subject: Auditing your IT infrastructure – Security [print this page] Auditing your IT infrastructure Security
As small businesses become more reliant on technology, IT security has coming become more important. But you are not an IT security expert. Atechnology audit will be able to identify patterns and security holes that might be making your business venerable.
An IT audit will also identify Inefficiencies in your technology infrastructure and workflow. This can be help for a small business that has recently seen rapid growth and put little thought into how old and new technology effects the way the business runs.
Securing your Technology
Networks are a thing of mystery to many people. When setting up an office, your first impulse is to buy a plug and play router like you have at home. While that is a good place to start, they are not great at handling a large number of computers. They are also not the most secure. Since they are designed for consumer use, the makers are not always as fast at providing updates that might fix security holes. Atechnology audit will help you find and fix issues before something happens.
We all know that we would be running anti-virus and anti-spam software on our computers. An IT audit will identify potential issues with data verification and ensure backups are in place for day-to-day need and disaster recovery. This minimizes the risk of data loss or theft from your network.
Finding Inefficiencies
As small business open and grow the technology we employ to makes work easier gets in the way. When you first open a business money is tight and your first reaction is to go for value over quality. When you only have two or three computers sharing an internet connection, an off the shelf router is going to be enough. That all-in-one inkjet printer from home gets the job done when you only need to print a few pages a week. Any off the shelf Dell computer is going to be fine when you are just invoicing a few clients.
But as a business grows these tools begin to get in the way. That router suddenly begins to fail when there are 15 people trying to share a connection. The all-in-one inkjet printer can no longer keep up with all the printing, copy, and fax when you are going two a case of paper a week. That Dell computer is now 5 years old and has been crashing a lot. All of these things are going to slow down your business. What happens if the computer's hard drive fails or the fire sprinklers go off in the middle of the night?
The goal of an IT audit is to take a holistic look at your business's entire IT infrastructure and determine where the inefficiencies. After looking at all aspects of a business's technology, the auditor will present a report with suggestions, time lines and goals. This outline can be used a roadmap for upgrading your IT needs and eliminating Inefficiencies.
