How to Securely Scale Business IT Operations?

Universally, growth sounds great on paper. After all, what’s not to like about more customers, a bigger revenue, and a reputation boost? But despite the shiny perks of scaling, let’s not forget the issues growth can create for user satisfaction, service availability, and efficiency. Especially if your IT department isn’t up for the challenge.

Read on to learn about IT scaling challenges and how to approach them in a security-conscious way.

The Challenges of Scaling in IT

Meeting the higher demand for resources and services that the scaling brings is tricky when it comes to IT infrastructure, especially for established businesses. Often, a company’s existing IT setup is a mix of legacy and modern hardware that uses local and cloud-based storage and relies on third-party vendor services.

Unsurprisingly, this combination increases the risk of resource misconfiguration, breaches, and other security vulnerabilities.

Bridging gaps and putting out fires is often part of an IT team’s daily operations in such environments. So, changing from a reactive to a proactive approach to challenges in IT teams is key to successfully scaling your business.

The aim of such an approach is to create an environment where different components react seamlessly to expansions and contractions in operations, with room to expand without the need for constant intervention.

Best Practices for Secure IT Scaling

Adding endpoints and new third-party vendors increases your company’s attack surface. Hence, ensuring that scaling efforts follow cybersecurity best practices is vital. Here’s what your IT teams should focus on to achieve such compliance.

Automation

Minimizing human error and inconsistencies significantly strengthens your cybersecurity posture. Automation through practices like Infrastructure as Code ensures that newly deployed resources come online with optimal, pre-approved configurations. This also helps facilitate automatic updates and ensures compliance with existing security standards.

Endpoint and Network Security

Endpoint and network security

Your hardware expansion efforts should accompany the expansion of monitoring and intrusion detection capabilities. For that, use endpoint protection platforms to ensure newly connected devices are automatically updated and equipped with anti-malware measures.

Also, encourage your IT teams to rethink your business’ network configuration. You may need to (re)segment it to isolate new vulnerable systems and keep sensitive data safe. If scaling involves additional remote employees, provide a VPN so they can connect to the company network and share resources securely.

Access Controls

Growth implies new hires and shifting responsibilities, which can create confusion regarding access privileges.

Stringent controls founded on role-based access and continuous verification through zero-trust policies allow authorized users to work with required resources seamlessly. Additionally, they help contain insider threats and streamline monitoring.

Secure account handling and password storage are vital to access controls, and password managers for IT teams are the go-to solution to enforce both at scale. Encrypted storage lets password managers safeguard any number of account credentials.

Moreover, they automate one-of-a-kind and complex password generation, removing threats associated with weak passwords and credential reuse.

Vendor Vetting

As more services adopt cloud and subscription-based models, direct control over the security standards of the tools you use diminishes.

Consequently, vetting third-party vendors is a must. Make sure they have a reliable and verifiable reputation, use industry-standard cybersecurity practices, and adhere to data protection laws and regulations.

Employee Training and Security Awareness

Employee training and security awareness

Scaling the cybersecurity of your business often requires hiring additional IT staff to handle increased workloads. Bringing new colleagues up to speed on your security tech stack and policies will help them avoid mistakes and smoothly integrate into their new roles.

While IT personnel typically face cybersecurity concerns more often than colleagues in other departments, neglecting relevant training for the entire organization could be a costly mistake.

Any employee might carelessly save their account credentials on a device’s hard drive instead of using a business password manager, such as NordPass, leaving them vulnerable to keylogging attacks or accidental exposure.

Keeping everyone informed about new threats and regularly reviewing the basics can prevent minor oversights from escalating into major incidents.

Conclusion

While undoubtedly a marker of success, growth can be a trying period as your company adjusts to new expectations and the changes in identity that accompany it. Keep the tips outlined here in mind to ensure that the IT scaling portion of this transition goes smoothly.

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Christy Bella: Blogger by Passion | Contributor to many Business Blogs in the United Kingdom | Fascinated to Write Blogs in Business & Startup Niches |