MSPNetworks Blog

The modern business has to deal with a lot of potential security problems. Today’s threat landscape is filled with people looking to prosper off of your misfortune. As a result, doing what you can to maintain the security of your network and data is essential. Today, we will discuss how maintaining your organizational cybersecurity doesn’t have to be costly or time consuming.The best way we’ve found to go about doing this is by highlighting a few key actions that you can take to keep your network secure and your data safe.

Use Strong Passwords

Like many of these quick tips, this one is a good practice regardless of where you are. Good password management is an extremely important part of the security process. To concoct a good password, you need to first make something that people or computer programs won’t guess. You can do that by using both lower- and upper-case letters, numbers, and symbols.

Another good practice is to create a passphrase of unlike words. This serves two purposes. First, it ensures that you can remember the password; and, secondly it is secure enough where no one can crack the password.

Finally, you will want to create a unique password for every online account and save them in an encrypted password manager. Doing so will not only protect your passwords, it sets up a system where you only have to remember one. 

For additional security, you will want to use two-factor authentication. This is a system that adds an additional layer of security to your online accounts. Once you enter a password into a password manager, you then will get an additional box where you will enter a code. This code can be sent through email or it can be generated through an authentication app. 

Only Use Secure Wi-Fi

The Wi-Fi inside your office should be secure, hidden, and encrypted. For those times when working in your office is impossible, the use of a virtual private network (VPN) can keep your uploads and downloads secure. Utilizing public Wi-Fi without a VPN is just asking for problems. 

Some VPNs are better than others. Typically, if your company uses a comprehensive network security suite for your office, it will come with VPN licenses that will be more than enough to protect data transmission when you are working on someone else’s Wi-Fi.

Avoid Unknown Links

Phishing is the number one way that hackers gain access to a network. This is because people click on links and download attachments that they have no business interacting with. Your account has likely been phished many times this year. Most are probably thwarted by your spam blocker, but it only takes one attack to grind productivity to a halt.

If we have one piece of advice, don’t enter personal or company information in an email or instant message unless you are very clear who is on the other end. The threats that line up against your integrated security are substantial ones. Phishing is the number one cause of identity theft and ransomware. Since it runs the entire gamut of negative results, ensuring that you are doing what you can to not be part of the problem is important. 

Cybersecurity can be difficult for a business, but an individual’s role in protecting business and personal networks isn’t. If you would like to learn more about IT security or how to effectively manage risks that come from phishing and other attacks, subscribe to our blog today.

What are your chances of being hacked, or targeted by some kind of cyberattack? I hate to tell you this, but they’re probably a lot higher than you might think.

For instance, despite almost 90 percent of small business owners believing they’re safe, about half of all small businesses will suffer from a catastrophic cyber-attack.

Are you at risk of being part of the unfortunate half?

Fortunately, there is a lot that you can do to help reduce the chances that a cyberattack will successfully target you. This is a really good thing - not only will a hack damage your relationships with everyone involved with your business, half of the businesses that are attacked close up shop within six months.

I’ve seen it happen far too often to businesses that just weren’t prepared.

Here, I’ve compiled a few tips to help you improve the basics of your cybersecurity, reducing your risk of a successful attack:

• Updates - We know how annoying those update notifications can be, but it is important to remember that the vast majority of them are meant to improve security in one way, shape, or form. Therefore, you should prioritize these updates whenever possible. It may prevent an attack from victimizing you.
• Involve Your Employees - The unfortunate reality is that your employees can be the biggest vulnerability your business has. Properly educating them in cybersecurity best practices and holding them to these standards will help reduce the chances that one of them will inadvertently let in a threat. Training them in various security best practices and explaining why certain requirements are in place will help to motivate them to participate for the company’s benefit.
• Limit Access - On the other side of the coin, the less an employee has access to, the fewer chances there are that one of them leaves you vulnerable in some way. The same can be said of your clients - regardless of how much someone is trusted, you shouldn’t allow them privileges beyond their role. Whether its role-specific resources, data, or other information, employees should be given individual login credentials to make assigning privileges easier. Your business Wi-Fi should also remain separate from the Wi-Fi made available to clients.
• Backup, Backup, and Backup Again - If, despite all your preparations, you are still infiltrated, you want to have an extra copy of all of your important data somewhere else, safe and sound. This backup copy would ideally be stored offsite and securely encrypted.

As it happens, MSPNetworks is able to help you out with all of these measures, and many more.

If you want some added help with these cybersecurity basics, or want to do more to protect your operations, you can always lean on us. MSPNetworks is committed to ensuring that your technology allows your business to operate better, improved security being a major part of that goal. Reach out by calling us at (516) 403-9001.