Distributed Denial-Of-Service (DDoS) Attacks, disaster recovery, outdated technology and security breaches are all examples of things that could negatively impact your business. However, all of these situations could be avoided by simply requesting a full IT assessment.
Why is this assessment important? There are a few reasons why:
1. Identify Vulnerabilities & Be Proactive With Your Actions

• IT Assessments will locate gaps between technologies, strategies, security and policies. The assessments can also help with identifying the security level of your environment by analyzing and testing your network. By spotting system and/or network vulnerabilities, these vulnerabilities can be mitigated, and the probability of data leaks can be lessened. Pending an IT assessment, Mnemonix will recommend solutions to improve your business’s security measures.

2. Having Disruption / Disaster Plans in Place

• Creating a set of plans for varying circumstances that may happen in the future can drastically decrease costs as this will allow you to be proactive with your recovery rather than reactive. Costs for preventative measures tend to be more financiallyfriendly than reacting with uncertainty, which could cause drastic damage to your business and cost much more money to resolve the issues with your system and/or network. Such disruptions / disasters could include downtime, hardware failure, human errors, security breaches and more. Taking advantage of IT assessments can help build out plans for proactively managing risks and promoting business continuity.

3. Implementing Proper Security Policies

• During an IT assessment, Mnemonix can gain further insight about your network and security policies. With our expertise, we can create security policies and procedures based on your system that will decrease your chances of security breaches. We have experience with different types of systems, which allows us to understand the uniqueness of each business’ network at a professional level and provide appropriate solutions for your business’s needs.

4. Improving Outdated Technology

• Technology moves fast! With an IT assessment, we can locate and target those technologies that have become vulnerable due to their age. With the use of old technology, serious troubles can occur such as system crashes, data loss and security breaches. Let us help your business avoid troublesome issues by helping you address the issue ahead of time.

5. Backups and Disaster Recovery

• With a thorough IT assessment, we can analyze every detail to find out which data and systems need to be backed up. In case of a disaster, we are able to target the critical data and back it up prior to the disaster to help ensure smooth recovery of your data. Preparing yourself, whether a disaster happens or not, can save hundreds of thousands of dollars and your valuable time.

To summarize, an IT assessment can save you money and time. Planning ahead allows us to save you money by being proactive rather than reactive during unanticipated events. Determining that technologies are no longer being used or shouldn’t be used can save you many unnecessary monthly costs. Preventing hackers from getting their hands on your data and holding it ransom is critical, as hackers may charge unrealistic amounts to release your data. If good security policies are put in place, the chances of a cyber-attack drop drastically.

An update is new, improved or fixed code that replaced older versions of the same code. These updates might include repairing security vulnerabilities that have been discovered, removal of bugs, the addition of new features and much more. Today we are going to discuss why updates are important, as well as the different types of updates your computers and software may receive. We will also look at how Mnemonix can assist with managing updates to ensure your technology is kept up to date and secure.
 
 
Importance of Updates
 
There are multiple reasons why updates are important for your technology. Where the list seems endless, we will review 5 critical reasons to keep your technology up to date.
 
1. Patch Security Flaws
a. Hackers seek out flaws in software, also known as security vulnerabilities. A security vulnerability can be defined as a security hole or weakness found in a piece of software or operating system. Hackers will take advantage of the weakness by writing malicious code to target the weakness. These attacks can infect your computer which may lead to stolen data, or encryption of your files. Software updates can patch security flaws and help keep attackers out of your system. These updates are corrected by developers and pushed out via updates to ensure your technology stays secure.
 
2. Data Protection
a. As mentioned in the previous topic, updates can help patch security vulnerabilities. This, in turn, will help protect your data. How? Your data is stored somewhere, whether it be locally on your computer, or on a server that you have access to. Keeping your systems up to date will help ensure your data stays protected, as it will keep attackers out by eliminating known security vulnerabilities. Your data is valuable, and attackers will not hesitate to sell it if they are able to get their hands on it. This can lead to expensive and long recovery times.
 
3. Business / Personal Protection
a. Where it is important to keep your own system up to date, so your data is secure, you are also keeping your business secure as well. If attackers are able to get into your system on a company network, they may be able to access other users on the network as well. This means that if one computer is compromised, it could take out an entire business and their technologies. Managed updates for businesses are critical because of this threat. Security can only be as strong as the weakest link in the chain. Keeping only a select number of computers within a business up to date can be just as dangerous as not updating at all. If there is a security vulnerability, and one computer on the network does not receive the security patch update to resolve this issue, an attacker may get access to said computer. Once they have that, they may have the ability to access all of the other up to date computers via the internal network. To reiterate, updates are not only to protect you and your data, but they are meant to protect all of the users in the business.
 
4. New Features
a. Updates not only patch security holes, but they can also add new features and improve existing ones. New features to software can come out regularly, enhancing your experience when using said software. These updates can contain feature updates that help make some of your day-to-day tasks simpler or provide you with features that increase your devices performance. Developers are constantly looking for ways to improve their software, whether it be adding new features, or increasing the existing performance. Ignoring these updates could put your software out of date, leaving it vulnerable or slower than those who installed the updates.

5. Update Management
a. Managing updates is arguably just as important as the updates themselves. Not all updates are perfect, and some cause more problems than they solve. For example, in 2019, every major Microsoft update created some kind of issue for different clients. This included compatibility issues with peripherals, operating system issues and software errors. Where these updates were quickly fixed by Microsoft, those who installed the update right away had to deal with issues that they didn’t have prior to the updates. This is why at Mnemonix, we monitor each major update, and may wait a small period of time before applying them to client devices so we can ensure they fix known issues, and do not create new ones.
 
 
If we look at Microsoft updates specifically, there are two notable different update types that Microsoft will push out. Where both updates are equally as important in their own ways, let’s take a look at some of the notable differences between the two.
 
1. Quality Updates
a. A collection of hotfixes that address security and performance issues in the operating system. These are typically used to help maintain Windows 10 free from vulnerabilities and reliability issues. These quality updates are pushed out every month, on the second Tuesday of each month. This is known as “patch Tuesday”.
 
2. Feature Updates
a.These are essentially new versions of Windows 10. Some updates may not have many noticeable changes in features, where others will change the user interface completely. The main purpose of these updates is to add in new features to the operating system, while retiring rarely used ones. Feature updates are released every six months, typically in Spring and Fall of each year.
 
 
As we mentioned, some updates can contain bad code that may create more problems than they fix. At Mnemonix, we are sure to read up on update notes and community feedback to ensure that the update does what it is intended to do. In some cases, we put a small delay on when updates are installed until we can confirm there are no known major issues that the updates cause. If you’d like to know more about updates, how Mnemonix helps manage updates, or think your technology may need an update, please contact Mnemonix. We are happy to assist!