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Computer Security Day: 8 Tips to Bolster Your Business’s Cybersecurity
In 1988, the Association for Computer Security established the first Computer Security Day to raise awareness about cybersecurity issues. Computer Security Day encourages people to take ownership of their online presence and identity. Taking the time to review computer security best practices can help individuals and organizations avoid compromised data and other unwanted scenarios.
In celebration of this day, here are 8 tips for bolstering your computer security:
1) Update Passwords on All Your Devices
Take the time to change the passwords on all your online accounts. This is something that should be done on a regular basis anyway, but if you’ve neglected to do so recently, today is as good a time as any.
Avoid using the same passwords across multiple accounts and devices. Reusing the same or similar passwords over a period of time can put you at greater risk of being hacked. Ideally, you should create a different password for each account that you use on your various devices.
It probably goes without saying, but it’s never a good idea to share your passwords with others, even people that you trust. You can’t know for sure that they will keep your credentials as secure as you would yourself.
2) Create and Use Strong Passwords
When it comes to password security, length matters. Passwords that are 6 characters or fewer are much easier to hack, particularly if they consist of only lowercase letters. To strengthen your password, create a complex, unique mixture of upper and lowercase letters, symbols, and numbers that is at least 9 characters in length.
A password manager can help generate unique passwords for each of your online accounts. At the same time, this useful tool can save all your passwords in one convenient location, so you don’t have to remember them each time. You can also take advantage of Password Checkup, a Google Chrome extension that warns you when it detects you using compromised, duplicate, or weak passwords. As another option, consider using the tool How Secure Is My Password to test the strength and “hackability” of your passwords.
3) Keep Your Software and Hardware Up-to-Date
Make sure that all software – for your operating systems, browsers, programs, applications, etc. – is updated with the latest versions available. When you’re all set with that, it’s time to update your protection software, including spyware, antivirus, and antimalware software. Run a security scan not only on your computers, but on your smartphones and tablets as well. Mobile devices are as much at risk, if not more so, than your desktops or laptops.
It’s crucial to check on the status of your hardware as well. Outdated hardware may not support recent software security upgrades, and also responds slower to cyberattacks, in the event that one should occur. Better to be safe than sorry and upgrade your hardware while everything is smooth sailing.
4) Encrypt and Back Up Your Data
Keep your data secure and confidential – whether it’s being stored or in transit – by encrypting it. Encryption uses complex algorithms to scramble your data and make it unreadable, ensuring that only an authorized person can access the data.
Create a backup copy of all your sensitive data on a portable storage device – such as an external USB or hard drive – and store it in a safe place. Alternatively, you could upload your backed-up data to a cloud-based storage solution such as Google Drive. It’s important to keep your data backups up-to-date and test them periodically.
5) Implement Multi-Factor Authentication
Many online platforms now allow you to enable multi-factor authentication in order to keep your accounts more secure. Multi-factor authentication offers an additional layer of protection by helping to verify that it’s actually you who’s trying to access your account and not an unauthorized user.
6) Be on the Lookout for Social Engineering Attacks
Social engineering attacks are difficult to counteract, as they’re specifically designed to take advantage of natural human characteristics, such as curiosity, respect for authority, and people’s desire to help their friends. Anytime you receive a suspicious email, it should be treated as such. Take a moment to think about where the communication originates from; don’t just trust it blindly.
Often, social engineering depends on a sense of urgency. Attackers hope that targets won’t think too hard about what’s going on. Thinking twice before taking any action can prevent most social engineering attacks and expose them for what they are – frauds.
7) Don’t Leave Your Devices
Unattended
Despite what you may think, locking your office is not enough. If you use a laptop or desktop computer at work, you should always power it down at night. Additionally, whenever you leave your office for the day, you need to lock up your memory keys, hard drives, and anything else that has sensitive data on it.
8) Educate Your Employees About Cybersecurity Awareness
Cybercriminals are specifically targeting your employees when they send out phishing emails in attempting to steal information. Through training and awareness, you can help your employees better recognize fraudulent emails when they encounter them. In so doing, you can significantly reduce the risk of your employees surrendering sensitive data to those who would deliberately misuse it.
Onboarding training and continuous updates help create a human firewall between your company’s information and security threats. Employees need to understand that cybersecurity is every bit as much their concern as it is the concern of your technology experts.
DataGroup Technologies offers a wide variety of cybersecurity solutions to help protect your business against cyberthreats like malware, phishing, ransomware, man-in-the-middle attacks, social engineering, and distributed denial-of-service attacks. Are your company’s data and that of its customers fully protected? How can you be sure? Partner with us and we can help safeguard your business against all these and more! Call us today at 252.329.1382 or drop us a line here.
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