Holding Your Own Against Today's Most Pressing Threats

For all the attention that we (and many others) give to cybercrime, people are still falling victim to hacks and scams every day. With most businesses operating more in the digital sphere than ever before, it stands to reason that they need to do more to keep from being a victim of a data breach or worse. Here are six things your business should do to keep from being a victim of a cyberattack.

#1 - TRAIN YOUR STAFF

You will want to establish basic security practices that make sense. You will want to go through how to identify a phishing attack and what to do if they come across one. You will want to explain what good password hygiene is and what benefits it offers both for your business and for them, individually. You will also need to go through the best practices of handling customer, vendor, and their contemporaries’ sensitive information. 

#2 - PATCH AND MANAGE

You will want to keep your business’ infrastructure updated and managed. This includes all machines and endpoints, web browsers, software; any part of your IT infrastructure that, if it were to be breached, could have a huge negative effect on your ability to continue business.

#3 - SECURITY SOLUTIONS

Make sure that your firewall, antivirus, and any other security solution you have in place to protect your business is updated with the latest threat definitions. This includes setting up firewalls or a VPN for every member of your staff that is working remotely. 

#4 - BACKUP YOUR DATA

In order to protect your data, regularly backing it up and storing it multiple places is suggested. That way you have copies of your data to restore from if something was to be corrupted, some IT were to fail, or there was some type of user error; and, also if some disaster were to compromise your data at your place of business.

#5 - SECURE WIRELESS NETWORKS

You will want to secure your Wi-Fi network(s). It should be hidden from view and encrypted to give your business the best chance at mitigating potential hacks aimed at accessing your wireless network. 

#6 - PROMOTE SOUND PASSWORD HYGIENE

Ensuring that your staff understands the best practices of using passwords and multi-factor authentication can go a long way toward protecting your business from outside threats. Passwords should be complex, but also easily remembered and use multiple characters.

If you are going to keep your data and infrastructure free from threats, these six steps are the bare minimum. If you would like to discuss additional steps you can take to protect your business’ most important assets, give our IT experts a call at (703) 621-3900 today.