10 Ways to Protect Your Business From a Cyber Attack

Cyber threats are ever evolving and criminals are finding new ways to breach your online presence taking everything from personal data, bank details to syphoning money, it has never been more important to be secure.

Your business also needs to be fully prepared for these attacks as well. many businesses adopt the “it wont happen to us” attitude, thinking that these attacks are few and far between, but data shows us that 1 in 5 small business were breached last year and of those 91% could have been avoided with a proper strategy in place.

Below are 8 simple steps you can take to keep your business safe.

1. Do a Security Assessment

It sounds simple but having a baseline for what level of security you need and searching your existing systems for potential breaches is the foundation to ensuring you are secure. This is also not a one-off procedure, technology and cyber attacks evolve constantly so you need to ensure you re-evaluate your system on a regular basis to ensure you are always protected.

2. Get Email Spam Blocking Software

Most attacks and breaches originate from emails and most email companies today will include some form of spam filter; these may not however be secure enough for your business. If you are setting up a new business, ensure you are in contact with your email provider to see what extra spam filter features you can add to your system.

3. Have a Strong Password Policy

You may have noticed over the years websites are asking for more secure passwords. We have evolved from a simple word to being encouraged to add numbers, capital letters and special characters when creating accounts online. Your business should be adopting a similar policy, making your employees mix up lower and uppercase letters with numbers and special characters will increase your company’s security.

4. Update your software

Most software will be constantly evolving and updating, these updates will also include the products latest security features designed to deal with new emerging threats. You must ensure to be constantly updated to the latest version of your software. Outdated software may contain well known breaches that haven’t been patched up, giving hackers an easy way into your business.

5. Dark Web Research

To most the dark web seems “off limits” and something not to be interfered with. In truth it is just the internet not available through common search engines such as google. Being slightly difficult to access and off the mainstream search engines is why cyber criminals use these sites to distribute information and there are thousands of pages of passwords and usernames leaked all over the dark web. You need to have actions in place to be searching for any files or pages with any links to your business. These pages are usually only up for a short period of time and refreshed in a different location so keeping on top of you dark web research is important.

6. Use Firewalls

Firewalls use intrusion detection and intrusion prevention features to stop your staff accessing sites and files that could be malicious to your business. Like your spam security in emails, you need up to date firewall protection for all your other online activities. There are many 3rd party programs that can offer you the levels of protection your business requires

7. Encryption

Any files you transfer between devices and apps across the cloud should be encrypted. Ensuring that and files that contain sensitive information is encrypted means even if opened from an unprotected device and intercepted will render the information scrambled and useless.

8. Backup your Data

Backing up all your data is vital to ensuring if an attack does happen you are fully prepared to handle it. The loss of important data can cost companies from a few thousand pounds all the way though to billions being gone in a flash. Ensure you have a full system and procedure in place to back up all your data and that your employees know and understand this.

This list is not comprehensive and there and many more steps you should be taking to ensure you are protected. If you want any more information on how you can upgrade you cyber security, get in touch.