Your business faces just as many dangers online as it does in the real world. It’s true, not only do you, as the boss, have to take safeguarding your office from burglars into account, you also have to consider what steps to take when it comes to protecting your online data from cybercriminals.
If you ever find yourself struggling when it comes to protecting your business against malicious cyber attacks, then you should seek advice on the matter. Fortunately, such advice can be found below.
Here are four tips for securing your business online:
Keep your doors locked against malware
You wouldn’t leave your office doors unlocked all night, so don’t leave your cyber doors unlocked either. Doing so will open yourself up to the threat of malware, and that could cause you to be held to ransom for your data or, even worse, lose it all entirely.
In order to secure your computer devices against the threat of malicious software, you should:
- Apply a firewall
- Use a protection solution that identifies theft, risky websites, and hackers
- Select a solution that will allow you to track suspicious behavior on all of your servers
- Clean up your emails
Teach your employees about security requirements
Your employees could easily inadvertently land your business in a plethora of online trouble. Any given staff member could, at any given time, click on a link that puts all of your business data at risk. For this reason, you should make sure that your employees receive comprehensive levels of teaching and training when it comes to the matter of your security requirements.
Your security requirement policy should include, but not be limited to:
- What applications are and aren’t allowed to be loaded when using company devices or connected to the company internet
- What should and should not be opened and clicked on in emails
- What kind of sites can and cannot be accessed during working hours
Strengthen your passwords
Strengthening your passwords is one of the best things you can do in your bid to secure your business online.
The act of password strengthening should involve you:
- Adding as many memorable keystrokes and characters as you can into each password you set
- Changing your passwords regularly
- Never using the same password more than once at any given time
Minimize your attack surface
It’s quite simple — the smaller your attack surface is, the less chance cybercriminals have of attacking you. As an example, if you’re running applications internally, or you’re a SaaS provider, you can start using containers to package your applications, which will enhance your security posture. As documented in StackRox’s container security best practices, by adopting this kind of tech into your everyday business operations, you will stand a far greater chance of avoiding attacks because:
- Functionality will be reduced significantly
- Processes, image components, and filesystem assess will be minimized
- Packages and tools will prove harder to exploit for cybercriminals
Securing your business online is one of your most crucial tasks, if not your most crucial. When you come to performing this all-important task, you should definitely consider putting the advice laid out above into practice.