The importance of cyber security can’t be underestimated, with a third of UK businesses having lost customers after a cyber attack. Having a well equipped and expert in-house team is valuable, but it can be expensive and difficult to find the right people, which is why 50% of UK businesses only have one team member responsible for cyber security. Since cyber security is a constantly evolving industry, businesses need dedicated experts to stay protected which is where a data centre can help, since their services will include an experienced and vigilant cyber security team.
What does cyber security from a data centre look like?
The infrastructure management services from a data centre cover a wide range of IT solutions, including cyber security. Hosting your servers through colocation services or by deploying a cloud with a data centre you also gain access to their cyber security which can be integrated seamlessly into the rest of your IT. Your security will be handled by the data centre’s dedicated team of expert engineers, meaning your IT will be protected with most up-to-date and carefully monitored security, without having to hire a cyber team.
1. 24/7/365 Monitoring
Top quality data centres will have technical support staff on site 24 hours a day. This is a level of vigilance that would be very costly to maintain with your in-house team, but since it’s estimated that downtime costs UK businesses £3.6 million annually, you can’t afford not to have it. As well as ensuring the physical security of your systems it means someone is always on-hand to react quickly to a cyber-attack. While it wasn’t an attack, part of the reason Facebook’s 2021 outage lasted so long is because no one was onsite to immediately start working on the problem.
It’s best practice to have someone readily available in the case of a cyber-attack to monitor the situation and perform any work needed (e.g. if the attack has caused servers to need to be physically reset). Having a data centre engineer ready to go at any time of day or night means you remove the extra downtime and additional risk that comes with having a delayed response. This delay can be quite considerable if your cyber security expert needs to wake up, get ready, and groggily take themselves over to the office, compared to immediately deploying a data centre’s remote hands service.
2. Huge capacity for DDoS mitigation
As modern digital technology becomes more sophisticated, and the Internet of Things continues to grow, the scale of DDoS attacks also grows. DDoS attacks of over 1tbps have been recorded several times over the last few years, and to protect against this requires your DDoS mitigation to have huge capacity.
Data centres, due to the large scale at which they operate, are equipped with the infrastructure and hardware to mitigate even the largest DDoS attacks, and you can make use of this through their DDoS mitigation services. Having the same level of DDoS mitigation protecting your on-premises IT would require significant investment, and again you run up against the issue of needing someone monitoring your systems 24/7 to be able to turn on the mitigation in the event of a DDoS attack.
3. Backup and disaster recovery
Backing up your data for disaster recovery is an essential element of any IT system, not only do they protect against human error and data corruption, it’s your last line of defence when a cyber-attack has successfully brought down or wiped your IT system.
Using a data centre to host your backup further increases the security of your disaster recovery by having your backups stored at a different site to your primary system. You significantly decrease the risk of a cyber attack (or physical accident) taking out both your primary system and your backups when your backup is at a different site and on a different network.
Even if you have colocation or cloud services with a data centre, they can still provide you with disaster recovery services so you can have peace of mind.
4. Managed firewalls are futureproof
Firewalls are the backbone of every cyber security policy, so their continued monitoring and maintenance is essential to keeping your systems secure. A small business in the UK is successfully hacked every 19 seconds, so it’s essential that you have a dedicated team of engineers responsible for managing your firewalls. You need to futureproof firewall updates and maintenance against risks like long-term illness in your cyber security team, or personnel changes leading to neglect.
Working with a data centre and using their managed firewalls service means your firewalls will be kept up to date while reducing the workload of your IT team, allowing them to focus on other business-critical digital technologies.
Support your cyber security experts with infrastructure management
With the growing adoption of hybrid IT and cyber attacks growing more sophisticated, taking advantage of a data centre’s infrastructure and expertise will allow you to reach the superior level of cyber security you need. Already 38% of business have moved to a hybrid IT system, and that number is only growing, if you also want to take advantage of these new technologies then the best way to keep them secure is working with experts familiar with them already.
If you’re interested in learning more about a data centre’s cyber security services, then get in touch to talk to one of our experts.
