Put Security Measures in Place to Protect Your Business

Beekeeping has been around for over 4500 years. There are plenty of apiculturists that maintain hives for profit, yet far more enjoy the hobby. Both employ a variety of strategies to protect their hives. Security has become even more important for beekeepers due to the rise in the occurrence of “colony collapse disorder”—an abnormal phenomenon where the majority of worker bees in a honeybee colony disappear. That can cause economic losses not unlike those that an organization can endure if it is struck by a ransomware attack or another kind of data/information breach!

Beekeeping is a considerable investment and measures to protect an apiary makes sense especially since the demand for honey is growing. Apiculturists fear the criminal that wants to steal the bee colony, but they also fear natural predators as well as pesticides.

Security comes first...

Here are some of the ways that beekeepers put security first along with lessons for those in traditional occupations:

Find the ideal location. Beekeepers look for sheltered positions to place their hives and prefer that the entrance is set opposite to prevailing winds. Likewise, business managers today must determine where their key business applications should be located. Should they rely on cloud computing primarily to maximize the ability to do business from anywhere? Should they rely more on local placement of key hardware and software to maximize security or productivity?

Lock up the periphery. They say fences make good neighbors. The smart beekeeper puts a security perimeter in place like a fence. They also try to keep the hive out of plain sight from the curious onlooker. Similarly, organizations should be sure they have adequate security strictures in place such as not allowing the use of public Wi‑Fi, putting guest wireless access on a separate network than their core, encrypting key devices, and installing a professional hardware firewall to monitor the incoming packets of data entering the network.

Monitor what is happening. A security camera of some sort connected to the internet to facilitate easy viewing from anywhere is used by hive managers to keep a watchful eye on their core business investment. An analogy that makes sense beyond just cameras for businesses is to put in place a monitoring system for their network. A professional IT Services firm like IT Radix can assist with this.

Inspect regularly. In beekeeping, there is no substitute for donning the protective gear and eyeing what is happening in and around the hive. Things might need to be updated or maintained as other adjacent environmental factors may have changed since the hive was first established. In the same way business managers protect their networks by ensuring that software and hardware patches and updates are routinely put in place. Other suggestions include having an IT professional inspect all hardware and software at least annually and putting in place an ongoing set of programs to test for vulnerabilities within and outside your network.

IT Radix is buzzing with ideas for protecting your hive.  Contact IT Radix today and let us “bee” your trusted IT advisor so you can harvest a bounty of sweet success!

First published in our May 2021 IT Radix Resource newsletter