8 Things Cyber Criminals Don’t Want You To Know

Cybercrime is an ongoing threat, but the threat is not 100% out of your control. Cybersecurity can be overwhelming. But with the constantly evolving cyber threat landscape, businesses need to stay safe and protect themselves from being hacked.

There are clear benefits of investing in your cyber security that go way beyond reducing cyber risks. By improving your cyber security posture, you can improve customer confidence and brand reputation, increase market share and revenues as well as shareholder value. 

Here are some security tips that cyber criminals don’t want you to know, that could protect your business from their cyber-attacks.

No Matter Your Business Size— Even Small-To-Medium Businesses are at Risk.

Cybercriminals don’t discriminate—whether you are a 20-person business in Townsville or a 200-person operation out of Cairns, you are at risk of a cyberattack. They sometimes prefer to target smaller-to-medium size businesses as they are likely to have a weaker cybersecurity defence. We go through this in more detail here.

Untrained Employees Put Your Business at Risk.

Train your users—often! Even with technical support staff in place, employees inadvertently cause breaches if you don’t train them appropriately. Employees can be an organisation’s first and last line of defence against cyber threats. This is the reason why it is crucial to educate employees and implement comprehensive Cyber Security Training for them.

Be sure to train staff on identifying phishing emails. Spam filters can reduce the amount of spam and phishing emails that your business receives, but some will make it past the filter. Employees should be trained to identify phishing emails and what to do if they get one. If employees receive spam or phishing emails, the best thing to do is not open them and delete them immediately.

Have Security Policies Implemented BEFORE a Cyberattack.

Businesses should also have clear cybersecurity policies to guide employees on what is acceptable when sharing data, using computers and other devices, and accessing internet sites. You need to work with an experienced IT consultant on a plan for a data breach. Because such attacks are so prevalent, it’s best to prepare for the worst. Having a backup in place could help to get your business back up and running in the event of data loss. An IT services provider can deliver a Human Risk Report that will identify the holes in your security policies, then guide you in creating a comprehensive security policy.

Comprehensive Monitoring System Can Save You from Attack.

Having well-trained employees is important and can decrease your risk of attack, but we are all human and it is also vital to have a good IT Services team to help monitor your systems. A good IT services team will help protect your companies’ data from malware, viruses, and cyberattacks with advanced detection and response—the quicker you react to a security breach the better.

Doing Regular Computer Updates Help Protect You.

You’re probably no stranger to those little pop-up windows. They tell you software updates are available for your computer, laptop, tablet, or mobile device. You might be tempted to click on that “Remind me later” button. Don’t do it!

Keep Microsoft,Adobe, and Java products updated for better security. Automate updates to protect your computers from the latest known attacks. Software updates are important to your digital safety and cyber security. The sooner you update, the sooner you’ll feel confident your device is more secure — until the next update reminder. Software updates could include repairing security holes that have been discovered and fixing or removing computer bugs. If you postpone, hackers can take advantage of weaknesses by writing code to target the vulnerability.

Be Sure to Have Good Passwords and Password Policies for Employees.

Require employees to use unique passwords and change passwords every three months. Business.gov.au recommends using passphrases instead of passwords, especially for accounts that hold important business information. A secure passphrase should be at least 14 characters long and consists of a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers, and special characters. It should also be unpredictable, meaning the words are unrelated and unique.

You should also implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) that requires additional information beyond a password to gain entry. MFA is a verification security process that requires you to provide two or more proofs of your identity before you can access your account. Check with your vendors that handle sensitive data, especially financial institutions, to see if they offer multi-factor authentication for your account.

Back Up Your Data with Cloud Storage Solutions.

Odds of you losing data because of your cloud service provider’s mistake is very low – but losing that data due to human error is high. Backing up data with your cloud provider is one of the most cost-effective ways of making sure information is recovered in an event of a cyber incident or computer issue. Backed up data should also be checked regularly to see if it is working properly and can be restored.

No matter where you live in Australia, whether it be Cairns, Townsville, Mount Isa etc, an experienced IT consultancy company can help you design and budget for a comprehensive cloud computing strategy, and even provide ongoing management to make sure you’re protected.

Secure Data and Communications with Encryption.

Encryption is, so far, the best way to protect the privacy and confidentiality of your data. Protection of company data is critical to the success of your business, customer information, proprietary information, etc. Employee devices such as PCs, laptops, tablets, and mobile phones that they use for work (both in the office and working from home) contain confidential business information. That’s why you must protect these devices with the use of encryption technology.

It is vital that if you have a website that collects sensitive data, that the site forces users to use encryption when submitting data and that the data, once submitted, is being stored securely.

Let Future IT Services help you protect yourself and your business.

If you need help navigating how your business stacks up against these cyber security measures, you should get in touch with our security experts here.