The most significant risks to your business network devices don’t always come from threats with catchy names that you see in the news. Instead, some of the bigger dangers come from the lack of management and visibility of an organization’s network.

Your infrastructure could be ground zero to a wide range of threats that could impact the performance, health and security of your network devices. This is especially valid when it comes to the increasing number of connected devices and cloud-based applications on your network. Some threats are actively malicious, some are the result of mismanagement, and others are the product of internal human error. Regardless, understanding what is living on your network with high visibility and properly managing these risks is key.

Here are a few risks that could be lurking on your network and waiting to wreak havoc.

Utilization, health and performance

Utilization, health and performance statistics need to be carefully monitored to minimize downtime headaches and security risks.  “Zombie servers”, or another name for unused or underutilized servers, are usually hard to identify and decommission because it requires powerful tools and time to locate the server and assess it properly. However, if these comatose servers are not properly visible and maintained, an organization can have a large security risk on their hands. On the flip side, if a server is reaching maximum capacity and not properly taken care of, your organization could face disruptions or downtime that could have been avoided with proper proactive monitoring.

Malicious threats

No matter how secure your organization is, there will always be new and emerging threats that can push a company’s limits and break through defense mechanisms. Threat and risk management will always be a challenge, and one that requires vigilance from your IT organization. Security monitoring and management gives in-depth visibility into your network, cloud, and applications to identify and help remediate security events and vulnerabilities.

Outage downtimes

As your infrastructure ages, it will break, wear down, and overload. The key to not experiencing disruptions, latency, jitter or downtime from aging devices is early detection and proactive maintenance. Monitoring solutions detect which systems are showing health symptoms and remediates proactively so you can prevent disastrous downtime events. Should an issue occur, the monitoring system will know in real-time which device has the issue and what systems could be impacted.

Compliance

Regulatory compliance requirements are demanding more and more imperative information. They often require consistent assessments, and documentation, of your assets and their business function – especially those that process sensitive information. If compliance vulnerabilities are not properly handled, organizations can be faced with extensive audits and fees.

Backdoor entry points

It is very important to understand where your weak points or vulnerabilities are on your business infrastructure. Threat actors only need one opening to access your network and wreak havoc on your business applications, cloud, or critical systems. Sometimes it can be an unpatched system, unused accounts, or disabled accounts. Frequent vulnerability scans can identify risky systems and prioritize remediation.

End-of-life systems

When a system goes end-of-life from a vendor, it enters a grey area for many. Some organizations will continue to utilize them, even though vital security patches are no longer released. These non-patched systems create easy vulnerabilities for threat actors to manipulate.

Monitoring and management of your network devices creates visibility that most organizations have never been capable of achieving before. With 24/7/365 monitoring and alerting, there is a continuous eye on the health and performance of your most critical assets. Issues can be eliminated before they have a chance to transpire into downtime or performance degrading situations. This is also the case for security monitoring – SIEM (Security Information and Event Monitoring. SIEM is a correlation solution that monitors internal and external networks, clouds, and applications for security events in real-time. Once data is correlated with threat intelligence, proactive alerts are sent to your provider for fast response and remediation. If your organization is unsure of the dangers in their network, contact Magna5 today!