Penetration Scanning Must Be Key Part of The Modern Business Arsenal

By Patti Key, Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), TPx

Security remains among companies’ top challenges, permeating nearly every business decision today.

In recent years, bad actors have grown increasingly sophisticated in their methods, indiscriminately targeting companies of all sizes. The threat continues to grow in size and complexity, and unfortunately, no one is out of reach.

The pandemic led to a rapid shift to enable remote workers to keep business operations moving forward, and many businesses inadvertently put themselves at risk. Now, these companies that adapted to keep their doors open find themselves in the crosshairs of bad actors.

Companies should operate as though a security incident is a matter of when not if. They have two options: stand pat and have an attack occur while their data is placed on the dark web and held for ransom or take a proactive security stance and deploy the solutions that keep them safe long before a bad actor finds them.

While it’s positive that organizations are focused on security, companies can’t afford for it to paralyze their operations. Luckily, new solutions give companies unprecedented opportunities to proactively bolster their defenses.

The best defense is a good offense.

For companies, the key to a proactive security posture is to make technology work for them. When it comes to the IT stack, companies often focus on solutions that enable productivity.

Today, a company’s defense must be a priority for IT teams. They can no longer afford to bury their heads in the sand and hope a security incident won’t affect them.

They need to ensure every tool helps keep team members — and the organization as a whole — safe.

Security isn’t something companies can deploy and forget. They must stay on top of the changing threat landscape and evolve their defenses accordingly.

Proactively maintaining and protecting an organization’s network requires continuous effort, no matter the company’s size, type, or number of locations. Instead of trying to handle their security approach alone, companies should look to a qualified partner who can analyze their results and make recommendations that meet the unique needs of their organization.

Penetration Scanning is a critical component of security.

Before companies can make any number of decisions, they need data. Leaders will often look at the pros and cons of any given action and assess any decision’s unintended consequences.

The same is true when it comes to their security. An organization’s security doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it affects every aspect of a company, from team members to the customer experience.

Acting first requires understanding what weaknesses exist and how a hacker might exploit them. However, capturing details about potential threats must work in the background without affecting operations.

One of the best tools that businesses have in their quiver that they can use is penetration scanning.

The solution allows businesses to understand security weaknesses and how a cyberattack would impact their operations. It leverages an automated scanning platform, providing short turnarounds and low costs.

Companies should take it one step further by combining penetration scanning with vulnerability scanning. The combined solution evaluates devices connected to the network to identify vulnerabilities.

Security requires an ongoing threat assessment.

Companies need a comprehensive way to identify risks and strengthen their security posture. In today’s economy, many businesses are constrained by limited budgets. Companies must ensure their security investments deliver results and reduce their risk.

Hacking and data ransom are big business. If we’re to be intellectually honest, we’ll recognize that we likely won’t ever eliminate bad actors.

Instead, companies need to start thinking like them. The impetus is to make an organization less enticing to those who want to harm.

The mistake is thinking that making a security investment is the same as taking the right action. No one wants to admit that an investment isn’t working, and too often, those within a company are too “in the weeds” to critically analyze their approach and weigh whether it is right.

Solutions like penetration and vulnerability scanning don’t need to be complex — or even cost-prohibitive — to be effective. Often, it just requires looking at a situation from a different perspective to assess what is working and what is not.

Only with an honest assessment can a business work toward making course corrections.

Too often, people don’t want to admit that their course of action isn’t the right one. But is it better to proactively find a problem or wait until a bad actor finds it and exploits it?

About the Author

Patti Key serves as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) at TPx where she is responsible for developing and refining TPx’s go-to-market strategies and processes to maximize revenue potential. At TPx, she’s focused on collaborating across the company to create scale, drive strategy and help build and maintain excellent relationships with customers and partners.

She is a proven leader with more than 20 years of experience in sales and telecommunications with a history delivering sound, data-driven sales strategy and results. Prior to TPx, Patti held a variety of engineering, technical leadership and sales leadership roles in telecommunications and networking at BellSouth, Hewlett Packard, Agilent Technologies, Ixia and Keysight. Early in her career, she became a licensed Professional Engineer and was awarded two U.S. patents.

Patti holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from North Carolina State University and an MBA in Finance from the Cameron School of Business at UNC Wilmington.

Patti can be reached at our company website https://www.tpx.com/