Managed IT Support in Philadelphia: Proactive Cyber Checkups

Does the news of the latest cyber incident in Philly have you online searching for things like “IT support Philadelphia?”

You’re not the only one. Professionals throughout Philadelphia are all on alert after officials disclosed in October 2023 that the city’s email systems were the source of a significant cyberattack back in May. Following this attack, it’s suspected that cybercriminals gained access to city employee personal and health data via their employee email accounts. Compromised data may include:

• Health data, diagnosis information, and treatment details
• Names, addresses, and demographics
• Dates of birth
• Social Security numbers
• Contact information

The city is staying in close communication with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and other entities in charge of compliance regulations and plans to communicate with those whose information has been compromised.

Why Finding the Right IT Support in Philadelphia is More Important than Ever

The City of Philadelphia isn’t alone in these kinds of struggles. It seems data breaches and other incidents aren’t a matter of if, but when. That’s why a robust cybersecurity plan must account for both attack prevention and response. 

Is your organization adequately protected? One critical step to defend your IT infrastructure from this kind of attack is to know where your vulnerabilities are–and how to address them–through a cybersecurity audit. But are you performing these audits frequently enough?

What Is a Cybersecurity Audit (And Why Should It Matter For You)?

A cybersecurity audit is all about determining your risk–especially when it comes to compliance. It provides a clear picture of whether you have the right security tools and protocols in place to defend against the actions of cyber criminals, while also maintaining compliance with all the necessary requirements and regulations.

Think of it like looking under the hood of your vehicle to see how your engine is performing. Once you know how things are actually running, you can take a proactive, specific approach to strengthening your cybersecurity. The result? A more responsive, more robust take on threat management.  

Your cybersecurity audit is a full analysis of your business’s IT infrastructure to hidden vulnerabilities. Performed by an outside, third-party expert, it’s an unbiased view that examines your entire IT ecosystem. This includes your control sets, governance policies, and management practices, and can sometimes even go as far as looking at your third-party vendors, all with the goal of highlighting the weak links in your infrastructure and high-risk practices that threaten your security and put compliance on the line.

A cybersecurity audit looks at:

• Your data security, including network access control, how your organization uses data encryption, how you transmit data, and how you protect data at rest.
  
  
• Your operational security, including your organization’s policies, procedures, and protocols.
  
  
• Your network security, including your organization’s network controls and configurations, your security monitoring systems, anti-virus tools, and more.
  
  
• Your system security, including your organization’s security patches, how you manage accounts, how you handle role-based access, and more. 
  
  
• Your physical security, including your organization’s access controls including things like password management and protocols, biometric authentication practices and disk encryption, and more.

So, why does this matter? There are a few big reasons:

• You might be using out-of-date tools that can’t stand up to new threats. Older software, outdated policies and practices, or old hardware might not come equipped with the defenses needed to protect you from emerging risks. A cybersecurity audit helps identify these outdated solutions.
  
  
• New technologies might open the door to new possibilities. You should feel empowered to implement new and evolving technology solutions to take your business to new heights–but understandably, some organizations are wary of doing this in the wake of an increasingly threatening cyber landscape. A cybersecurity audit can give you the confidence to take on new endeavors while finding and addressing risk. 
  
  
• You may be more vulnerable to attack than you think. It’s not just large corporations that need to perform cybersecurity audits. The truth is that most businesses are at risk–and more and more bad actors are targeting smaller organizations because these companies may not have the same level of cybersecurity protection larger businesses have. Additionally, if you partner with third parties, that increases your risk of attack, or if you handle valuable sensitive client, customer, or patient data, regardless of the size of your business, cybercriminals may target your IT infrastructure to exploit this information for financial gain. Everyone can benefit from a cybersecurity audit. 

How Often Should Your Organization Perform a Cybersecurity Audit?

A cybersecurity audit goes in-depth. It examines how well your policies and tools are performing and shines a light on any of the gaps in your current strategy so that you can continue to strengthen and improve your organization’s cybersecurity. But how often do you need to perform an audit?

The key to knowing when to perform a cybersecurity audit is understanding the idea that your audit is a snapshot of a particular moment in time; it provides a look at where your cybersecurity strategy is at that moment. As cybercriminals get more enterprising and their efforts become increasingly complex as time goes on, you need to know how your security stands up in a changing landscape. 

As a result, most security experts suggest conducting a cybersecurity audit at least once every year. Bad actors engineer new types of attacks every day, and security professionals discover different kinds of vulnerabilities all the time. Doing a thorough check-in every year can be a helpful benchmark to determine two things:

• The current status of your security protocols and tools
• The steps you need to take to make improvements

There are some cases in which your organization may need more frequent audits. When should you schedule an additional cybersecurity audit?

• If your business handles sensitive data controlled by compliance regulations
• If you have conducted noteworthy system or software changes 
• If you’ve made changes to your budget that affect the way your organization operates 

Christo IT: Expert IT Support in Philadelphia

Cybersecurity audits can bring up all kinds of questions about what steps to take next or how to improve your security strategy. A managed IT service provider can conduct a cybersecurity audit, and then take action based on what they find.

Managed IT Services In Philadelphia, PA

Your service provider will function as your internal IT team to monitor and strengthen your security, working to address any issues or concerns with services like:

• Remote and on-site support
  
  
• Maintenance of antivirus programs and security tools
  
  
• Ongoing data backups and recovery planning
  
  
• Secure cloud hosting services
  
  
• Ongoing help desk services
  
  
• Monitoring the security of your IT infrastructure, as well as its health, speed, and performance
  
  
• Guidance and support for cyber insurance to address financial liability related to cyber incidents

In an evolving threat landscape, even regular audits can leave you feeling uncertain about all of the existing risks. Your cybersecurity service provider will take on security audits and conduct proactive threat intelligence to seek out and address risks before they become an issue, as well as continuous monitoring to detect threats like malware and data breaches quickly and incorporate data security protections and disaster recovery for sensitive data.

At Christo IT, we believe that cybersecurity is an essential pillar in your technology infrastructure. As a busy professional, it’s what keeps you going! So where should you begin? Your “IT support Philadelphia” search ends with Christo IT. For decades, we’ve made cybersecurity a critical component of our managed IT services. 

Start with a cyber checkup to get an overview of the health of your IT security, then we’ll take it from there. Connect with our team of expert engineers to get going on a cybersecurity audit and a robust, custom security strategy.