Global security leader, Gallagher Security, has announced that it has streamlined its free Security Health Check tool, making it easier to protect against potential system risks and improve business efficiencies.

According to the company, Security Health Check is an industry-first tool with numerous awards for vulnerability management.

What is Gallagher’s Security Health Check?

The Gallagher Security Health Check (SHC) is a free tool with the purpose of aiding users in recognizing and understanding potential weaknesses within your security setup.

Breaking new ground in the industry, SHC presents an automated approach to assessing your security system for potential hazards, eliminating the need for labor-intensive and costly manual audits.

This empowers you to conduct audits on a more frequent basis.

Utilizing data from SHC utility tests, it produces a clear and concise visual summary report.

This report evaluates the seriousness of potential threats and provides tailored suggestions for actions that can be implemented to minimize these risks, reducing the time and cost of traditional, manual audits.

Gallagher says that when its team learned that users were using the free tool for a lot more than system maintenance, they decided to make improvements tailored to support those varied, practical uses.

What Does It Look For?

Gallagher’s Security Health Check runs comprehensive tests across four key areas, which are:

Hardware

Outdated hardware that’s no longer receiving support can pose a significant challenge to your system’s security and functionality.

To address this issue, it’s important to actively manage hardware obsolescence, ensuring that your technology remains up-to-date and compatible with current software and security measures.

This proactive approach helps maintain the overall effectiveness and safety of your system.

Configuration

One important aspect is the ability to detect potential configuration issues within your system.

These issues can often lead to vulnerabilities that compromise the security and efficiency of your setup.

Additionally, it’s crucial to regularly check and assess configurations that might still enable the use of outdated technologies.

These older technologies might rely on weak encryption methods, which can make your system more susceptible to security breaches.

By addressing these configurations, you can enhance the overall security posture of your system and ensure it’s aligned with modern standards.

Users

One significant aspect to consider is the utilization of blank, default, and easily predictable passwords by operators within your system.

Such passwords can create vulnerabilities and potential points of unauthorized access, undermining the overall security of your system.

It’s crucial to conduct thorough audits to assess the length of user codes and to review users who possess advanced privileges.

Additionally, it’s important to pay attention to default user PINs that might still be in use.

Addressing these factors helps bolster the security of your system by ensuring that strong, unique, and non-predictable credentials are in place, minimizing the risk of unauthorized access and potential breaches.

Server Settings

An essential aspect to examine involves checking the type of account that services are operating under.

This refers to whether these services are running using a local system account or a network service account.

This check is vital as it helps ensure that services are appropriately configured and aligned with security best practices.

Different types of accounts come with varying levels of permissions and access, and selecting the appropriate account type based on the needs and requirements of the service helps maintain a secure and well-structured system environment.

Additional Uses

“Over time, we’ve learned that our users don’t just use Security Health Check to strengthen their systems.” said Robert Cowsley, Cyber Security Architect at Gallagher Security.

“They’re using it for project management, to justify budgets, as verification of proper installation, as a signoff tool, for bridging the technical gap for non-technical departments – there’s a multitude of uses for the tool.”

In response, Gallagher Security has given Security Health Check’s reports a fresh, new look and streamlined the process to simplify use and dramatically reduce run times.

Security Health Check is now available for download by users, making installation more user friendly and removing the need for Gallagher to provide access

The program is now easier and faster to run, generating a summarized health report in minutes compared to hours.

Color-coded health reports have been simplified so technical and non-technical users alike can understand the severity and priority of the test findings

Updates

“Security Health Check is still the same powerful risk-management tool, but now it’s easier to use.” said Dave Kerry, Senior Software Engineer at Gallagher.

“We’ve had users who only used to run the tool a couple of times a year, but now they’re enabled to run it weekly because it’s so much faster.”

“We want to be more than just a systems provider.” Cowsley added.

“Our goal is to be trusted advisors, and I believe tools like Security Health Check demonstrate how much we care about taking long-term care of our users.”