Three Tips For Optimizing Your IT Security Budget

You may already know that effectively implementing security into your IT infrastructure is a vital step towards protecting your business, but unfortunately you likely aren’t working with a limitless budget. Anyone can secure their business with an endless flow of cash, but it becomes much more difficult when you’re having to decide what’s worth the money and what isn’t. At Network World, George V. Hulme gives some tips for how best to use your security budget to get the most out of your investment.

• Decommission

As time marches on, you’re business will need new security tools. This is either because the tools you had in place are no longer effective against current threats, or because your infrastructure has changed enough to warrant a change in security. When that happens, adding new tools is great, but decommissioning the now obsolete tools is just as important. Too many business owners have no process for removing security applications from their infrastructure when they’re no longer needed. Many aren’t able to recognize which tools have become redundant and won’t hurt to be decommissioned. Trimming out these old security tools also trims the budget.

• Be Sure You Need It

All of that said, before you invest in a new application or new equipment, be sure you actually need it and will be able to effectively use it. A chief security officer suggests asking yourself three questions:

Are their people on staff who know how to use this?

Do they have the time to install, use, maintain and manage it?

Will it have an effect?

Investing in new technology that won’t benefit your business is obviously foolish. But, many don’t recognize that even technology that will positively affect their business shouldn’t be implemented without the proper staff in place.

• The Right Staff

When it comes to effectively staffing your IT department, you aren’t always saving money when you think you are. Many business owners believe they can cut corners and staff fewer professionals in order to save money. But, this often leads to more downtime and less security in place, which can lead to successful attacks, malware infections and data theft. All of these cost you money and productivity. There’s likely to be a shortage of qualified IT professionals in the coming years so investing in IT now can save you from being dangerously under-staffed later.

Properly using your IT budget can be difficult. At Geek Rescue, we provide IT solutions for businesses on any scale. Our clients receive the benefit of an entire IT staff without having to deal with the headaches of actually hiring and maintaining an IT department.

To learn more, call us at 918-369-4335.