Disruption can happen at any time. Business is humming along, and suddenly something changes. Whether it’s winning a great new project with a next-level client—complete with strict compliance requirements—or a security breach by bad actors, the best time to prepare is before it happens. Here are some things that could happen to almost any business today.
A device with sensitive data goes missing. If an employee’s device gets lost or stolen, you must be able to respond immediately to protect sensitive data related to your company, customers, and clients.
Your new client requires their partners to comply with industry standards. These information protection and cybersecurity regulations might include HIPAA, GDPR, ITAR, CMMC, FINRA, and PCI DSS. Even if you’re not in the healthcare (HIPAA), financial services (FINRA), or IT (CMMC) industries, your business probably handles personally identifiable information (PII), so GDPR will apply. And any business that does credit-card transactions must meet Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) standards.
A big security vulnerability has been discovered in your software. You’ll need to install a software update ASAP to address this. Suppose you have a remote workforce. How will you monitor and manage those devices, especially as your company grows?
Manage Devices, Protect Your Data, and Improve Compliance
If you’re not feeling ready for these scenarios, there is something you can do. With a mobile device management (MDM) solution, you’ll be able to:
Protect sensitive data on your endpoints so that even if a device falls into hackers’ hands, they won’t have access to those credit card numbers, Social Security numbers, intellectual property, or other confidential information. This would include encrypting the data or putting guardrails in place to prevent data leakage. With encryption, data is rendered unreadable unless you have the decryption key. To prevent data from accidentally or maliciously being removed from an endpoint, a good management solution can disable the use of flash drives or restrict the ability to copy and paste in certain situations.
Enforce compliance with security policies applied to your devices—and to industry regulations. Compliance with industry standards makes you a more desirable IT partner. The standards are designed to help your company mitigate risks like security breaches and data losses, and compliance helps you avoid disciplinary action that could lead to license revocations, damaged reputation, lost customers, and financial penalties. Aside from this, endpoint management solutions help you enforce your company’s security policies remotely. Relevant features include conditional access, which allows only updated, compliant devices to access network resources and company email.
Manage the health of your devices and IT environment in your domain from a single dashboard and deploy software and updates remotely. An endpoint management solution can also provide malware protection, data loss prevention, and mobile threat defense for your mobile devices, desktop computers, and virtual endpoints. This is just for starters; there are many more features to help you manage identities, apps, and devices and improve security.
Set Up and Manage Endpoints Remotely
Whether you’re running some or all your applications in the cloud, or have on-site or remote employees, there’s a solution that can help.
With the right solution, setting up new users and managing your IT environment is simplified. You can set configuration profiles to control basic settings for all users, like Wi-Fi or VPN profiles, application configuration policies, software updates, and so on. You can publish security policies around encryption, password requirements, and critical business applications, down to including desktop shortcuts that everyone will need.
That means the next time a new employee needs their device set up, you or your IT partner can walk them through it over the phone in a few minutes.
Check to See if You’re Already Covered
If you have Microsoft 365 Business Premium licensing, it includes Microsoft Intune cloud-based endpoint management service—you or your IT partner need to enable and configure it. Some nonprofit organizations qualify for free or low-cost licensing.
We recommend an endpoint protection solution whether you have Windows or Apple devices. Contact ISOutsource today for more information about installing or configuring a solution.