As the advance of technology marches on, legacy IT software is often forgotten. While many applications are outdated by today's standards, they are often still running and vital to many businesses. Enterprises and large companies have entire teams devoted to this, but what about SMBs? In this article, we will discuss some of the best practices for securing legacy IT software.
1. Regularly patch and update software: Many vendors may stop updating their software after some years. However, many will still release critical security patches for decades after a software release. This helps address any vulnerabilities that may exist in the software and can even increase performance and stability in some cases.
2. Utilize Encryption: Encryption has been around for a long time, and there are countless applications and software to make utilizing it easy. Keeping your data encrypted and secure this way makes it a much less attractive target and in the case of a security breach, will keep the data useless to an attacker.
3. Limit access to the legacy system: Legacy systems should only be accessed by those who require access to perform their jobs or maintenance on the system. This can also include limiting physical access. Considering placing old servers or even desktops providing a service in a secure location or computer cabinet with locks.
4. Monitor Logs: It's important to regularly check system logs for suspicious or unauthorized access and actions. Setting up automated text or email alerts for certain actions is highly suggested; many built-in and 3rd part applications and services can customize alerts in almost all popular systems that might need to be monitored.
5. Perform regular security audits: Performing regular audits on your systems will supplement your automated alerts and log monitoring. You may spot trends or issues that otherwise can escape automated detection.
Comments
0 comments
Please sign in to leave a comment.