Few things are as damaging to a company’s reputation as loosing data to hackers. When customer information gets diverged to unauthorized third parties, businesses suffer a hemorrhage of customers and money. Proprietary information may also be accessed by competitors or saboteurs to the detriment of the victim.
It is no longer possible for a business to remain completely cut off from the internet. The only way to stay safe in the face of all these threats is to make a deliberate effort to ensure that your business is secure. Below are suggestions on how you can secure your business.
Classify Your Data Assets
It is imperative to have a good understanding of the data you have and how important it is to keep it secure. With classification, it becomes clear the type of information whose access should only be reserved for the top echelons of the organization. You also get to know what data is necessary for general operations. Such data should be available to all who need it. Controlling access reduces the chain of custody and it is in itself a way of securing the data.
Identify Threats
Different threats require different approaches. It is therefore important for you to properly identify your threats and prepare to respond appropriately. If the threat to security is unauthorized access internally without serious external threats such as hacking, the focus should be more on access control than on expensive firewalls and so on.
Backup Data
Whether you have identified your threat to be hacking, unauthorized access or natural disasters, it is always advisable to back up your data in a secure location such as cloud storage. Such backups should be updated as regularly as possible to ensure that the data in the backup mirrors data on the servers as closely as possible.
Have a Good Anti-Virus
One of the most common ways in which systems are being accessed by unauthorized persons is through apps. These apps usually ride on other downloads. A good antivirus is able to identify which apps are authorized in the system and block all others from getting into the system.
Manage Spam
You should ensure that your company has a spam filter. A filter goes beyond reducing the amount of unwanted mail you receive. It protects your data from malware that usually comes with spam. Staff education on this matter is also important.
Maintain the Number of System Administrators to a Minimum
Owing to the unfettered access that administrators have to the system in all its aspects, it is important to ensure that the privilege is held by as few people as possible. The more the individuals with access, the greater the possibility of abuse.
Invest in Staff Training
There should be someone in the company whose brief is to remain updated on the new threats to your data security and ways to counter them. Security threats evolve every day and it is necessary to stay abreast.
Update Your Operating System Regularly
Whenever a developer learns of a weakness in their software, they develop an updated version that is not vulnerable in the identified areas. Hackers are also on the lookout for the weaknesses identified and they may exploit theme. It is therefore, critically important to keep your operating system updated.
Ensure Mobile Devices are Secured
It may be a costly mistake to secure the servers and other systems and fail to equally secure the company’s mobile devices. Important information may be accessed from these devices and provide keys for access of the entire system.
Putting in place an effective cybersecurity system requires different terms activities for different types of systems. The bottom line is that security must always be at the center of the architecture of every system. This is the only way of ensuring that your system remains an asset and not a costly mistake.