Nothing is more important than cybersecurity to safeguard your company’s data in the digital era of storing all documents, records, and active projects on local and cloud networks.
As a business owner, you are in control of a never-ending mountain of data, the majority of which is private. It belongs to the clients, staff, or the business as a whole. What’s more, it is incredibly valuable to hackers.
There are numerous approaches to hacking. Some hackers sneakily alter credit card readers, others break into public wifi networks, and quite a few use targeted phishing emails to carry out their malicious work. The best defence, no matter what kind of hack you might be dealing with, is one that is multi-layered.
Here are 13 effective methods for safeguarding your company’s data.
- Encrypt everything
With all the best will in the world, your defences may be hacked,your firewall may fail, or an unsuspecting employee may open an email attachment. However, to sell or otherwise abuse your data, hackers must be able to read it.
The best way to prevent a security breach is to encrypt data. Even if hackers were to discover, copy, and escape with a thousand lines of client data, an encrypted database would leave them with nothing without the encryption key.
The best course of action is to always encrypt everything. Incorporate encryption into your own code and anything that is independently created. Don’t forget to encrypt locally and on mobile devices for remote connections. This stops packets from being read in transit.
- Regularly check for vulnerabilities
Vulnerabilities are security weaknesses and loopholes in the software that your company utilizes. There is always an opportunity for improvement because no software is flawless. You can examine your software stack for any observable security weaknesses or potentially harmful loopholes by using vulnerability scanning. In essence, it searches for software defects that a hacker might use to obtain access or cause harm.
After a scan, you should have a very detailed list of problems to fix and some ideas for fixing them.
- Update and patch
A software patch can be used to plug any vulnerabilities in existing software that have already been discovered.
In many instances, the original developers will finally identify the flaw, fix it, and release an update if the scanning software can locate it.
The update can be optional and skipped, even if you have automatic updates enabled. Keep your software updated automatically, and don’t forget to look for optional updates and patches that address security flaws.
- Whitelist WiFi
You don’t want just anyone nearby joining since devices connected to your company’s wifi network has the capacity to connect with the hub and other devices. The password is not exactly secret if everyone on your staff knows it, even though password protection is a little bit safer than nothing at all.
One-at-a-time approval is the most secure method for both company and employee wifi devices. This stops new staff devices that might be infected from connecting, in addition to stopping hackers and rogue devices from joining. Then, when staff members wish to purposefully connect a new device, they must first submit it for approval by an IT specialist, who will then give access with a unique password.
- Put cybercrime insurance in place
Data breaches and other cybercrimes are regrettably becoming all too common. Both big businesses and one-man enterprises are prone to viral infections and hacking. Hacking can do much more than damage your business systems; it could also harm your reputation and endanger your customers and/or staff. Because of this, purchasing cyber insurance is a wise precaution for any size organisation.
Cyber insurance protects you in the event of a data breach involving sensitive client data, including Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, account numbers, driver’s licence numbers, and health records
- Check every new device
There is a growing risk associated with the trend for employees to use their own devices in the workplace. You don’t want is to spend months protecting your network from external threats only to discover that an employee’s mobile device has harmful malware on it.
Your IT team will be able to identify contaminated devices before they connect by limiting wifi connectivity. They may even be able to clean the devices for the employees.
To stop malware and viruses from infecting the network, you could even expedite device scanning and frequently check all company devices.
- Never keep passwords on file
The biggest hassle with network security is passwords. Both sides of the argument concerning whether long phrase passwords or mixed character passwords are more secure agree that how your passwords are stored is just as important as how secure they are. Neverkeep your passwords in plain text anywhere. The largest risk at the moment is, however, saving your credentials in your web browser.
Although this may be quite convenient, convenience always goes against security. Additionally, your browser effortlessly logs you into everything with a single click. Now anyone who is sitting at your workstation or using one of your synced devices can access all of your accounts.
- Control file sharing
In a similar vein, your network becomes more vulnerable the more files, servers, and devices you share on it. All of the quick file access will make it simple for any intruder to locate what they need and leave.
Obviously, file sharing is essential for a modern company, so you’ll need to keep a few things on hand. But if sharing isn’t being used right away, think about isolating permissions and turning them off.
- Eraser data before selling any equipment
Every business experiences periods of expansion and the sale of aging assets. When your company is at the forefront of technology, you constantly replace outdated hardware with newer models for sale to other companies.
Giving away equipment is excellent, but you don’t want to unintentionally sell part of your data in the process. Before devices leave the premises, make sure all data is removed.
- Remove outdated data
Businesses continually store data, frequently using many internal servers and external hosts at the same time. It’s far too simple to lose track of how much information you have saved, archived, backed up, or lost in a folder that is no longer in use. Introduce a yearly data audit and remove any outdated data that is no longer needed.
You might want to maintain use cases from the past. If so, think about eliminating any personally identifying information and only preserving the survey data you want to be recorded.
- Be wary of Public WiFi
Public wifi networks, or those that are accessible to anybody and are not password-protected, should not be relied upon.
They are available everywhere, convenient, and frequently offered by trusted businesses. But hackers are known to use them as a means of accessing people’s devices. They can either break into an existing wifi network, and access other connected devices, or they can use a hotspot to host a wifi network and wait for others to connect accidentally (or frequently automatically).
Encourage staff to disable automated WiFi connections. Additionally, keep an eye out for anypublic wifi networks that suddenly appear in your area.
- Network monitoring
Network monitoring is a security tool that, like encryption, can stop malware even after it has hidden itself in the system.
All the essentials are monitored through network monitoring but in considerable detail. It can provide information such as server details or the volume of packets that have passed through your gateways. If configured properly, it can detect questionable resource utilization, network behaviour, or internet interactions that might point to undetected malware.
- Screen and device locks
Last but not least, keep in mind that staff computers and devices are not always manned. Nevertheless, the majority of people frequently forget to log out of all their work-related applications when they finish work for the day or go on a break. Device locks and screen locks are crucial security precautions. The majority of opportunistic espionage can be stopped with just a simple unlock pin. Ensure that the screens and devices used by the company lock themselves after a brief period of inactivity.
The more layers of protection you use to safeguard your company’s data, the safer your operations become. An unintentional breach becomes less likely the more security measures that are implemented.
