Built for resilience, how we make our data centre secure?
Learn how we have put a ring of steel around our data centre to ensure resilience against the rise in hacks and cyber attacks.
Cyber security is one of the greatest challenges that organisations face. The scale, scope and sophistication of attacks are unprecedented, and businesses of all sizes are at risk of being hit – it’s now a case of when they will be attacked, not if.
You just have to look at the news headlines over the past few weeks to see that even the largest companies are far from immune. In the UK, the Co-Operative and Marks & Spencer have fallen victim to severe attacks on their systems and networks, causing chaos and damage to the business.
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The costly impact of a successful cyber attack
Falling victim to a cyber attack or hack wreaks havoc across the organisation, both internally and among the customer base.
It can prevent employees from accessing devices, systems and programs, while shutting down customer-facing operations. In the case of the Co-Operative, it switched off contactless payment networks and crippled its ordering systems leading to empty shelves in stores.
This, in turn, hits revenue streams and even causes damage to the company’s reputation, especially if customer data is leaked or stolen. Financial damage can take a long time to recover, but reputational damage might never be repaired.
There can also be issues around compliance and breaching data laws and market regulations. In most industries, companies are required to have effective cyber security measures in place, and if these are lacking, they can be liable for penalties and fines.
How to mitigate the risk of a cyber attack
Organisations must take a comprehensive approach to cyber security, starting with a strategy that identifies the potential risks and then establishes the tools, protocols and processes that need to be put into place to mitigate them.
This includes identifying the third parties the organisation works with and ascertaining their approach to cyber security – partner vulnerabilities can often act as a back door into your systems and networks.
Education and training are among the most effective cyber security features you can deploy, with human error still one of the biggest vulnerabilities in any organisation.
Depending on the size of the organisation, a dedicated Chief Information Security Officer might be required – if a smaller business, you can outsource this function to a third-party specialist.
The ensures the right strategy, processes, protocols, tools and education frameworks are in place, and that the business is working with third parties that have effective cyber security measures.
How we built the Gibfibre data centre for resilience
Gibfibre is one such third-party, and we have gone to great lengths to build our cutting-edge data centre for resilience from the get-go. This includes both physical security measures and cyber security measures.
Below, we take a closer look at the ring of steel we have built around our facility.
This starts with the location of our data centre – it’s strategically placed on high ground and in a nondescript industrial area away from main traffic arteries and aircraft flight paths.
It can be accessed 24/7 but only through security-rated doors for enhanced protection and via an access control system with biometric/fingerprint and PIN authentication, which is also linked to rack keys. The entire facility is fully covered by CCTV and is ISO27001 certified, too.
In terms of cyber security measures, DDoS protection is offered as standard and is capable of handling unlimited dirty traffic to deliver only clean traffic to our customers.
To learn more about our facility, or how we can support your business, get in touch here.
