What is an IT Health Check and do you need one?

stethoscope on a Macbook

An IT health check helps you protect your business from cyber security threats inside and out. 

It finds your vulnerabilities. It confirms you’re using the best practices. Without regular health checks, it’s difficult to tell whether your IT setup is as tight as a drum. Or a bucket full of holes… 

Dial A Geek highly recommends that every business gets an IT health check annually (in fact, you get one for free every year if you’re on one of our managed services). The UK Cabinet Office insists on the same for all public sector organisations. 

Today, with BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and remote working methods becoming ever more popular, a regular health check of your IT setup has never been more important. 

What is an IT health check? 

An IT health check is a complete, independent assessment of your business’s cyber security. 

The goal is to test how well protected your systems are and how vulnerable they might be to someone trying to get, whether inadvertently or with serious intent. 

The check will include testing of your: 

1) External systems 

External testing is for systems which link to the outside world. It should cover your web servers, email servers, firewalls and antivirus, internet services, VPNs and other remote access solutions as well as third party suppliers who have access to your systems. 

2) Internal systems and infrastructure 

Internal testing should include the build and configuration of your networks, servers, applications and desktops, PSN and internal gateways and patching at all levels. 

Why is an IT health check important? 

An IT health check (sometimes abbreviated as ITHC) is a smart idea for several important reasons. A health check: 

  1. Identifies vulnerabilities and potential problems – in your individual systems as well as your setup as a whole. 
  1. Confirms your existing security methods are effective – so you can be confident that you are doing everything you can to protect your business. 
  1. Improves cyber awareness within your company – raising staff awareness of how important it is to follow simple best practices is one of the most underrated benefits of an IT health check. 
  1. Protects against possible future losses – of productivity and downtime caused by your system going down because of threats which could have been easily prevented. 

How does an IT health check work? 

Your IT health check should take the form of an audit of your company’s IT setup. In the end, you should have a report which clearly lays out: 

  1. Where weaknesses have been identified 
  2. What can or should be done about those vulnerabilities 
  3. Where best practices are and are not being followed 
  4. Where processes you’ve set up are and are not being followed 
  5. Action plans for the future 

See if your IT support service provides an ITHC 

If you’re only using your IT support service in a crisis, you’re missing out on a whole lot they could and should be doing for you. 

Order an IT health check today and get peace of mind for tomorrow. 

You can get a complete IT health check from Dial Geek at any time.  

Or you can join the 968 businesses in Bristol and the UK who use our managed services and get an ITHC for free every year. 

Give us a call on 0117 369 4335 or fire us an enquiry via our form if you have any questions. 

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