How modernisation can make your estate more secure
IT modernisation is the process of updating your organisation’s estate and legacy applications (those that are 10+ years old) to newer, more modern and secured forms. Making these adjustments also ensures they operate at their best ability, with the latest security functions and meet the latest regulations.
How modernisation can benefit you
Modernising your organisation’s estate (servers, desktops, laptops, network infrastructure etc) will maintain and improve daily operations through faster, newer applications. Not only will it improve day-to-day business but it will also strengthen your security measures.
Applications that are outdated will likely display gaps in security features, therefore they can be risky to continue to run on. As software gets older and less secure, it becomes more vulnerable to cyber attacks so it is important to run regular audits on your organisation’s technology. This will ensure compliances are met and reduce the likelihood of security breaches.
Other than the obvious heightened security, there are further benefits to modernisation:
– Increased efficiency – as systems are updated, they will become quicker to navigate and run, reducing the number of unnecessary steps and time spent loading applications.
– Reduced operational costs – if your organisation modernises its entire estate at once, rather than separately and with different providers, it is likely to save your organisation money and time. It will also increase the efficiency of operations across departments as integrations will be smoother and all employees will be familiar with the systems.
– Business sustainability – keeping your systems updated and well-functioning reduces the need to continually purchase ESUs or other patches that may overall be more costly (check out our blog about ESUs to read more about this). It will also reduce the likelihood of your systems crashing and needing to be replaced completely.
Risks of avoiding modernisation
If your business avoids modernisation, more flaws will appear in your technology, leading you to become more vulnerable to security breaches and cyber-attacks. This will not only affect daily operations but your customers too; eg. their information could be subject to a data leak.
Modernisation isn’t just about updating your systems once and being “done”; with ever-changing technology, it is important for organisations to continually monitor their estate for systems that may be coming to the end of their life, lacking support and security updates, and displaying any other vulnerabilities. By doing so, you are ensuring that all compliance changes are met and your technology is in the safest state possible to protect your operations and customers. Through constant monitoring you can also identify security flaws early, allowing you to mitigate or cease issues before they arise.
Securing your estate in 3 steps
- Audit your organisation’s estate to determine what is and isn’t compliant.
- Make any necessary changes – keep a log of who, when and how the adjustments were made (this will be useful if an external audit is ever required).
- Continually monitor for potential flaws in your systems and prepare for upcoming regulation changes to avoid configuration drift.
Guardian can help you keep on top of your systems and monitor for the future in one step – get in touch today through our contact form.
