If you’re a company owner, you know that there are all kinds of threats out there in cyberspace. You should be careful not to expose yourself to hackers. They’re out there, and they’re always coming up with new ways to try and steal your sensitive data.
A hacker might try to steal proprietary information from you. They may then try and demand money for them to return it. They might also leak that information for no other reason than to cause havoc. Some hackers have anarchistic leanings, so these actions are definitely possible as well.
You should take precautions when dealing with sensitive information, and you can make sure your workers do that too. We will talk about five specific actions you can take in the following article.
Set Up A Firewall
Setting up a firewall should be high up on the list of cybersecurity actions you can take. A firewall can protect your hardware as well as your software. If your company still has physical servers, as many of them do, this is one of the best ways to make sure that nothing happens to them.
A firewall can deter or block any virus that tries to get inside your network. A firewall can also work with antivirus software. Either one is a strong deterrent on their own, but they work even better as a tandem.
If you have a smaller business, a firewall can also look after your network’s traffic. It can keep an eye on both your outbound and inbound traffic to make sure nothing looks suspicious. It can block specific sites, and it can also send out confidential emails and proprietary data.
Get Antivirus Software
We just mentioned that antivirus software or a firewall are good alone but better together. Once you get one, you should install the other so that they can work as a more comprehensive deterrent system.
You want your antivirus software to block any possible malware that a hacker might use to try and compromise your network. Malware is software that someone designed to have a malicious intent.
A virus is a kind of malware. It can usually replicate itself once it gets inside a computer system. It can take over your network and crash it if it is malicious enough.
Antivirus software is what you need to keep that from happening. It should also know how to block out spyware. Spyware is malware that stays hidden from sight, but it’s still causing havoc within your network.
A good antivirus software program should be able to detect and remove spyware, adware, and malware. It can also scan and remove any potentially harmful or questionable emails or downloads.
Complex Passwords
Using complex passwords is something that you should tell all your employees to do. Any web-based app or computer should have a password protecting it, but you should make sure your workers know not to make any of those passwords too easy to guess. That means a password like “password” or “123” is off the table.
If you have security questions that workers need to answer to get into their workstations, you can consider translating them into another language with a free online transcription tool. This makes social engineering attacks less likely. The security questions will be difficult to decipher and unpredictable.
You can also teach your workers to throw off hackers by using spaces in between the numbers, letters, and symbols. You can have a seminar for your workers to teach them all about these techniques. You can hire a cybersecurity expert to do the training, and you can have regular refreshers as well.
You Can Use A Password Manager
Having diverse passwords and complex security questions are both excellent ways to repel potential hacker attacks. However, you can also use a password manager on top of that.
You might have passwords with many upper and lower-case letters, numbers, symbols, and spaces. But how can someone remember them if they’re so complex?
That’s when you need a password manager. There are ones like Dashlane and LastPass that consistently get good reviews.
A password manager can track employee internet use. It can automatically generate the right username and password for every app your worker uses during the course of their day.
All a user needs to do is remember a master password or unique pin, and then, they can access the vault with all of their login information. That way, they should be able to access any app they use while they’re on the clock.
Purchase A VPN
Getting a VPN for your business is probably the last crucial thing you’ll need to do if you want to avoid cyberattacks. A VPN, or virtual private network, is great for companies going to a hybrid work model. Maybe you even have employees working exclusively from home now, which makes a VPN even more necessary.
A VPN makes a funnel around your IP address, so all the data that moves through there stays private. A VPN will make sure that no prying eyes intercept worker communications.
You can use a VPN when you connect to public Wi-Fi like you would find in a hotel or coffee shop. Since many employees need to work while they’re on the go these days, you can set up a VPN that your whole company can use.
Hackers love to utilize unsecured Wi-Fi networks, so a VPN is a solid investment. You can use one if you have a handful of employees working remotely or hundreds of them. A VPN is a must if your business continues growing in 2022.
If you use a VPN, that will often reduce your internet speed a little bit, but it’s worth it. You can feel a lot safer, and your workers can as well.
If you put all the safeguards in place that we mentioned, you should feel free to do any necessary work on your company’s computer network, and all your employees can as well.
