Tip of the Week: 3 Easy Actions That Will Protect Your Data

The modern business has to deal with a lot of potential security problems. Today’s threat landscape is filled with people looking to prosper off of your misfortune. As a result, doing what you can to maintain the security of your network and data is essential. Today, we will discuss how maintaining your organizational cybersecurity doesn’t have to be costly or time consuming.The best way we’ve found to go about doing this is by highlighting a few key actions that you can take to keep your network secure and your data safe.

Use Strong Passwords

Like many of these quick tips, this one is a good practice regardless of where you are. Good password management is an extremely important part of the security process. To concoct a good password, you need to first make something that people or computer programs won’t guess. You can do that by using both lower- and upper-case letters, numbers, and symbols.

Another good practice is to create a passphrase of unlike words. This serves two purposes. First, it ensures that you can remember the password; and, secondly it is secure enough where no one can crack the password.

Finally, you will want to create a unique password for every online account and save them in an encrypted password manager. Doing so will not only protect your passwords, it sets up a system where you only have to remember one. 

For additional security, you will want to use two-factor authentication. This is a system that adds an additional layer of security to your online accounts. Once you enter a password into a password manager, you then will get an additional box where you will enter a code. This code can be sent through email or it can be generated through an authentication app. 

Only Use Secure Wi-Fi

The Wi-Fi inside your office should be secure, hidden, and encrypted. For those times when working in your office is impossible, the use of a virtual private network (VPN) can keep your uploads and downloads secure. Utilizing public Wi-Fi without a VPN is just asking for problems. 

Some VPNs are better than others. Typically, if your company uses a comprehensive network security suite for your office, it will come with VPN licenses that will be more than enough to protect data transmission when you are working on someone else’s Wi-Fi.

Avoid Unknown Links

Phishing is the number one way that hackers gain access to a network. This is because people click on links and download attachments that they have no business interacting with. Your account has likely been phished many times this year. Most are probably thwarted by your spam blocker, but it only takes one attack to grind productivity to a halt.

If we have one piece of advice, don’t enter personal or company information in an email or instant message unless you are very clear who is on the other end. The threats that line up against your integrated security are substantial ones. Phishing is the number one cause of identity theft and ransomware. Since it runs the entire gamut of negative results, ensuring that you are doing what you can to not be part of the problem is important. 

Cybersecurity can be difficult for a business, but an individual’s role in protecting business and personal networks isn’t. If you would like to learn more about IT security or how to effectively manage risks that come from phishing and other attacks, subscribe to our blog today.