Security is an important part of every IT infrastructure. It permeates the network, servers and workstations. But security is difficult for small organizations to manage because:

• the threats aren't clear
• there are more attractive ways to spend money
• you must determine how much risk and inconvenience are acceptable
• most small organizations don't understand their security situation or the costs of improving it

Most small organizations want to plug significant security holes, but they don't want to spend more than necessary. Therefore, we've developed security offerings for small organizations. Before we describe them, we'll define security and risk and describe the security process.

Security is a process that maintains an acceptable level of risk.

1. The security process involves assessment, protection, detection and response. The process must be repeated because things change.
2. An acceptable level of risk is different for every organization because of differing priorities, budgets and preferences.

risk = threat * vulnerability * asset value

For example:

The 4 steps in the security process are:

• Assessment: analyze your current security situation
• Protection: put measures in place to reduce risk
• Detection: detect attempted security breaches and assess the damage
• Response: amelioate the consequences of security breaches

All 4 steps are important, but the first step is the most important because organizations need to understand the risks and costs of reducing them before they can determine how to proceed.

Click here to see descriptions of our security assessment offerings.