Security threats are rampant these past few years, with global ransomware predicted to exceed $5 billion before 2017 ends. Just last year’s breaches is devastating itself — 95% of the breached records were from the government, retail, and technology sector.
These three sectors have our information in store that can be used against us. They can easily create fake accounts, make fraudulent purchases in our name, and more. It doesn’t stop there; it’s alarming that among the thousands of global organizations, only 38% of them have handled cyber-attacks well.
What happened to the 62%?
It’s one of the biggest dilemma faced by businesses worldwide. There’s an insufficient amount of statistics proving that this problem can be dealt with accordingly; cyber-attacks are continuously happening around the globe as you read this article. Billions of dollars have already been lost; and billions of dollars more will be lost if we cannot at least hamper these hackers from infiltrating businesses and stealing private information.
As the world becomes more tech-savvy, it’s proving to be more difficult to protect data from hackers who want nothing but to do no good.
Businesses should learn how to defend and protect themselves from these increasing cyber-crimes, especially those that happen due to the lack of information on the basics of web security. It’s more than just a complicated password or a premium firewall subscription — here are 8 ideas to protect your organization from security threats brought to us by the team behind Local SEO Search Inc.:
1. Get to know what you need to protect: data
It’s important to know what you need to protect. It’s surprising that some companies do not even recognize which data/s are important to protect, thus exposing these private data to hackers. They may have important data hidden away in their system without even knowing it.
Blindly applying protection wouldn’t do you any good; if you know which data to protect, it would be easier for you to build your defense or create policies that will prohibit access to these data without explicit permission.
2. Knowledge campaign
To instill discipline when it comes to information security, you must enforce a knowledge campaign. Hold training or seminars that will inform people about their responsibilities and create policies that will hold them responsible. It shouldn’t involve the IT department alone, but anyone and everyone who has access to the data in question.
All users should be trained on how to properly use the devices involved. Moreover, they should be taught basic troubleshooting of these devices, so they know what to do when something’s up.
It’s important that in their training, the value of security breaches should be discussed. How it hampers productivity, decreases the quality of the organization’s output, and how to avoid these breaches by being more responsible.
3. Data should be encrypted
To secure your information online, your data should be encrypted. Encrypting data makes it practically impossible for hackers to penetrate or break the code to get the sensitive information you’re hiding. Data encryption can help protect your data even if your IT vault is hacked. Hackers wouldn’t be able to evaluate the data.
4. Safeguard your IT Team
In your organization, the IT team has the most access to all the information in the company. It is absolutely important to build a trustworthy team to safeguard your data. Build a team that’s passionate about everything they do. This personnel should be unapproachable and bound not to be influenced or contacted by other people from the outside.
5. Training and Seminars
Businesses aren’t paying attention to delivering better security options for their companies. They do not see cybersecurity awareness as a major concern despite their move towards tech integration.
It is the responsibility of a business to have their employees trained for cybersecurity to avoid problems in the long run. Recognizing a potential problem can help prevent unnecessary actions to protect the network.
While the discussion of cybersecurity may be daunting to non-tech people, seminars nowadays are made to be simple and concise, so people can comprehend each topic on cybersecurity clearly.
6. Strong passwords are worth nothing if exposed
You may have implemented a strong password to protect your account with uppercase, lowercase, and a mix of special characters, but that’s just another layer to protect and safeguard your data. Aside from regularly changing your passwords, we recommend using biometrics and two-factor authentication to add another layer of security.
Some of our old-school employees may have developed the habit of keeping their passwords on Post-it notes on their table to remind them of their complex passwords. Discourage this practice and provide better options that can help them remember complex passwords.
If you own a website, you should understand that access should be limited to certain users in the server. For example, plugin installations should only be done by editors and administration accounts, and contributor accounts have limited access to the dashboard and functionalities of the website.
7. Control access to your wired network
When discussing security threats, your wired network shouldn’t be missed out. You might think that hacker infiltration only happens in the movies, but it can also happen in real life. Hackers are capable of social engineering to gain access to your network, so this should also be secured.
8. Old habits shouldn’t be shunned
Since everything and anything connected to the Internet can easily be infiltrated by hackers, we recommend that you still keep hard copies of some of the vital information in storage. This way, you can eliminate some of the data on your server and that means there’s less data to protect. It may seem to contradict our previous suggestion on keeping notes, but you should keep this important information locked away with limited access.
We hope that these 8 ways have reiterated how cybersecurity should be valued equally as generating revenue in this ever-changing, dynamic world of technology. Businesses continuously evolve and rely on Internet-connected devices without subjecting themselves to proper information and regulation on embracing new tech.
Don’t let yourself be part of 62% that left themselves vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Be that business that will increase 38% of businesses that can handle cybersecurity issues.
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