According to a recent InformationWeek survey, criminal hacking is the greatest threat to Americans’ well-being, outranking air pollution, motor vehicle accidents and artificial intelligence.  It has become all too familiar to turn on the news and discover another corporation has been compromised.  So, what makes web security such a tough challenge?  Threats are constantly changing and evolving and if companies don’t stay on top of the threat landscape, they run the risk of falling behind or, worse yet, becoming the next victim.

Web security contains many layers and when one is forgotten, it leaves a catastrophic hole into which attackers gain access to internal network information.  Protecting a website against a denial of service attack, locking down users’ data or restricting parts of your website to authorized access are only a few steps to take.  Web security goes beyond the website to also include guarding public assets with firewalls, educating employees, implementing strong policies, data encryption and so much more.

The Mission Office takes web security very seriously.  We have devices in place that perform the security functions listed and more.  Internal systems can be monitored down to the driver level with network device reports and logs reviewed daily. External network scanning is also performed with the findings remediated as quickly as possible.  Our top goal is to stay ahead of the threat landscape.

There is a saying in the security world, “There are only two types of companies:  Those that have been hacked and those that will be hacked.”   While no company is free from attacks it is an organization’s responsibility to secure their assets as best as possible.

-by Kena Mann, Mission Office IT Manager