What Every Business Should Know About Cybersecurity to Protect Their Data
In today’s world, cyber threats are real and constantly evolving. There is no doubt that businesses face a number of security challenges every day. According to Forbes, Cybercriminals can penetrate 93 percent of company networks. Given this troubling information, it’s important for businesses to understand what cybersecurity is and how it can protect them from being hacked. Fortunately, there are steps that you can take to protect your business from cyber threats and data breaches. Here are some tips on how you can adopt better cyber security practices as an organization.
What is Cybersecurity?
Cybersecurity is the practice of preventing unauthorized access to or misuse of computer systems and networks. It is essential to protect systems and data against attacks and to enforce appropriate security controls to manage risk. It is important to note that cybersecurity is not just about preventing cyber-attacks. It is also about minimizing the damage if there is a breach. That’s why businesses need to have a strong cybersecurity strategy in place.
Increase Awareness Within Your Organization
You should start with increasing awareness within your organization to make sure everyone understands the importance of cybersecurity. It is critical to educate your employees about protecting their passwords, how to spot and report any suspicious activity, and how to choose strong passwords. While there are many ways to educate your employees about cybersecurity, you can start by creating a cybersecurity policy and distributing it to everyone in the company. The policy should include information about how each employee can protect their devices from malware, how to choose strong passwords, and what to do if they suspect someone is trying to hack their accounts. In addition, employees should take care not to leave any company property open or available for others to access. This includes securing laptops, phones, and other devices.
Two-Step Authentication
Next, you need to make sure that your employees are using two-step authentication. Two-step authentication is an extra security measure that requires people to enter a special code generated by an Authenticator app or sent to their phone when they log in to their account. This way, even if someone gets hold of your password, they will not be able to log in without the extra code. Explain to your team that this extra security precaution is essential to protect their accounts and data at all times. Similar to improving user authentication and login practices, you can also consider using strong authentication for critical applications.
Encrypt Your Data
You should also make sure that you are encrypting your data. Encryption is a process by which you can make data unreadable to anyone who does not have the decryption key. By encrypting your sensitive data, you will be able to protect it from cyber criminals. Keep in mind that the more sensitive data your company stores, the more you need to consider encryption. This includes personally identifiable information (PII) and any customer data. If you store any of this information on your computer or in the cloud, you should encrypt it. Make sure your database is encrypted.
Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware
You also need to make sure that your computers are protected against anti-virus software and anti-spyware. Anti-virus software is designed to protect your computer from harmful viruses and malware that can steal your data, damage your computer, and much more. Anti-spyware software is designed to protect your computer from malicious software that can track your activities, collect information about you and your computer
Cybersecurity is an ongoing process and you should be constantly working to improve your security practices. You can also regularly test your organization’s cybersecurity to identify any weak points. Doing so will help you to improve your cybersecurity and minimize damage if there is a breach. Implementing these cybersecurity practices will help to keep your data safe and protect your business from cyber threats.