And regarding the Internet access, e-mail and network access, there should be a perfectly documented policy. Apart from internal employees, your business partners, affiliates, or guests should take your network policy seriously.


Congrats! You have successfully learned the various aspects of network security.  Hopefully, it would help you to protect your business against emerging e-threats and any unauthorized access. For more suggestions, contact our computer support helpdesk, as per below contact-details:

U.S. +855-859-0057
U.K. +800-635-0716
CA  1-855-749-5861
AU  1-800-197-298 
We would be more than happy to help you. We are available 24/7.

By-The Xpert Crew @ http://techvedic.com 







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