Businesses nowadays need to take the correct steps and measures to fight cyber crime if they are to succeed in todays digital transformation.
For small and medium sized businesses, one of the biggest challenges is maintaining a secure IT network even while they expand and explore new innovations.
While it is the larger corporate security breaches that hit the headlines, the reality is that smaller-scale attacks are causing havoc on a daily business on smaller businesses. This is an ongoing battle we are facing now every single day.
Businesses need to make this mandatory that regular updates are carried out on their computers (laptops, desktops and mobile devices), as well as making sure firmware updates are always carried out on devices such as routers, printers and scanners.
Ignoring these updates is leaving your door open to be exploited by hackers.
Have a Virtual Private Network in Place
Similar to firewalls, VPN’s protect computer data when employees are online by creating a safe and encrypted connection over a less secure network, such as the internet. This is something very useful for employees who use public wifi such as coffee shops.
Secure Business WiFi
An insecure WiFi connection can provide an easy router for hackers into your business network. Businesses should secure their WiFi so that only employees can access it, preferably without them actually knowing the password.
Guests should not have the same access as employees to help prevent unknown people from accessing your data.
Manage user privileges
Businesses today need to determine what rights and privileges users need to complete their day to day duties. To do this, IT admins need to make sure higher-level system privileges are carefully controlled and managed.
Redundant members of staff’s user accounts need to be disabled and removed from the network.
Password policies are highly recommended. Weak and easy-to-guess passwords are a classic vulnerability. For some accounts (Manager level) it may be an option to implement two factor authentication.
Adrian Kelly
LoughTec Cyber Engineer
