As we explore the digital world in the 2020s, cybersecurity attacks are getting worse and worse. Businesses must do everything they can to protect their data or risk losing millions of dollars.
But how can companies protect themselves from cyberattacks when criminals only get smarter?
To keep yourself safe, you need to know your enemy. And to know your enemy, you’re going to need to understand the biggest errors in cybersecurity that you can make.
Here are the top security mistakes that you need to avoid at all costs.
1. Not Educating Your Employees
Did you know that many cybersecurity attacks can be prevented just by knowing their dangers of them? Though many cyber attacks have gotten complex and criminals have gotten smarter, many strategies still require you to let them in.
The classic cybersecurity attack is the phishing attack. In these, a criminal will pose as a trusted party that has reason to contact you — perhaps Amazon or Apple.
They’ll send you an email requesting you to click on a link — maybe to change a password. Once you click this link, they’re in. Once they get into one employee’s account, it’s not long before they can gather some information and deal some serious damage.
Sometimes, it’s as simple as teaching your employees what to look out for, and how they know an email is fraudulent. Teach them simple things, like how phishing attacks often have typos, and that they can’t use a URL that’s taken, so they’ll often change a letter, use a different spelling, or replace an “m” with “rn.
Criminals are also getting smarter about how they conduct phishing attacks. There’s a new type of phishing, called spear phishing. The attack fundamentally works the same, but the approach is a lot deadlier.
In a spear phishing attack, a cybercriminal will single out one employee and try to get information for them. They’ll study this employee, and craft an email that’s tailor-made to make them fall for it.
Educate your employees, and you’re more likely to stay safe.
2. Not Hiring a Managed IT Service
Does your business have an IT team? If so, you might think you’re safe from cybersecurity attacks. You might think you’ve done all that you can do and that your IT team can deal with whatever happens.
We believe that your IT team is great, but you should seriously consider using a managed IT cybersecurity service. Your IT team has a lot to deal with, such as problems your employees have, keeping your operations up and running, and making sure things go smoothly with customers. They might not be able to devote all of the time they need to keep your company safe.
This isn’t their fault. It’s just a matter of cybersecurity being a job in its own right. Without a team working around the clock on cybersecurity (checking to make sure nothing has been breached, educating employees, understanding new threats, and implanting new technology), you’re leaving yourself open for attack.
On top of this, sometimes it’s impossible to avoid a cybersecurity attack. When this happens, you don’t want your entire business to come to a halt. This is exactly what will happen if you don’t have a managed IT service — your standard IT team will have to turn their entire job to cybersecurity, which will make other parts of your work suffer.
It’s also a matter of visibility. Criminals are more likely to attack a team that’s vulnerable, and without a managed IT team.
Check out Integris IT services, a great example of a managed IT service.
3. Not Thinking About Passwords
Passwords are the first thing anyone learns about cybersecurity. If you don’t want someone to take your information, the least you can do is protect it with a password.
But when you run a business, passwords get a little more complicated than this. If you’re not putting thought into your business’s passwords, you can open yourself up to serious cybersecurity risks.
You need to make use of tiered passwords. Every employee can use their own login, but not every bit of information should be available to them. More sensitive pieces of info should be entrusted only to trusted members, and be kept behind a different password that only they know.
Depending on the size of your company, you can have several layers of this. We recommend having a computer specifically to support the most sensitive information — one that isn’t even hooked up to the internet. The password to this should be only known by you, or perhaps one other person.
4. Not Securing Employee Devices
One of the top things that you can do to ensure your cybersecurity is to secure your employees’ devices. You need to make sure — to the best of your ability — that your system knows exactly which devices have access to your network.
This is a good early line of defense against cybersecurity threats. At the very least, it will make it more difficult for a cybercriminal to make the first steps to getting into your walls.
This is one of the easiest things that a managed IT company can do — another reason why it’s so worth hiring them.
Don’t Fall For These Errors in Cybersecurity
Cybercrime is a bigger threat than it ever was before. Luckily, if you avoid the above four errors, you can increase your chances of staying safe and minimizing damage. We highly recommend hiring a cybersecurity company that can help you handle the rest of the items on the list.
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