Research on the matter is unambiguous – the scope, complexity, and cost of cybercrimes are mounting and will continue to do so in the coming years. Responsible entrepreneurs and business owners have long since realized that presenting a strong cybersecurity front is the only way to avoid financial and reputational damage or at least lessen the blow significantly.
This article goes over six essential strategies businesses of all sizes should implement to strengthen their cyber resilience.
Implement Strong Password Policies
Inadequate passwords rank among the likeliest causes for most data breaches. Employees who use short, easy-to-remember ones risk brute-force hacking that only takes minutes. Meanwhile, reusing even complex passwords endangers all accounts that share them. This can be particularly harmful if an employee uses the same password for internal access and third-party tools you have no control over.
Insist on unique, complex passwords that are impossible to crack and useless for credential stuffing attacks. Business password managers automate credential creation and storage, which makes them ideal for the task. Additionally, secure all important accounts with two-factor authentication to mitigate password theft.
Secure Internal Networks and Devices
Your IT infrastructure is at risk from various cyber threats and requires multiple safeguards.
Next-generation firewalls rely on rules to identify and prevent access to and from a network. They prevent employees from accidentally accessing known malicious sites and offer some DDoS protection.
Endpoint protection encompasses antivirus, anti-malware, and other tools installed directly onto endpoint devices to quarantine threats and keep them from spreading over the network.
Intrusion prevention systems use real-time threat detection for network traffic analysis, preventing buffer overflow attacks and threats that the firewall doesn’t pick up on.
Safeguard Remote Employees
The aforementioned security measures create a formidable central defense but do little to protect remote workers. Not addressing this oversight puts people and the organization in danger, especially if your remote employees use unsafe networks like public Wi-Fi to access company assets.
VPNs are a cost-effective yet impactful solution. Active VPNs encrypt a user’s internet connection regardless of the network used. This anonymizes and obscures internet activity, making it impossible to view the contents of intercepted files, eavesdrop on online communication, or capture credentials users manually.
Regularly Create Backups
Keeping up-to-date backups is an effective measure against cyberattacks designed to cripple operations by denying access to core systems and files. Additionally, off-site backups are indispensable for speeding up recovery after natural disasters or malicious insider attacks.
Small businesses can adhere to the 3-2-1 rule and maintain automated cloud backups alongside physical off-site backups. However, a larger scale demands more robust measures, such as enterprise-level backup solutions and Disaster Recovery as a Service.
Prioritize Employee Training
Much can go wrong even with robust safeguards in place if employees aren’t aware and don’t take adequate precautions against cyber risks. For example, data breaches are as widespread partly due to phishing emails and other social engineering attacks being very successful at tricking people into revealing their account credentials.
Comprehensive and ongoing training turns humans from the weakest cybersecurity link into alert and responsible guardians. Running security drills, encouraging self-study, and rewarding proactive behavior will keep employees’ skills sharp while making them much more effective at recognizing and preempting threats.
Clean Up Digital Footprints Tying Past Employees to Your Organization
Day-to-day work is becoming increasingly reliant on digital platforms and the data they require of us. Offboarding usually concentrates on knowledge transfers and revoking internal privileges rather than addressing the mark that ex-employees leave on third-party platforms or business databases tied to you.
Over time, data brokers may come to possess such information and offer it to advertisers or even less scrupulous clients. The less of it exists, the harder it is to use such information to impersonate past employees and feign connections that could give bad actors access to current employees and systems.
Hiring data removal services is a prudent preventive measure. They specialize in petitioning data brokers to take down sensitive information they have on individuals. If you want to find the best service, seek reviews, for example, read user experiences like the Incogni review. Spotting and hiring one reduces both your and the affected individuals’ digital footprints and attack surfaces, minimizing social engineering and data leak risks.
