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Posted by Onyx IT ● Nov 1, 2021 12:15:40 PM

It doesn’t take much to become a victim of a cyber-attack. In fact, all it takes for a cybercriminal to get through your systems is from a simple click on the wrong email, malicious link or software that isn’t fully up to date. What’s more, the cyberthreat landscape is ever-evolving, businesses, whether large or small, are more at risk than ever, and the consequences can be disastrous. Sensitive business or client data could be leaked, lost, or stolen. But it’s not just data breaches you should be worried about, losing sensitive data could get your business into serious trouble if you’ve failed to stay compliant with GDPR. Your business’ reputation could take a significant hit, let alone your revenue, and you could be faced with massive fines.

Something you’d rather not want to be dealing with? Luckily there are some simple best practices you can follow that can assist in reducing the potential of your business suffering an attack.

 

1) Install anti-virus software and firewall

An effective way of protecting your business is the installation of robust anti-virus programs and firewalls that assist in protecting your business both from malware and any malicious traffic that comes through to your network. However, to have complete protection, you need to install both anti-virus and firewall. Using just one or the other isn’t effective enough.

2) Keep your software up to date

As a rule of thumb, you should always keep all your software and systems up to date. If you don’t carry out regular updates, this can leave gaps in your systems, making you more exposed and vulnerable to cyberthreats. As cyber-attacks are constantly changing and evolving, your systems need too, that’s why updating your software regularly is critical.

3) Train your staff

One of the most important and effective security measures you can take is to educate your staff on cybersecurity. It’s very common for cybercriminals to get through to your systems via your employees. They will often send emails to your staff pretending to be your business’ MD or a colleague and ask for personal information or even entice you to open a malicious link. An untrained eye can quickly fall for the trap, so make sure that all your staff are aware of common cyber threats and how to avoid them.

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4) Set up access management

It’s not just external threats that can put your business at risk, internal threats, or otherwise put, your employees, can be a major threat too. By managing who has access to what data, you can ensure that large volumes of data aren’t purposely – or even accidentally due to human error – downloaded, deleted, or shared by, or with the wrong people.

5) Use strong passwords

We all know it, but many people still don’t or won’t do it, and this is what cyber criminals are counting on. Birthdays, names or easy digit patterns are very easy to remember, and some people will use them across several accounts too. But you might as well hand hackers your data on a silver plate. So, make sure to provide your employees with a password manager to save complex passwords for different accounts without having to remember every single one of them.

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6) Set up multi-factor authentication (MFA)

Two-factor authentication, or 2FA, is an electronic authentication method that allows you and your employees to improve your online security. This can be used to grant access to all or specific applications and or websites. The user is not always the same as the person, particularly if you and/or your employees' username and passwords are available on the DarkWeb. This step provides evidence that the user and the person are one and the same and is simple to implement either via text, or an MFA tool. This step can greatly increase the protection of your data.

7) Back up your systems

Should things ever go wrong, your systems get hacked, and your data get compromised, it’s good practice to have comprehensive backups of your business data to avoid business downtime or data loss. Having a business continuity and backup plan is a key element for any business and if you don't have one you should! 

 

Although these steps can help in reducing the risk, it is not a full proof plan, getting the right cybersecurity solution in place for your business is of paramount importance. Failing to do so will probably turn out to be the worst business decision you’ve ever made. And it needn’t be complicated, it’s actually very, very simple. All you need to do is get in touch today, and our experts will take it from there and find the right cybersecurity solution for your business.

We have a number of tailored solutions to fit with a wide variety of businesses. The first step is to complete our free, no obligation cybersecurity assessment. Once completed our cybersecurity experts will be able to tell what cybersecurity risks your business is facing right now and how your business can mitigate that risk. It’s as easy as that, so why leave it to chance?

Get in touch and start protecting your business. Onyx IT has got you covered.

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Topics: Managed IT Support, Onyx IT, Managed IT Services, cyber security, cyber attack