Hackers are targeting you and your data.

Hackers attack daily. Most hacker attacks are not news headlines anymore. Hackers continue to gain access to valuable data and personal information daily. They target both private companies and government agencies. The good news is, most companies have begun to take security seriously. Therefore, most CIOs say they’ll be increasing security spending this year.

But the reality is, you probably don’t need to implement new state-of-the-art, hyper-expensive security tools to protect your data. Make sure your current security devices are configured to take full advantage of their built-in capabilities. They might be misconfigured or not even enabled.

Start with what you have.

At Cameron Park Computer Services, we see this quite a bit. Most hacker successes and security breaches could easily be prevented if basic preventive measures and security configurations were implemented. According to ZDNet, 90% of companies could prevent breaches with just basic controls, policy and training.

A lot of companies have to contend with all sorts of issues and initiatives. They do so on a limited budget. If you’re lucky, your security budget has been constant over the last few years. If you’re typical, you’ve seen your security budget decrease. Now that the economy has recovered, you should increase your security investment.

Don’t buy new security devices and software so fast. Take stock of what you have first. Figure out how to best configure and utilize what you already have.

Find out where you stand.

First of all, engage a network consultancy like Cameron Park Computer Services to perform a security audit of your environment, uncover vulnerabilities and create a realistic plan to remediate the vulnerabilities. A good assessment will look at network, application, and human factors. It will give you a plan to address the most serious issues first. What a lot of companies find is that they can address those vulnerabilities with what they already have onsite. If you’d like to talk to us about good security fundamentals, contact us today.

Inspired by http://blog.ncanet.com/blog/firewall-in-factory-default-are-you-using-what-you-pay-for