• Hardware failure: Any piece of equipment or component in your IT infrastructure can fail at just about any time. Hardware failures are more likely to happen if the hardware is old/obsolete and not well maintained; if it is unstable due to traffic load; or inadequately sized to support the demands of the operating system/applications running on the device. You can drastically reduce the chances of unexpected hardware failure by staying up to date with all required patches and maintenance. You can also build redundancy into your system to prevent a single failing piece of equipment from causing your entire network to collapse. Network monitoring and performance reporting capability can also provide early warning of equipment failure trends and facilitate a proactive response.
• Power failures: If no source of backup power is available, a failure of the commercial power supply will cause network outages. The risk of this varies from low for companies that are self-sufficient to high for those who are generally dependent on the overall reliability of the commercial power supply. Redundancy can mitigate the risk of an outage on a single power circuit shutting down your entire network service and affecting your business.
• Human error: One of the leading causes of network outages is attributed to human error. People make mistakes that can result in the complete disruption of a network, and this happens more often than you might think. This might result from something as simple as disconnecting the wrong plug, clicking the wrong link or failing to follow the proper procedures when working with company equipment. This risk can be mitigated by ensuring only properly trained professionals handle network equipment, that they follow documented, clear and accurate procedures, or even just by making sure all devices and cables are properly labelled.
• Security flaws: Vulnerabilities in a network may create the opportunity for hackers to encroach your local area network (LAN) or the wide area network (WAN), resulting in downtime. To reduce the risk posed by security vulnerabilities, we recommend enterprises develop and employ a proactive security strategy to deal with emerging threats, including security operations monitoring, ransomware mitigation, and security awareness training for staff. If you don’t have the personnel on staff to secure your network, then investing in services from a partner like Northpoint Consulting that can accomplish this for you is a necessity so that you do not put your users and customers at risk — on top of risking unnecessary downtime
• Understaffed/Overworked IT teams: There are many distinct tasks required to keep an enterprise’s network, applications and servers running as close as possible to 100 percent of the time. If the enterprise does not have enough staff to monitor or manage updates, or to plan the deployment of new configurations properly, then IT downtime can result. A way this risk can be mitigated is to pass the burden of managing the network to an outsourced managed service provider like Northpoint Consulting to monitor the IT infrastructure, and thus allow the internal IT team to focus on keeping abreast of preventative maintenance tasks.
• Natural Disasters: There is nothing you can do to prevent natural disasters (for example, tropical storms and hurricanes that threaten the Caribbean region seasonably) but you can mitigate their impact. Modern telecommunications service provider networks are resilient and it takes a major disaster to disrupt services on a network-wide scale (e.g. a hurricane) for an extended period. To mitigate this our professional services team would advise building some resiliency into your network. For instance, consider using multiple service providers for voice and Internet service, if available. If you have multiple sites, design the network in such a way that if only one of your sites goes down, the rest can still communicate with each other. It’s also worth noting that you will want any hosted applications or servers — whether you host them in data centers or are using a third party such as a software as a service (SaaS) provider — are redundant and geographically diverse. If your sites depend on the information they get from a data center, you will want to make sure there is a backup data center that is far enough away from the primary network that the same natural disaster does not take both down. Or you can consider utilizing non-terrestrial communications (e.g. satellite broadband service provided across the Caribbean by our strategic partner Neptune Communications – Neptune Communications | To provide highly Resilient Mobile and Satellite Networks that are Always On! ) as a backup to the services provided by traditional network operators.

Five (5) main actions must be taken to minimize the risks related to the security of your network perimeter while allowing optimal data accessibility. They are:

1. Use a firewall with unified threat management: this will stop threats at the perimeter, protect end-users, and reduce security liabilities and lost time.

2. Implement a computer security charter: Without a charter or similar policy documents and procedures in place to control and set clear objectives for computer security in the business, security governance initiatives will likely be undefined within the enterprise, preventing the security governance program from operating efficiently.

3. Pay special attention to VPNs: VPNs, (virtual private networks) with encrypted data, serve as access doors for users when they are away, at home or on the road and want to communicate with their internal network via the Internet. Therefore, they require increased security.

4. Isolate Web applications: Web applications should be isolated on their own network, rather than on the internal network. This is done by configuring a so-called demilitarized zone or DMZ managed by the firewall.

1. 5. Understanding the global security context: Information security must provide an appropriate level of protection for digital information and assets in order to guarantee their availability, integrity and confidentiality.