Hurricane Sandy & How She Can Wreak Havoc On Your Security

It would appear that Sandy is an example of the new normal.  We had a similar situation in 2011, and, for all we know, this could well be how things are from hereon.  As weather patterns change, hurricanes get pushed further away from the Golf and up along the East Coast.  Inexorably, it’s time to start thinking of this in terms of “it may happen again” rather than “oh, it’s a once in a century flood situation”.

With that in mind, let’s review the security of your network in the realm of business continuity.  Obviously, if you’ve lost power, no one can hack you; but if you haven’t, and, thus far, all you have lost is your hardware, then it’s likely that you’re having to rebuild your security.  Do you have a backup of your most recent firewall configuration?  How many security devices did you lose?  Will you be able to put your company back up and running, quickly and securely, to a ‘pre hurricane’ status quo?  And, if you’re needing to rebuild some servers from ground zero, isn’t the firewall the last thing you’d want to have to deal with anyway?

This is where managed security can add value to your efforts.

Among many other things, your provider would have backed up your configuration, properly and safely.   They will be able to restore it onto a new device within minutes and have a replacement appliance shipped and delivered to your doorstep as quickly as UPS can manage it (well, at least, that’s how we take care of our Network Box customers).

They should act as part of your team and, while you dedicate resources to rebuilding servers or assisting your own end users, they ensure your network stays protected and you don’t incur the additional crisis of being hacked simply because some unscrupulous hacker took advantage of your moment of weakness.

There is truly a lot managed security can do for you and your organization, certainly a lot more than what has been detailed within this post, but I’ve endeavored to list the more important examples.

If you have any specific questions or concerns relating to the robustness or adequacy of your network security, particularly in times of natural disasters (or during any crisis, for that matter), please do not hesitate to leave a comment here.

Have a safe and secure start to November.