Day after day, security breaches in businesses all over the world are hitting the news. These attacks highlight the vulnerability of data and the lack of robust security strategies in organizations of all sizes. Your data security is vital to the overall wellbeing of your business.
Companies and organizations are apologizing for more sensitive data breaches or admitting that they’ve been hacked at an alarming rate. Why is that?
Cyberattacks and cybercrimes are becoming frighteningly common. It’s not just the massive corporations that are suffering data breaches either; attacks on startups and small businesses are on the rise as well, with hackers realizing all of these businesses might not have established adequate cybersecurity defences. Around 50% of small businesses do not have any kind of cybersecurity defence plan at all. When remote work became the norm during the pandemic, these risks became even greater.
While there’s no replacing a completely developed cybersecurity team, there are a number of basic, common-sense cybersecurity techniques you can do today to make your company safer.
10 Things You Can Do Today To Make Your Business More Secure
1. Verify all software patches and updates have been installed.
Patches are intended to upgrade, optimize, or secure existing software, computers, servers, and technology systems that maintain operational efficacy or mitigate security vulnerabilities. While simple in nature, most growing businesses struggle to identify critical patch updates, test and install patch releases to fix problems before they occur. It’s virtually impossible for a small or medium-sized business with strained IT resources to keep up and protect your company. Patch management is a time consuming and often misunderstood task, yet the impact can have devastating effects.
2. Change passwords
The benefits of changing passwords often cannot be underestimated. Your computer stores and provides access to a lot of sensitive information. Even more so when connected to a network that houses the information of your business and clients. Keeping all of this data safe and secure must be a priority. It is wise for organizations to have a password policy that requires employees to change their passwords regularly. Passwords should also be unique for each account. InfiniteIT recommends changing passwords every 90 days (about 3 months).
3. Upgrade end-of-life versions of software
The issues presented by unsupported software can cause headaches for your business. The most effective way to deal with end-of-life versions of software is to upgrade to the latest version. While that sounds simple, this can often introduce other problems that need to be planned for. For example:
- Are all of my programs compatible with the latest version of Windows?
- What will the costs be to upgrade?
- Will my users need training or additional support to make the switch?
The impact of these problems can be lessened by partnering with an IT service provider who can guide you through the process and assist your users as needed.
4. Document and train employees
Train employees to recognize security threats. Tell them how to report suspicious activity and publicly reward employees who alert you to vulnerabilities.
5. Test backups
Many organizations invest deeply in creating backup plans and provisions but fail to test them enough. This should be a critical component of your business continuity planning. Any weakness in the backup process can result in inadequate backups, or worse, expose the backups to cyber attacks. You need monitoring tools that can ensure your backups occur regularly in a timely fashion. You should also test the defences in place for backups as well as the restoration process. Using a USB drive (or thumb drive) to do back ups is one of the worst ideas ever. IF the drive is connected to the network, the hackers will see it and go after it rendering the entire process useless. Back ups are one area you should never cut corners on. Once your data is gone, it can be gone forever. Payroll data, invoices, customer documents, drawings, and more are several areas hackers focus on taking out because they know this data is valuable to your business.
6. Enable employee multi-factor authentication
Cybercriminals have more than 15 billion stolen credentials to choose from. If they are able to attack your company, they could take over your bank accounts, health records, company secrets and information, and more. Multi-factor authentication is crucial for your business, as it makes stealing your information harder. The less tempting your data, the more likely that hackers will choose someone else to target.
7. Remove internet-facing management portals
Using an internet-facing management portal should be avoided if possible, as it can expose the company to a range of security risks. For example, without proper authentication protocols in place, unauthorized users could gain access to sensitive data or perform malicious commands on corporate systems. Moreover, other connected systems can be vulnerable to attack if incorrect configurations are used for the management portal, or if network traffic is not properly encrypted. Ultimately, using any internet-facing management portal increases a company’s exposure to cyber threats and should therefore be used with extreme caution and security measures to keep your network safe.
8. Verify everyone in your company has completed security awareness training
The goal of cybersecurity awareness training is to create an environment where employees feel empowered to be active participants in their own security rather than helpless victims of cybercrime. A well-planned security awareness training begins with a clear understanding of the threats, goals, objectives, audiences, and resources available. As more and more industries move towards compliance, organizations need to look to cybersecurity awareness training as a means to ensure their staff have the right level of understanding of data protection to comply with these regulations. Leveraging a CyberSecurity Awareness Training solution can help automate ongoing training and document the success of the training. Using phishing-simulation technologies can also put your employees to the test in a safe manner that provides tangible results on whether or not the training is successful. (It is also fun to see the reaction of employees when they know they’ve been duped in real time).
9. Implement Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) software
Regardless of how large or small your organization may be, taking proactive steps to monitor for and mitigate IT security risks is essential. SIEM solutions benefit businesses in a variety of ways and have become a significant component in streamlining security workflows. Some of the benefits include: advanced real-time threat recognition, regulatory compliance auditing, AI-driven automation, improved organizational efficiency, insider threats, and much more! Working with a Cyber Security partner can reduce the cost of a SIEM and make it affordable for any size organization while reducing the complexities related to implementing a proper SIEM.
10. Review cybersecurity policies & incident response plan
As the frequency and types of data breaches increase, the lack of an incident response plan can lead to longer recovery times, increased cost, and further damage to your information security effectiveness. This makes reviewing your cybersecurity policies and incident response plan a critical activity for any business or organization.
Any organization that fails to care about cybersecurity is taking a huge risk. And as businesses grow more and more interconnected, those risks extend to customers, partners, and suppliers. To ensure that you can have peace of mind and to protect against costly malware, ransomware, and bots, businesses of all sizes need to implement 360-degree cybersecurity measures.
Finding the Right Partner
At Infinite IT Solutions, we believe security is mission critical for businesses of all shapes and sizes. Risk may be a part of business, but it doesn't have to be a part of your technology.
Our services like iCare and iSecure can help streamline your processes, enhance your cybersecurity, and grow with your business.
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Let's chat about how we can help your business be secure.