How To Keep Your Business Safe From Cyber Attacks

To protect your business from a cyber-attack, you must have a strong understanding of what constitutes a internal and external vulnerabilities for your business. This means knowing that a virus or threat can come in the form of a fake email, fake clickable links, and in several other ways.

Falling victim to hackers leaves your personal and business information, as well as the information of all employees and clients vulnerable to the threat of identity theft. What you may not realize is that the easiest way to protect from threats is to keep software and operating systems up to date. You can turn on automatic updates in your settings.

Every business requires three essential tools to protect your network from would-be cyber criminals. First, you'll need Secure Sockets Layer. SSL protects information sent between your website and its databases, which keeps people from grabbing and reading phone numbers, addresses, credit card numbers, or other vital pieces of information.

Next, install a web application firewall. Available as either software or hardware, the firewall protects your website and data connection by tracking the data that passes between the systems. These days, may WAF systems are cloud-based and available for a monthly subscription fee.

Finally, install website and software scanners to detect and protect from malware, viruses, and other bad code snippets.

Cyber criminals spend their time seeking out everything they can on your computers, including important identifying information like bank account numbers and social security numbers. It is especially easy for them to get these since many people forget to turn on the proper security measures.

The easiest way to encrypt the data on our computer is to use the full-disk encryption tool that comes standard with your computer's operating system. The entire process takes about a minute and won't slow down your computer.

However, encryption only works when someone stays logged into the computer but isn't active. For this reason, it is important to change the settings to automatically log out usernames that haven't been used in 5-10 minutes.

Professional anti-virus and anti-malware programs are a must for any business that wants to protect itself from hackers and their ransomware attacks. Most malware comes through the system via security hacks to the network, but being knowledgeable about email phishing, apps that hijack social media, and spoofing, and knowing how to prevent them, can help.

Each of your business devices, including tablets and smartphones, should be loaded with anti-malware and anti-virus protection and should run it after each time software is installed.

An unsecured WiFi network is a giant beacon begging hackers to come in and steal your information. They actually spend time surfing through networks and looks for networks with little to no protection in a technique known as war driving. When they find an open network, they can steal your files, financial information, and all your passwords.

If you must use WiFi instead of a wired network, disable the service set identifier so the router can't broadcast itself. Additionally, ensure your WiFi uses the latest encryption standards and has a long encryption key. Avoid using passwords that are anything more sensible than a jumble of letters, numbers, and punctuation.

Educate your employees about the importance of using cyber security to protect against hackers. You might even consider implementing something like Zero Trust. The high-grade security measure processes resources based on the user's identity, group membership, and more.

It protects internal resources, features a seamless user experience, and authenticates and authorizes all users and devices before allowing them to use applications or IT services.
Remember, threats and the security that protects them are ever-changing. Track the updates to ensure you always have the most updated option.