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Cost-Effective IT: Security Part III

Cost-Effective IT: Security Part III, by Richard Sonnier

Houston Business Show "Advisor" Richard Sonnier, of the Information Technology Services firm Nimble Services, Inc., provides weekly information on our show about business technology issues. He can be reached at 281-445-4800 x250 or rsonnier@nimbleservices.com.

Over the last two weeks, I have reviewed the basic ideas of IT security. This week I will discuss some of the benefits of IT security.

IT Security Benefits

At first, users will find an IT security regime difficult and will claim they cannot get their jobs done. During this period, it is important to point at the benefits of security. People are willing to make the transition if they understand the benefits to them and the company. The benefits are:
  1. Privacy
  2. Prevention
  3. Protection

Privacy

Often mandated by federal laws like HIPPA, privacy is critical benefit of IT security. No one wants his employee file, medical records or personal family information made generally available to the entire company or the Internet. Once you point out to users that the IT security protects their information, they are more interested in making it work.

Prevention

As the old saying goes "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." One of the goals of IT security is to prevent bad things from happening in the first place. A simple example is a new employee just learning the system and accidentally deletes all the files. Even with good backups, the company will lose time and money. Another example of prevention is antivirus software. Many users are aware that their PC runs a little slower with the antivirus software turned on and are tempted to disable the software. Once they are educated on the terrible things that viruses can do or perhaps get a virus, they will leave the software enabled.

Protection

IT security protects the company and the employees. Without security when something wrong happens and the boss wants to know "How did it happen?", every user is potentially involved. With security, only the users with the authorized access are involved in fixing the problem. Furthermore, IT systems are so critical to many companies that failures could cause the business to failed completely. IT security protects the business and its employees from such failures.

Training

I recommend training your users on how to use the company's IT systems safely and securely. Including these benefits in that training will motivate the users to make the security program successful. Ultimately, IT security is in the hands of the users.

Next week, I will discuss Internet security including SPAM and Malware.
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