Living in a modern digital age has many perks, but it also leaves us and our data pretty vulnerable if we don’t take good care about where and how we leave our personal info. Identity theft is at its peak, and with so many people acting recklessly, it is not a trend that will end any time soon. Now, if you are reading this and you have been a victim of such an attack but have done many things to improve your data security, you will probably say that no matter what some may do, if the hackers really know what they are doing, there is no stopping them. Okay, this may be true for those pretty skilled ones, as they even crushed many stock markets, but there aren’t many of those, and you really need to do something extraordinary to be a target in the first place, meaning that even though we may think we have done everything to boost our security level, there are always more things to do.
All of this gets more complicated and even stressful when it comes to running a business, as then, one is not responsible only for the protection of their personal data but also the info of the whole company. That is why, if not well protected from cyber attacks, you are not only endangering yours but also the data of the entire company. As a company owner, the faith of the employees is also dependent on how much time and dedication one has put in protecting the business from cyber attacks. That is why companies that are global giants always spend much of their time and budget on enhancing their security. That is also a reason why we gathered the list of the top five ways to protect your business from any possible threat online.
Hire a professional
It can be pretty difficult to remain safe and protect important data about our business, and sometimes the best solution is to hire a professional. We have too many jobs running our own business, and we may not have enough time or knowledge to dedicate ourselves to protect it from many cyber threats. By hiring an IT expert company, we will have the whole team of professionals with only one task – to protect our company and us from malicious cyber attacks. There are many IT companies on the market, so it can be challenging to choose the best one, and reading the reviews can be a good start for your search. If you are still not sure that you need to hire professionals and want to see what they can offer to your business, read more on Digitalfire.ca/it-services/it-security.
Encryption is the key
Yes, it is a term we can hear and read so much about today, but it is still a great way to ensure that some private that stays that way, private. Before taking any action, especially sending some info online, make sure that you have turned on your network encryptions, as that encryption represents a code that, if hacked, is what the hackers will see. It means that even if someone gets hacked, they will not have any repercussions as there will be no data to steal. Now, depending on the encryption, the simple ones can be hacked with time, which is why you should always go with more complex ones as they grant more safety.
Restrict access to confidential information
No matter which is the main activity of our business, it is crucial to protect sensitive data from people who can use them for the wrong reasons. That means that setting only a password is not enough, and no matter how complex the password is, it can easily be hacked, and all your business can be endangered. A much better solution is to enable multi-factor authentication and ask the employees to finish a few simple steps to prove their identity every time they are accessing confidential data. These steps can be various, and besides entering the password, we can ask them to answer something that only they know, enable facial or fingerprint recognition, or ask them to enter the code sent to their smartphone. In most cases, two-factor authentication in which our employees need to finish two of these steps is enough, and many companies choose it as one part of protection from cyber-attacks, but we can never be secure enough, so multi-factor authentication is the best option.
Two or three-factor authentication
It’s simple, the more barriers there are, the more safety you get. That is why making sure that you have at least a two-factor authentication will do wonders safety-wise. This is particularly valuable for info of great importance, and by having password protection with a special code that is only on your phone, and, even more, by having to type a unique answer to some private question only you know, the safety of that information will be granted.
Update software regularly
We all know that it is impossible to use a computer or smartphone without regular updating because technology is changing all the time, and it is necessary to keep up with it. Because things in the tech world are improving all the time, we need to be sure that the software that we use for our company, including the antivirus program, is always up to date. The updated software will allow us to use all the benefits it offers to us and prevent us from finishing tasks in a way that requires a lot of time. Besides the updated software, it is very important to have an updated antivirus program because it scans all the data in our computer and notices us about potentially harmful ones. It can protect us from the viruses caught online and those that we can accidentally enter into our computer by using a phone, USB stick on some other device for data transferring. In that way, we can react quickly and remove the harmful data before the virus destroys everything and endanger our business.
