Regardless of the type or size of your business, security within organizations has become vital. Whether it is your business finances or your clients’ valuable data, a breach can have a devastating impact on your business reputation and future. As cybercrimes become more difficult to manage, you need to have a better solution to safeguard your business against malicious cyber-attacks and hackers. How?

You now have a solution: A skilled, professional Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP). Of note, PCG is one of the few IT Managed Service Providers in New England that have 2 CISSP’s, “Certified Information Systems Security Professionals”, on staff. This unique recognition allows for a broader and deeper understanding of Security and the processes necessary for guidance and protection of your data and company’s reputation.

In greater detail, CISSP is an independent information security certification granted by the International Information System Security Certification Consortium, (ISC). As of January 2022, there were 152,632 (ISC) members holding the CISSP certification worldwide. CISSP professionals are in high demand across many industries due to their advanced knowledge and ability to defend against data breaches and improve security measures.

This superior understanding of the latest cyber threats to your organization, whether social threats, insider or employee threats or advanced persistent threats (APT), can be dealt with by a CISSP trained and certified engineer that understands what these cybercriminals are trying to do with their phishing and ransomware attacks.

Many companies struggle to have the correct language that meets their business culture for certain security policies. Your CISSP can help guide and write policies like: Remote Work Force, Cell Phone and Email Use,  Web Content and Research, Disaster Recovery Plan, etc.

Your CISSP is trained to determine how a disruption to the IT system of your organization will impact the organization processes, requirements, and interdependencies with respect to its business mission. They will determine and prioritize the critical IT systems and help in correlating the IT system components with the critical services it supports. This process quantifies the possible damages that can be done to your IT systems by disaster.  The goal is to calculate the maximum downtime for your IT assets. Other benefits of utilizing a CISSP include improvements in business processes and procedures, and to highlight inefficiencies in these areas. They will help to design, implement, and monitor the best possible remediation for your IT Security posture.

Risk Assessments are a key strategy your company should embrace. A CISSP is well versed in this process and the language therein to understand the needed compliancy for your company. This professional has the expertise to review your current Cyber Insurance Policy to get you the maximum value out of your investment.

Your Company or IT department cannot encounter a catastrophic emergency that shuts your company’s network down and take all the time they want to figure out how to get things back up to date. Every minute your operations are down means lost profits, services interrupted, and loss of your reputation with users and stakeholders. Even though recovery and the process to restore operations can take time, your company needs to be back online as soon as possible. Partnering with a Managed Service Provider with a CISSP on staff makes having a detailed plan for security and efficiency a luxury - it is an essential.

JoAnn Hodgdon is vice president and co-founder of Portsmouth Computer Group (PCGiT) with her husband David. PCG provides comprehensive managed IT services, business continuity, security, cloud computing and Virtual CIO services to their clients.  You may reach her at joann@pcgit.com or at www.pcgit.com.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: IT Insight: Why you need to work with a CISSP