Last week we talked about the technological threats present in our every day lives. This week we will discuss how to protect yourself from those threats. There are some remarkable software that have been created to keep you safe. Welcome to Cybersecurity 101, where we will help you know everything you have available to help protect you!
Employee Education
As we discussed earlier this month, your employees are one of hackers favorite avenues of attack. The best way to protect yourself is to train and be informed. There are several tools that can help accomplish this:
Simulated Phishing Training
In a phishing simulation, you and your employees receive fake phishing emails disguised as real emails. They look like a phish, but are completely safe. If you fall for the phish, you are prompted to take a training course. These trainings help you to better identify scam emails and avoid the real ones later.
Dark Web Scanning
Cybercriminals use the dark web as a home base for malware attacks, phishing schemes, and all sorts of other digital terror activity. It’s not recommended that you access the dark web, but you should know if your data is being passed around down there. A dark web monitoring service will alert you if certain emails, names, passwords, usernames, and more appear in the deep web. This will give you and your employees the chance to change passwords or back-up data before an attack occurs. A service like this could save you from having your identity stolen down the line.
Regular Training
One of the most important parts of strong cybersecurity is constant and regular training. Many training programs provide an annual course, but that’s the bare minimum. Cybercriminals are constantly evolving so you and your employees must remain constantly educated. That’s why short weekly trainings can be extremely helpful for your business. Reminding your employees every week of the dangers that lurk on the Internet and the ways with which they can combat them is extremely important. These trainings tend to be 5 minutes or less and they are sent directly to your inbox.
Software Protection
Email Filtering Protection
Phishing attacks are one of the most prevalent scams on the Internet. Not only that but they can be very hard to catch if you are not paying attention. The best way to avoid the danger is to keep it from getting to you at all. Email filtering is software that scans all incoming emails for malicious content or spoofed addresses. Anything that seems suspicious is locked away in a special inbox called a quarantine. You don’t see them in your inbox at all. The quarantine reports back periodically to let you know what it has found. If it does its job well, these filters can also keep out spam.
Security Risk Assessments
It’s impossible to fix a problem if you don’t know what the problem is. That is where a Security Risk Assessment comes in. This examination will tell you where the holes in your cybersecurity are and how best to plug them up. There’s no point in guessing with something as important as cybersecurity, go through an SRA to get a more confident answer.
Hosted Backup Solutions
Things happen. Make sure you have your important information backed up. That way, whether you get ransomware, someone’s hard drive gives up the ghost, or someone deletes the wrong file, you have another copy ready to go. Store backups in several places, including the cloud. Test them to make sure they work, otherwise its the same as having no backup!
Crisis Planning
Are you ready for anything? The best way to protect yourself is to have a plan in place for any kind of situation. Know. what you are going to do and test your plan regularly. Make sure your staff know the plan and how to execute it. This will ensure that in an actual crisis you can stay cool and collected and be back to work quickly.
Password Management and Multifactor Authentication
Passwords are the most basic security practice you can use, but also one of the most essential. Make sure your company is setting strong passwords. Use a reputable password manager to simplify the process for your employees. The easier it is to keep their passwords strong, the more likely they are to do it.
Multifactor authentication can help keep your accounts doubly secure. Hackers can’t access compromised accounts if the password has multifactor authentication. This is because they would still need a code or biometrics to log in after putting in the password. Most accounts are capable of using multifactor authentication, but it has to be manually set up.
Antivirus and Patch Management
Antivirus should be a no-brainer. In the case that someone does fall for a scam, these programs can help to keep malicious content from installing on your device. Make sure you are aware of the capabilities of your antivirus. Not all antivirus are created equal. Some will protect you more than others.
Software and operating systems aren’t perfect. Developers are constantly working to improve how things work and provide more protection, especially when they find vulnerabilities. They release these improvements as ‘patches’. Sometimes these are pushed automatically, but others need to be installed manually. Patch Management is a software that helps check the status of patches and pushes new releases to keep your security as up to date as possible.
Permission Controls
There is a security measure called the Rule of Least Privilege. This security rule maintains that everyone should be given the least amount of access as possible to do their job. This ensures that in the case of a breach, less information is available rather than more. It is also important to make sure accounts that are no longer in use are shut down. This ensures that if there is a breach of old information later that account isn’t accessible for use by hackers.
Use The Resources Available
Anything can happen at any time. Being prepared is extremely important in life. That is exactly why you should always be prepared for a criminal to pounce. All these Cybersecurity 101 tools will keep your staff on their toes and prevent your business from falling victim to the next digital villain’s master scheme. The only thing I’m asking of you, is to have the foresight to use them.
If you’re relying on internal IT or an MSP without security expertise, your team is most likely behind on the threats and not implementing everything they need to keep your staff safe. If you’re unsure of your security level with your current IT solution, contact us. We can provide everything mentioned above so that your company never has to worry about cybersecurity again.
