Five Cyber Security and IT questions your business needs answers to!

By: Reuben Leach, Commercial Manager

I attended the Region Cyber Trust Forum run by Bedfordshire Police on 24^th May. The Forum is designed for businesses such as PCS to get together and to exchange ideas in order to promote good Cyber Security practice.

Amongst many other ideas that were discussed, a representative from a competing Managed Service Provider (MSP) made an interesting point. He said there should be some sort of list that businesses can use to check that their existing IT provider is able to provide them services that allow for best practice where Cyber Security is concerned.

During the hour long drive back from the meeting in Luton to the PCS offices, I gave this some thought. What questions could be asked of an IT service provider, or in-house IT team, to allow them to demonstrate that best practice is being followed?

As is the way with Cyber Essentials and the Regional Cyber Trust’s own “Bunch of Fives”.

I’ve chosen the following five key points:

1. How quickly and easily can you retrieve the business data your organisation is backing up? Have you tested the process recently? Ask to see a working demonstration of the process in action.

2. When was the last time Software on your systems was patched? This includes Windows Server Software, Operating Systems and software from organisations such as Adobe.

3. Is your IT supplier or service provider following best practice themselves? Are they certified to a recognised Information/Cyber Security standard such as ISO27001 or Cyber Essentials.

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4. What partnerships does your IT provider have? For instance, do they hold professional partnerships with Microsoft? This is a key way to check the professional competency of your IT partner as organisations such as Microsoft set the bar very high to become one of their partners and display their logo as a Gold partner.

5. How robust are your systems and processes from a Cyber Security perspective? How strong is your password policy? When was the last time your business reviewed its Firewall configuration? Is access on systems locked down so information is only available on a “Need to Know” basis? How effective is your Antivirus?

Five simple but key points to ask when working with any IT Managed Services Provider or IT Manager. If you carry out these checks and subsequently feel you’d like speak to PCS about how we can support your organisations IT infrastructure (fully, or to assist an in house IT team) and strengthen Cyber Security processes I can be contacted directly by emailing: cybersecurity@pcs-systems.com.

PCS offer a range of services that can help make your business more Cyber Secure and to maximise the performance and reliability of your IT systems.

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