Cyber Security Awareness Month – Ways To Protect Your Business

Companies collect and store enormous amounts of data. From billing invoices to customers’ credit card information, lots of business focuses on private data.

Cyber security is an essential aspect of a businesses IT setup and cutting corners can lead to catastrophic results. Cyberattacks put your money, data and IT equipment at risk.

As part of Cyber Security Awareness Month, we are looking at the 8 best ways to protect your business.

1: Train your employees

Employees can leave your business vulnerable to an attack. A high proportion of data breaches are down to employees who have either maliciously or accidently given cybercriminals access to your network.

To protect against threats from within, train staff in the importance of using strong passwords and how to spot phishing emails. Establish clear policies describing how to handle and protect customer information and other vital data.

2: Carry out risk assessment

Risk assessments will allow your business to identify  potential security issues in your company’s networks, systems and information. Establishing the risk levels of possible events and how breaches could potentially impact your business can help ensure your business is always protected to the best of your ability from cyber security threats.

3: Deploy antivirus software

Implementing antivirus and security software that can protect all your devices from viruses, spyware, ransomware and phishing scams is vital. Having software such as ESET Protect Advanced not only offers your business protection, but also a technology that helps you clean devices as needed and resets them to their pre-infected state. It’s important to keep your antivirus updated to stay safe from the latest cyber threats and patch any vulnerabilities.

5: Encrypt key information

Most businesses deal with data relating to credit/debit cards, bank accounts and other sensitive information on a regular basis. It is good practice to have an encryption program in place. Encryption keeps data safe by altering information on the device into unreadable codes.

Encryption is designed with a worst-case scenario in mind, even if your data is stolen, it would be useless to the hacker as they wouldn’t have the keys to decrypt the data and decipher the information.

6: Secure your Wi-Fi network

Ensuring your business Wi-Fi network is secure is important to protect your network from breaches by hackers who can change the name of your wireless access point or router, also known as Service Set Identifier (SSID).

To ensure your network is secure it is important to keep the software updated on your routers and create strong network credentials.

7: Use a firewall

To add further protection to your Wi-Fi Network,  a firewall  protects your business’s inbound and outbound network traffic. It can stop hackers from attacking your network by blocking certain websites. It can also be programmed so that sending out sensitive data and confidential emails from your company’s network is restricted. This contrasts with anti-virus software which works by targeting the software affected by a virus that has already gotten through.

8: Use password managers

Using strong passwords which are unique to every device or account quickly becomes difficult to remember. The need to remember and type out lengthy passwords each time can also slow your employees down. That’s why many businesses use password management tools such as Keeper.

Password managers will automatically generate the correct username, password and even security question answers that you need to log into websites or apps.

Partner with a Cyber Security Expert

Aligning with a Managed IT services provider can ensure that your business has all its cyber security covered. From helping your company develop actionable policies, to monitoring network activity, through to backing up critical data files, Unity World has your business covered.

If your business would like further guidance on protecting against cyber security threats, contact us at hello@unity.world or call 0330 119 6666.

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