Annual healthcare exams are vital for maintaining proper well-being. These check-ups allow healthcare professionals to assess your current health status and detect any potential issues early on. Many health problems go unnoticed until they become severe and cause serious problems. 

For example, during a routine annual exam, your doctor may discover that you have high blood pressure that will lead to serious complications if left untreated. Without these regular check-ups, you may never realize you have high blood pressure until it's too late. 

Similarly, thorough IT security Assessments are essential. These assessments are even more critical with the advent of increasingly ingenious cybersecurity scams and AI-powered technology attacks. These assessments offer invaluable insights into potential issues within your church's technology infrastructure and operations that might remain unnoticed. While it is unlikely any church would intentionally tolerate security vulnerabilities, without someone scrutinizing their systems, staff may be unaware of lurking dangers. This oversight can occur easily amid the chaos of busy schedules, where the status quo becomes ingrained, masking underlying issues. Often, church staff lack the tools and training to address or recognize these security threats proactively. 

Engaging an impartial third party equipped with the requisite tools and expertise increases the likelihood of identifying and addressing risks that have eluded internal detection. Such a proactive approach is crucial, as it prevents issues from being dismissed as insignificant or slated for delayed resolution due to time constraints. 

What types of Security Assessments are available? 

1. Security Audit: An information Technology firm will dispatch an expert to comprehensively investigate your entire technology system. The expert will evaluate the condition of your computers, servers, networking equipment, technology procedures, and IT protocols. By conducting user interviews, the expert will gather insights into standard practices and identify potential areas of concern. With this information, the expert will pinpoint areas of strength and areas that warrant enhancement within your church's technology infrastructure.   
    
    

2. Vulnerability Test: Beyond the surface-level scrutiny, the investing team will dig deeper to identify any known weaknesses present within your environment. They will gather data on software and firmware versions with documented security vulnerabilities and implement specialized tools to pinpoint potential soft spots in your security infrastructure.  Additionally, they will request to know more about various aspects of the setup. For instance, they may investigate whether equipment utilized by the Worship Production Team is causing communication disruptions for other staff devices and assess whether systems are susceptible to known hacking techniques due to absent security patches.   
    
    

3. Penetration Test: A church will enlist the services of a company to conduct simulated cyberattacks on their environment and systems to uncover vulnerabilities. The IT company will endeavor to seize login credentials for email accounts, computers, and various other applications and systems. The "attackers" will then attempt to exploit these vulnerabilities, often by escalating privileges, stealing, and intercepting traffic, all to gauge the potential extent of the damage. In addition to these tactics, they may also employ social engineering methods, such as "phishing." For instance, they might impersonate the lead pastor to prompt the finance assistant into transferring a significant sum of money, thereby assessing the staff's susceptibility to such manipulative schemes.  

Penetration tests can incur significant costs. Given their advanced nature, arge businesses mandated to meet rigorous financial and security certification criteria are the entities that undertake these meticulous assessments. For many churches, the expense associated with a comprehensive penetration test may not be deemed justifiable. Whether such testing is necessary for your church hinges on the nature and mechanics of your financial transactions and the member data stored in church systems. It may be that specific security standards apply to the church. Therefore, a church must seek guidance from its security consultant to ascertain the necessary assessments. 

Does Our Church Need an IT Security Assessment? 

Security Assessments should not be a one-time test to check off the list. Continuous monitoring is key! Just as with your yearly health exam, regular IT security check-ups ensure you are aware of evolving issues, your network's robustness, and emerging IT security trends. By conducting routine security assessments, you can pinpoint and rectify vulnerabilities before they escalate into significant issues. Given the rapid pace of technology, conducting Security Audits and Vulnerability Tests at least annually is advisable. If you are unsure whether your church has had proper assessments recently, now is the opportune time to schedule one. 

Do any of these aspects strike a chord with you regarding the situation at your church? Enable specializes in assisting churches in evaluating their cybersecurity readiness and deploying tailored solutions aligned with your unique requirements and mission. Contact us at info@enable.email for further details on how Enable can support your church.