Cybersecurity is an integral component of any organisation nowadays. Whether the company is small or large, data protection is very important, which is why, measures must be put in place to safeguard it.
So what exactly is cybersecurity? Well, in short, it’s the practice of safe guarding your servers, networks, computers, mobile devices and other devices that contain sensitive data, from cybercriminals.
To keep track of one’s sensitive information, companies put money into cybersecurity, this helps to mitigate the risk of a data breach. A cyber-attack can occur from any quarters, whether it be from within a company or from somewhere outside. But the real question you should be asking, is how secure is your data? Are you able to identify a potential threat before it turns into something more severe? When it comes to computing, prevention is always better than the cure.
For this reason, you should look to implement effective cybersecurity policies. Below you will find 7 best practices of cybersecurity that you can and should use, to minimise cyber threats on your end.
- Mobile Security
When the pandemic originally struck, it lead to wide spread adoption of hybrid and remote work, leading to a surge in the number of mobile users. A significant number of remote workers tend to work from mobile devices, with many companies adopting the BYOD (Bring your own device) policy, which allows the employee to pick and choose which device they’d prefer to work from.
Cybercriminals are aware of this shift to mobile devices, and are, as a result adopting new methods to target these types of systems. With a forever growing number of mobile users logging into sensitive data on a corporate network, devising ways of securing all of this information has become more and more vital. Companies are looking for mobile security solutions that are capable of protecting the data of their organisation, along with the devices used on their networks – with the objective being to prevent typical mobile specific attack vectors and vulnerabilities.
- Encrypt Data with Secure File Sharing
If you’re constantly sharing sensitive data, then you must, with a sense of urgency, adopt a secure file sharing solution. Your regular email account was not designed for sending confidential or sensitive documents to other employees and work partners. As this data can very easily be intercepted, with unauthorised users (hackers) having complete access to your data.
There are many file sharing solutions that you can adopt, like TitanFile, which will encrypt your data automatically, so you don’t have to worry about it. Just bear in mind that the data you have, is only as safe as the solutions you opt to protect them with.
- Use Multi-Factor Authentication
Multi-factor authentication works by protecting your data through the addition of another security layer. This makes it increasingly difficult for hackers to gain access to your accounts. Even if the hacker was able to obtain your password, there’s the second and third authentication factor that they must overcome, which could be anything from voice recognition, security code, fingerprinting and more. It provides your data with an extra tight security solution, that more effectively protects your data, while allowing you to enhance your access control.
- Raise Employee Awareness
Nowadays, it’s not uncommon for companies to spend time educating their staff on the various updates and policies of cybersecurity. It’s important that every employee within the company is aware of its cybersecurity policy. It’s important that they are aware of the various cyber threats they may face, along with the various methods of countering these threats. This can be done through the examination of prior security breaches, while looking at the consequences along with the various ways it could have been avoided.
On the company end, they should look at the various security systems already in place, and consider new ideas that they could better put in place. The hope is that it will help improve both security and work productivity.
- Implement a Neutral Security Strategy
In the past, we’ve witnessed a large number of companies go with a perimeter focused security strategy, where all those who exist within the company premises are trusted, with all attacks and threats assumed to take place from outside. With this trust strategy in place, comes an excessive amount of access and permission, given to the employees, devices, apps and contractors.
However, this older perimeter based security method, has its inefficiencies. As it’s quite weak at protecting systems from most threats nowadays. This is primarily due to the risk of insider threats, failed defences, account hackers and other such things. Having a neutral zero-trust strategy in place is designed to properly manage all of these risks by granting an app, user or device the minimum amount of access required to carry whatever task assigned to it. By opting to limit given permissions, granting access to specific resources, purely on a case-by-case basis, a neutral, zero-trust security policy has a way of minimising the amount of successful attacks your company may face.
- Prioritise HTTPS on Websites
When you decide to visit a site that isn’t using HTTPS, you can be sure, that any information you transfer between your system and the website will not be secure. For this reason, you want to ensure that every site you visit, especially ones you intend to give sensitive data to (such as bank or credit card details) has HTTPS installed.
- Implement a Strong Password Policy
Having passwords that are secure, is a rule that most PC users are familiar with, but are likely to lazy to follow. Consider going with a policy that requires your staff to do the following:
- Use unique and diverse passwords. Having a brand new password for every account you sign up to, severely minimises the risk of multiple account breaches, in the event that a password is compromised.
- Implement multi-factor authentication. We’ve already spoken about this, but it’s important we reiterate this point. When you add MFA it provides you with an additional layer of security by requiring any unauthorised user to provide additional verification beyond just a password.
- Use a password manager to generate your passwords. With a password manager, it makes it so much easier for you to store and create unique and complex passwords.
–AUTHOR INFO—
Uchenna Ani-Okoye is a former IT Manager who now runs his own computer support website https://www.compuchenna.co.uk