Immunize your network from security threats by eliminating their targets.

For small business, success depends exchanging information with customers, suppliers and business partners via email and the Internet. But the same technologies that keep your network connected to the world can create serious security risks.  Threats such as botnets, worms, denial of service attacks, viruses, software exploits, and other intrusions are more sophisticated, frequent, and dangerous than ever before. Furthermore, as vulnerabilities are discovered, new threats are created to exploit them.  Criminals use these malicious tools to capture customer credit card and employee personal information, steal email addresses, send spam, and sell control over your workstations to the highest bidder.

Studies indicate that 40% of small businesses that use the Internet for more than email will be successfully attacked by the end of 2010. More than half of the businesses attacked will not even know it.

Could yours be one of those businesses? Are you aware of the damage a severe attack could inflict on your business and personal life?  Defense solutions such as firewalls, antivirus software and intrusion detection systems are necessary layers of security, but are incapable of proactively detecting other network vulnerabilities and cannot reliably prevent all attacks. The majority of today’s attacks bypass these layers of protection and directly target other network weaknesses, the greatest of which is human nature. 

Monitoring and defending networks is a serious but manageable challenge.  The best way to know if your network is secure is to have a security audit performed by a qualified networking professional.  Security audits scan your network looking for weaknesses in passwords, configurations, operating systems, and hardware.  Audits also monitor and log network traffic to capture unauthorized or suspicious activity that could indicate your network has already been compromised.

Nims & Associates offers security audits to all of its clients for a low fixed fee, determined by the size of the network.  We also recommend that a security audit be performed at least once a year.  Even on well maintained networks, it is not uncommon for an audit to reveal weak passwords, unpatched systems or unapproved devices that compromise security. 

Having a security audit performed on a regular basis is critical to every network because it will detect the “open windows” and help determine if you have already been successfully attacked.  You can then close the holes that could threaten your very business. Can you afford not to?