The Thurston, Pierce, Lewis, and Mason Counties IT Experts

Control Access, Based on Role

Let me ask you a question: how many people outside of your accounting department need to see the business’ financials? Outside of the people involved in managing payroll, who needs to see how much each of your employees are making? There is a lot of potentially sensitive information floating around your business, and without the right solutions in place to protect it, anyone in your business could potentially access it.

Role-based access management solutions can do a lot to help fix this problem. These solutions simplify the process by assigning permissions to roles, rather than individuals, so all a manager needs to do to remove a user’s permissions is to remove them from a certain role. As a result, it is easier to grant and rescind permissions as necessary without worrying about missing one in the process.

The Principle of Least Privilege

While we’re discussing role-based access control permissions, we should touch on the concepts behind the principle of least privilege. Consider a high-ranking member of one of your departments (we’ll call it department A). It stands to reason that the manager of department A should be able to access all of department A’s resources and data. However, the manager of department A probably has no need for the resources and data that department B or C have. Likewise, the managers of B and C each have complete access to the data they utilize but should not have this access to data controlled by other departments.

Access control simply creates a relatively simple system of enforcing this kind of specified access.

Multifactor for Multi-Layers of Protection

While, on paper, passwords should be the apex of security measures, they have proven countless times to be less than adequate for security. The reason for this is twofold: first, the technology available to crack passwords is advanced enough to do so much faster, and second, users aren’t creating them to the standard that “the apex of security measures” should be held to.

Chances are the second reason is the one that will give you more trouble. When you consider that the launch code for the entirety of the United States’ nuclear arsenal was simply “00000000” for almost two decades, how likely does it seem that one of your employees has become lax in their passwords?

This is why it makes sense to protect your resources by requiring multiple factors of authentication. Typically, to log into a system and access its data, you need to provide your identity via a username, and verify that identity through an agreed-upon form of authentication - traditionally, the password. However, if that password is easily guessed or cracked, that alone isn’t technically enough to fully verify that a user is who they say they are.

That’s why multifactor was developed. It takes one factor - the password - and requires another in addition to it to fully confirm an identity. Preferably, this additional factor wouldn’t be another password - it may be biometrics, or a physical security key, or a code that is generated on demand.

You have a lot of power when it comes to controlling your company’s data, so you need to find a balance between access and restriction that both protects this data and allows your business to leverage it to its full potential. PC Technologies can help - reach out to us and learn more by calling 360-491-2227.

This is a big part of why we call ourselves a managed service provider, actually.

How We Are Able to Track So Much

One of the biggest parts of managed services is our practice of monitoring our clients’ IT solutions in order to catch inconsistencies and threats. In order to do so, we utilize a collection of advanced tools and specialized software that allows us to comprehensively track and analyze all of your technology.

These tools and software give us a look under the hood, so to speak, allowing us to record data and create our own historical record to reference.

As a result, we wind up producing a truly staggering amount of documentation on your business’ technology:

• Each and every device you have, from your network infrastructure to every company-owned endpoint and peripheral that attaches to it.
• The proper configuration for each of these devices.
• The date that each of these devices was installed.
• The licenses that your business needs to maintain, and the status of the ones you have.
• A comprehensive history of all service that each of these devices have received.

This documentation allows us to better diagnose and resolve issues with your IT - usually preemptively - resulting in fewer interruptions and issues to keep you from accomplishing what your business is supposed to be accomplishing.

Interested in finding out more?

This entire process usually starts with a simple network audit, just to reveal where the business currently stands. Let us perform one for you. Reach out today to schedule yours by calling us at 360-491-2227!

Our Experience with Industries

Perspective is a valuable thing, especially when you have to figure out solutions to as many problems as an MSP has to. Not only are there occasionally real-time issues to resolve, we also deal with predicted problems and challenges, working to have a fix ready for when it is needed. We’ve gathered a lot of perspective during our experiences doing so, and it has made us better at our jobs.

However, perspective is only helpful if it can be applied practically - you need more than a complete view of things, you also need to know what you are looking at. The same goes for the IT support team you are relying on, too. What are your IT challenges, and how are your operations most impacted by them? The most successful support team is the team that understands how your business needs to operate and provides you with the IT services that facilitate that.

Response Times

From the perspective of a business owner, many of the issues that pop up in their technology do just that - they pop up. They’re sudden. Considering that, there’s little wonder that many business owners still prefer to have an employee (or a department, depending on the size of the business in question) on-hand to work on IT issues. That way, travel time isn’t a factor, and the issue can be resolved quicker, right?

Well, yes and no. 

Part of it has to do with the remote nature of managed services, so someone on-site is going to be able to get their hands on the problematic device that much quicker, sure. However, because the MSP is using their remote access to proactively monitor your solutions, you probably aren’t even aware of the problems that the MSP is catching and resolving for you behind-the-scenes - and technically speaking, even if the problem does require an on-site visit, the MSP could be using their remote monitoring solutions to help diagnose the problem as the tech is on their way. 

Again, the idea is to avoid incidents that make it critical to cut down response times in the first place.

Services Offered

What is it, really, that you need of your IT resource? Specialized experience with niche technologies? Greater control in your hands? Less responsibility? Improved communications? Adherence to stricter compliance standards? A good managed service provider can help you with all these things, and more.

Furthermore, a relationship with us gives you privileged access to the same professionals that we’ve cultivated relationships with - vendors and the like - as a pleasant addition to our team’s expertise and determination to successfully provide for your IT needs. Overall, this is truly one of the biggest, underestimated, benefits to working with a managed service provider.

Cost Savings

Consider the investment you would have to make to completely staff and equip an entire IT department with highly skilled professionals of the caliber and skill that we have at PC Technologies. Now consider how you could better invest that money, having saved it by signing on with PC Technologies as your outsourced IT provider.

There really is something to this managed service arrangement.

If you’re looking to get something more out of the way your business takes advantage of technology, give us a call at 360-491-2227.