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From avoiding malicious pop-ups to preventing phishing attacks, your business has a lot to consider. Learn how to improve internet privacy using these tips.
Every 39 seconds, a hacker takes a crack at an organization’s information technology system. Put another way; there are 2,244 cybersecurity breaches every day of the year. Is your business ready?
Data is the new oil. For your organization, tapping into the capabilities it offers to gain lasting competitive advantage is mission-critical. To help you do this safely stay online, here is an in-depth guide on how to improve internet security for your business.
- Invest in Training Your Team on Cyber Security
It’s a widely known truth among cybersecurity professionals that people are the weakest link in the chain. If you develop and execute a robust cybersecurity strategy without adequately training your people, it will fail before taking flight.
When you are thinking of training your team on cybersecurity, you should consider making it a mandatory requirement. Just like you would not train some employees on fire safety while leaving others out, so should you treat internet security.
You can designate some aspects of training to be department-specific. For example, seeing that c-suite executives are the most exposed to the outside world, you can emphasize part of the training on social engineering hacks.
Additionally, you need to sensitize the weakest link about your employees – new hires. To get the ball rolling, make training new hires on your cybersecurity standards a part of your onboarding process.
But it’s not just enough to give lectures or theoretical presentations on internet safety. You need to complement these with practical simulations that can help bring the point home.
Think of coordinating with external internet security consultants to develop relevant simulations for your business. As you run regular drills with these simulations, your employees build memory muscle on how to respond to potential threats.
Such intuitive knowledge can make the difference between survival and failure during a live cybersecurity breach.
- Back It Up
If you value your business data, then creating regular backups is a no-brainer to enhance your security. To begin with, you need to create daily backups that focus on a two-pronged approach —local and cloud backups.
For local backups, store your business data on devices that reside within your premises. These include hard drives, USB thumb drives, among others. Doing so ensures that any information you need to restore is readily available on your premises.
When creating local data backups, you need to have at least three copies of the same information. That way, no single event can wipe out the much-needed business data.
You should also create at least two local backups that are in different formats. For example, if you opt to store your business data on a hard drive, the other local copy can be on a compact disk.
Along with onsite backups, you also need to store a complete copy of the backup off-site. Cloud storage is nowadays an attractive and affordable option to ensure you have a copy of your business data that you can access at any time.
A word of caution, though; online storage platforms are not to be substitutes for cloud-based backups. These services may leverage the internet, but they have drawbacks that limit their functioning as data backup storage points.
Some of these limitations include limited versioning of files, and limited automatic syncing.
Ensure you opt for a true backup service that enables you to have unlimited file versioning. Such a system will also allow you to create automatic backups of complete systems and not just a few files.
- Focus on the Basics
It’s quite easy to get caught up in the big picture that you forget that cybersecurity relies heavily on the fundamental aspects.
When it comes to browser use, train your staff to adopt tools that manage pop-ups when they are online. Software solutions such as https://setapp.com/how-to/allow-pop-ups-on-mac help you to ward off pop-ups, which can be part of a ploy to lure unsuspecting employees to cyber breaches.
Another popular primary breach area you need to sensitize your team on should the passwords they use. When you show them how malicious actors use brute force attacks to decode weak passwords, it can help them change their password behavior.
Insist on lengthy passwords that combine letters, numerals, and symbols to make it harder for hackers to breach.
- Plug Holes in Your WI-Fi
It’s practically impossible to find a business today that doesn’t operate without using office Wi-Fi. That ubiquity is one draw that makes such a network a magnet for malicious actors.
Once you set up your router, ensure that it exists in a secure physical location with restricted access. The easiest way to breach a Wi-Fi network is to access its router and swap or reset it.
Every time you purchase a new router for your office Wi-Fi, it comes with the default login information. You would be surprised at the number of companies that don’t alter this information long after setting up their network.
Use new passphrases that are at least 15 characters strong, featuring a mix of letters, numerals, and symbols. You should also ensure you change each passphrase frequently to make it harder for a hacker to access it.
- Update Your Software and Firmware
Downloading and installing software and firmware updates makes many employees roll their eyes. While this chore might feel unseemly, it often holds the key to more significant internet security for your business.
Every once in a while, the software you use in the office develops vulnerabilities. The developers often push an update to patch up such weak spots. The longer you ignore installing such updates, the more window you give a malicious actor to break into your system.
A software or firmware update can also usher in new features aimed at improving your security.
Whenever possible, you should set updates to automatically download and install so that you have new security features as soon as they are released.
Invest in Learning How to Improve Internet Security
Your business relies heavily on technology to run efficiently. Malicious actors know this and target your company data during security breaches. To avoid falling victim to such attacks, you need to invest in learning how to improve internet security for your employees and data assets. A robust cybersecurity strategy begins with the people and fans outward to the digital infrastructure.
Do you want to learn more about how technology intersects with business? Check out more of our content for ideas on how to make innovation work for your firm.
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