Best security tactics for your business
Any employee in a company whether a top manager, or a junior accountant should do their best to protect company's data from cybersecurity threats or data thefts. There are certain steps that employees and managers must follow to ensure the organization is protected against potential loss of important information, reputation and revenue. In this blog post we will share useful security tactics for your business.
However, before we start let's see what kind of security threats exist and how corporate data can be stolen:
- Phishing scams are currently a favorite weapon of cybercriminals. Normally, it's an email with a harmful link or a message on social media.
- Weak passwords are still a huge problem among employees who use the same password across various business applications or create very simple ones.
- Security breaches in third-party applications can lead to data leakage.
- Installation of malware which enables hackers to damage devices with viruses and steal data.
Monitor third-party applications
It is a known fact that various applications are used for finance, collaboration, communication, files storage, customer service and task management processes. To keep corporate data secure you need to ensure that those applications are reliable, hosted on your own servers or on secure clouds and are not used for non-business purposes.
For example, for corporate communication and collaboration it is necessary to use secure business messenger, like Virola which can be hosted on your own server and supports an ability to chat, make calls, video and audio meetings, share files and monitor tasks.
Malware prevention strategies
The following Recommendations of the National Institute of Standards and Technology should be taken into account while training employees and introducing cyber security guidelines in your company:
- develop and implement an approach to malware incident prevention
- ensure that organization's policies support the prevention of malware incidents
- establish malware incident prevention and handling capabilities that address current and short-term future threats
- regularly conduct malware-oriented training and exercises
- designate a few individuals or a small team to be responsible for coordinating the organization's responses to malware incidents
- acquire the necessary hardware and software tools to assist in malware incident handling
Control access to sensitive information
In most companies a handful of people is entrusted to have access to highly classified information, financial reports or security passwords. The rest of employees have fewer rights and do not have access to valuable information. Such permissions regulations help to keep corporate data secure and protected against thefts. For example, directory service like Active Directory allows using one UPN (user principal name) to log into various applications and regulate access to specific information with help of complex permissions settings and user profile configuration.
Use strong passwords
Strong passwords will help to keep sensitive information safe. Today many organizations use single sign-on or authentication with user principal name across various applications or services. This is not only convenient but is also more secure as in this case employees do not need to create and remember multiple passwords. At the same time, this gives more control over user permissions to ensure that only authorized team members have access to sensitive information.
Consider multi-factor authentication
Multi-factor authentication can reduce the risk of credential reuse, phishing attacks, and many other online security threats. You can activate this type of authentication to protect different business processes that deal with personal information in your organization, such as: banking services, documents storage, social media channels, email and accounting services.
Develop risk-reduction procedures
It's a question of time when your company information gets compromised. Thus, you should develop a proactive rather than reactive approach to corporate security. It is necessary to have a certain set of procedures to deal with security risks, data breaches and employees cybersecurity training. There is no need to wait for your corporate data to be stolen, just take the necessary measures to keep information secure and the IT department ready to face data theft attempts.
Install security updates and back up your data
Data loss can occur due to various reasons such as accidental data removal, cyberattack or hardware failure. Thus. It is necessary to regularly back up business-critical data and store it securely. Automated back-up solutions will significantly streamline this process and prevent human errors.
At the same time, regular security audits are essential for identifying and addressing vulnerabilities in your systems. This way you can detect and rectify potential security flaws before they can be exploited.
Devices and software that are not up to date are at risk of attacks. Thus, keeping them up to date is one of the most effective things you can do to ensure your systems are safe.
Conclusion
Regular security check-ups, employees training, consultations with experts, malware prevention strategies, robust authentication measures, data back-ups are the security tactics that will help you significantly enhance your business's resilience against cyber threats.