In 2023, the costs of cybercrime hit $8 trillion, which means that over $250,000 worth of data was lost every second. By 2025, annual losses will total about $10.5 trillion.
Regardless of the industry in which your Texas business operates, disaster preparedness is increasingly important as these figures rise. Read on to learn how you can prepare for emergencies with great risk management for businesses.
Invest in Data Security
Since the average cost of a data breach is over $4.45 million, a single incident can mean disaster for Texas businesses. At best, you'll waste millions as well as time and resources trying to reconstruct and recover data. At worst, you'll need to shut your doors because of the financial loss.
Luckily, disaster recovery planning with managed IT teams means that you get the means needed to keep unauthorized users out.
Quality managed IT professionals will offer managed antivirus software to stop malware from penetrating your system and wreaking havoc on your network. This means that viruses can't move from device to device and steal copious amounts of information.
Inline Networks also offers disc encryption to stop unauthorized users from accessing hard drives and information stored on them. Regardless of whether your information is on the cloud or on-premise, professionals know how to keep it secure.
Perform Regular Backups for Disaster Preparedness
Backing up data is one of the most important strategies for safeguarding information. If a breach happens, you'll have another copy of the information you lost as a backup.
Most Texas businesses choose to back their data up to a secure cloud infrastructure since it's easy to use and manage. Cloud backups also have the advantage of accessibility from any location or device.
Make sure that you back up information regularly. Better yet, enlist a managed IT provider whose platform provides automatic backups constantly.
You won't need to worry about remembering to do it manually, and you won't need to worry about losing a lot of data because you haven't backed up information in days.
Patch Up Vulnerabilities
Ethical hacking is a method that security experts use to keep your system safe from malware. With your Dallas business's permission, these 'hackers' feed harmless simulated malware onto your network.
They do this to see where the software can get into your system, whether that's on a certain device or via a specific application. This lets the ethical hacker know where your system is the most vulnerable so they can take a deeper look into that vulnerability.
They'll understand why it's there and patch it up so you don't need to worry about a malicious hacker penetrating the identified hole in your system.
This critical element of emergency planning helps you prevent malware from getting into the system. While backups are great for recovery after a security breach, ethical hacking and the elimination of vulnerabilities enhance disaster preparedness so you don't need to undergo the stress of worrying about data.
Experts conducting these tests will also provide you with network health reports. This will let you know how your cybersecurity system is doing and how Inline Networks' knowledgeable team can enhance it.
Prioritize Ongoing Support
Business owners don't frequently have the knowledge and tools needed to maintain a complex IT infrastructure. It would take hours of studying and experimentation to understand your technology. Even then, implementing plans could be challenging because you don't have the expensive tools and resources needed to optimize your disaster preparedness.
Working with experts at reliable IT companies Inline Networks solves this problem. Teams keep an eye on your technology and networks to ensure that there aren't any vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit. Professionals will also watch for any network downtime or unexpected errors that could lead to a breach.
These proactive efforts can nip potential security risks in the bud and stop them from becoming real-life problems.
Ongoing optimization from managed IT experts also helps ensure business continuity when planning for emergencies. You can call in any potential problem that you notice in-house or on your secure cloud. Professionals will then look into the problem, troubleshoot it, and optimize your infrastructure.
Reactive AI Incident Management
Despite your best efforts, there are still chances that a breach will take place. The best you can do is drastically reduce the likelihood of this in tandem with managed IT experts.
In the unlikely event that a vulnerability is exploited, modern AI tools can help you combat breaches as they take place. While AI-based proactive incident management is available as well, AI tools can continuously monitor your systems for abnormalities.
The machine learning algorithms that run them understand patterns and trends, and they can identify blips in these trends that may indicate a threat. They'll then automatically inform you of the potential problem to keep you aware.
More importantly, though, they can initiate preventative measures on their own. This means that your system can react to breaches immediately after sensing them to shut down the malware.
Once the virus is in the system, it doesn't need to get all over your network or make its way through all connected devices. You can mitigate the impacts of existing breaches beyond proactive preparedness.
Emergency Assistance
Regular helpdesk support services have regular business hours. This is understandable since your business can reach out with questions during those times.
However, it's also critical that your IT provider can give you emergency support at any time.
If there's a system-wide failure that impacts your Texas business, you can reach out to Inline Network 24/7, 365 days per year. This failure needs to impact either your entire business or a significant portion of your company.
There also are backup Helpdesk options that you can contact if bad weather or a technical problem makes it impossible to reach the primary team, so you'll always have someone to troubleshoot in the event of an IT disaster.
Upgrade Your Texas Emergency Response Plan
Now that you know the ins and outs of disaster preparedness for Texas businesses, it's time to upgrade your tech strategy in 2024.
Inline Networks is committed to providing the best fully managed IT services on the market. Our experienced team has been growing since 2005, so we can provide reliable support for our expert solutions.
Get a free IT assessment from our team to learn more about how you can make your business more secure.