Cybersecurity New Years Resolutions
Happy New Year everyone! No doubt the new year brings a new you, right?!
Perhaps a new diet, new exercise regime or new skill is in order for the start of 2018? There are plenty of New Year’s resolutions you could take up, but we’d like to suggest a few that you may be able to (and should!) actually maintain for the whole of 2018!
These cybersecurity resolutions are built to last and will help to protect your business from the ever increasing threat to your prized assets (we did warn you in our 12 days of Christmas!).
1. Understand what data your business is collecting and protect it
This has never been more relevant than in 2018. Businesses are producing and collecting more-and-more data every day to ensure they understand their customers and their needs. However, with more data comes more responsibility and therefore a greater risk to your business. With GDPR edging ever closer there is no better time to pin this down. It is a great place to start this new year.
2. Change your password to a strong one and don’t reuse it
Bad and/or poorly implemented password policies are a major contributing factor to serious data loss. Even when you think you have a great password policy for your most critical systems, if your users are sharing passwords or are using the same password for multiple systems, you are again a high risk of data loss. You are basically allowing the bad guys into your business, opening the door and welcoming them in. Obviously, you wouldn’t do that in the physical world, so why do it online?! Ensure your password is hard to crack and please don’t use the same password for multiple accounts! The mandatory use of a password management system is also a good idea!
3. Educate employees to spot the signs of a potential attack
Your employees may be your biggest weakness, but they can also be key to preventing an attack. Make a new year’s resolution to ensure your employees are trained to recognise the signs of an attack; whether it is a phishing email, an insider syphoning data from your systems, or good old fashioned fraud.
4. Limit access to your network
If someone doesn’t need it make sure they don’t have it. The fewer people that have access to sensitive data the easier it will be to protect it. In this new year, it is a good excuse to be sure which user has access to what data. If they no longer need the access then now is the time to revoke it in order to protect that all important data.
5. Be cautious of public WiFi
Using public WiFi is always a risk, so be aware of this. Treat all WiFi networks with caution and be suspicious of them. To be completely safe, you should use a VPN over a Wifi netowork to prevent cybercriminals from intercepting your data.
6. Multi-factor authentication
One of the best ways to ensure a user is who they say they are is to set up multi-factor authentication. Passwords may be easy to compromise, but it is much harder with multi-factor authentication as any potential imposter needs access to multiple pieces of information before gaining access. Setting up multi-factor authentication will definitely prevent many criminals accessing your network.
7. Consistently back up data
Protecting your data is the aim of game, but now imagine you no longer have access to this data. How long could your business operate for? Our guess is not very long at all. To minimise the risk of this occurring it is a good idea to back this data up. Obviously, ensure you consider where this back up occurs to stop the bad guys accessing your back up. However, if your network is attacked, it will mean the business can still operate with the back up of the data. This new year, introduce a new back up process to ensure that you always have an up-to-date back up of your customer data. And regularly test the restore process!
Don’t forget CounterHack are always here to help you implement great cybersecurity practises and systems. With the start of the New Year there is no better time to find out how we can help you.
Get in touch with us now to start the conversation that will make your business as secure as possible.
