Every year, the number of cyber threats increases exponentially. During the past two years, we have seen enormous data breaches, ransomware both on-premises and in the cloud, the weaponization of AI, and computers hijacked to mine cryptocurrency. In this ocean of concerns, the only reasonable question emerges – how can businesses secure their data from cyber threats.
Don’t worry if you are unfamiliar with the best cybersecurity practices. We have compiled a list of things businesses can do protect themselves from such threats. Let’s see what we have for you.
Assess Your Current Situation
There is no need to mindlessly go into “protection mode” and heavily invest in cybersecurity. First, you need to assess your current infrastructure, data security practices and policies. This will help you determine whether you need to upgrade your protection and update your policies.
Research the most common cyber threats in your industry and identify the security measures that you must take to prevent data and account theft. The cybersecurity landscape is continuously changing, so it’s important to stay on top of the most relevant updates if you want to maintain a secure system.
Educate Your Employees
Your employees are the weakest link in your cybersecurity chain. They can easily become victims of emails containing phishing links, downloads injected with malware, and other sorts of scams that you might encounter online.
The most efficient way to train your employees in cybersecurity is to get them familiar with the consequences of their potential mistakes. One of which may easily be a company having to let employees go because it’s lost money. Another example would be reinforcing the importance of endpoint security. That is, if they take their devices home with them, it is crucial to be sure all precautions are made so data isn’t stolen by outside forces. Give your best to help them understand the risks of poor security practices.
Leverage the Cloud To Secure Your Data
The best way to save your cash is to move your data to the cloud ecosystem. This way you won’t have to invest in encryption, expensive firewalls, and antivirus systems. The cloud storage provider handles all of this on its own. At the same time, your data will be safe, secure and accessible to everyone with preset access rights 24/7/365.
This is the most affordable way to protect your business from ransomware attacks. Since your data is stored on a remote server, even if you fall victim to an attack, you will be able to reinstall your system without losing any of your precious data.
Invest in VPN
Virtual Private Network, or VPN, is one of the solutions that can significantly reduce the risk of cyber attacks and other data and security breaches. VPN will help you keep your employees off public networks, making it very hard for hackers to snoop or intercept your company’s communication.
All the traffic over a VPN is encrypted, which is another layer of protection that it adds. Besides, if you decide to invest in a VPN, you will make your clients happy and feel more secure too, especially if you happen to collect their private data.
The most important thing regarding VPN implementation is the onboarding process. This is why you should give your best to instruct everyone how to use it properly. Remember that all of your efforts may be wasted if just one of your employees keeps accessing public networks without using a VPN service.
BYOD Demands Attention
As more and more employees bring in their own devices and use them to access a company network and data, you have to do everything in your power to minimize the BYOD security risks. To companies who leverage the benefits of BYOD practice, a VPN can provide an additional layer of security.
Apart from this, companies should design strict BYOD (bring your own device) policies and educate employees on the BYOD security threats. Some organizations even decide to use mobile device management solutions to gain full control over their employees’ devices.
If you follow our advice, you will minimize the risk of becoming the victim of cyber attacks. Your data will be secure, your employees will be aware of the potential dangers, and will know how to protect themselves and the company while they are online.
