Cyber Security Manchester How to Develop a Secure System - 3 Ways You Can Help Secure Your System.

Cyber Security Manchester

Every interaction happening in your system (whether it be servers passing data between each other, users
communicating, or IoT devices reporting data) inherently brings security into concern. Security is a broad topic
encompassing many different components, making it difficult to design and develop a secure system. When a system goes
into production with security issues, it can mean big costs. In this article, you will learn what makes security
difficult, why it is crucial to have a secure system, and what is needed to highly secure a system.

Difficulties in creating a secure system

A system can include many pieces of hardware: machines in the cloud, on-prem servers, IoT devices, personal computers,
smartphones, and more. Systems also involve software, including various programming languages, techniques, and best
practices. Your system is also made up of the people that use it, and those users can come in many different roles.
You most likely need to accommodate developers, administrators, standard users, and other possible roles. Those groups
may also need to include subcategories of even more fine-grained permissions, requirements, and preferences.

All of these components play a vital part in information security, but they also can make designing and managing a
secure system quite complex. It can feel difficult to achieve security, given how many angles you can tackle it from.
When engineers neglect to give security the attention it needs, each of these components can misbehave in unexpected
ways. These problems can compound each other, which can be bad news for a company, ranging from inconvenience to utter
disaster.

Cost of a security breach

In a study done on
security, 83% of organizations we found to have suffered more than one data breach. While tech giants with
billions in revenue can often sustain these costs, for smaller companies and startups, security breaches can be so
severe and costly that they sink the entire organization. Costs can show up in many forms. Financial loss is often
considered, but there are other ways security can damage your company. Data leaks can understandably hurt your
reputation with your users, meaning they are less likely to do business with you in the future or recommend others to
use your system. Fixing problems caused by security breaches can also mean lost time for you and your team. Cleaning
up after a security issue involves an opportunity cost: you and your team will be forced to work on fixing the problem
rather than innovation, customer acquisition, or other important parts of your company.

How to secure your system

1. Design For Security

The relevance of security makes itself apparent as soon as you begin to conceptualize your system. The most secure
systems are those that prioritize security from the beginning. The general architecture of your system has a great
influence on how precisely you will need to approach security. As stated, your design should include a solid plan for
handling authentication and validation as each component of your system interacts with one another. Consider the
hardware, the software that the hardware runs on, and the users and machines that need to use your data and resources.

2. Test Across Environments

Testing, in both a manual and automated sense, is crucial to security. Conflicts across environments are a common
problem engineers encounter when testing their systems. This is the root of the infamous line, “It works on my
machine.” More generally speaking, a piece of software might appear to work correctly when running on one machine but
reveal issues as soon as it is transferred to another. Thorough testing, along with an understanding of what machines
are involved and how to emulate them in a development environment, can mean a world of difference to the security of
your system.

3. Use A Managed IT Support Team

Your business may not have the resources needed to handle all of its cyber security concerns. In this case, using a
managed IT support team can help. Security, although of the utmost importance, and be time-consuming and distracting
from what you and your team do best. With a managed IT service, you can have peace of mind knowing your system is
being managed by experts. Remedian is a service based in the U.K. that manages
your IT and infrastructure so that you can focus on what matters most to your business.

Conclusion

Building and maintaining a secure system requires an in-depth understanding of each system component and how they
interact. Your system is comprised of hardware, software, and users. All of these need to be taken into account when
thinking about the security of your system. Security breaches can cost companies thousands, and small businesses and
startups are especially vulnerable. To secure your system, a few things you can do are: design your system for
security, test your system thoroughly and across all environments, and use consider a managed IT support team so you
can focus on what matters most to you and let the experts handle your infrastructure.

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