The Top FIVE Tips To Protect Your Data & Network
How can you keep your business IT secure? You may have a firewall and antivirus installed, but that’s not enough. Follow these 5 tips to protect your data and network.
1. Backup your data and frequently and test your ability to recover it.
- Backup to both an onsite backup device in your office and a remote, secure, online data center in the Cloud.
- Set backups to occur automatically.
- Make sure your backup systems are encrypted.
- Develop a Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery policy that specifies:
- What data is backed up.
- How often it’s backed up.
- Where it’s stored.
- Who has access to the backups.
- Regularly test the recovery of your data.
- Without regular test restores, you run the risk that your backup is corrupted. You won’t discover this until you need your backup.
2. Put procedures and controls in place for wiring money and other sensitive transactions.
- These controls are critical for preventing financial fraud and breaches of your sensitive transactions.
- Controls include the systems, policies, procedures and processes required to safeguard assets, limit or control risks, and achieve your organization’s goals.
- Effective internal controls will prevent or detect errors and potential fraud or noncompliance regulations.
- Undergo regular Cybersecurity Assessments to detect any deficiencies in your internal controls.
3. Use complex and unique passwords for each login/service and use two-factor authentication (2FA) whenever possible.
- Passwords remain a common cybersecurity weakness because of the careless way employees try to remember their login information.
- Weak passwords are easy to compromise and put you at serious risk for a catastrophic breach.
- Maintain complex passwords with a password manager.
- Always use 2 Factor Authentication (2FA) whenever possible. This is the process proving ownership of an identity.
4. Conduct cybersecurity training for everyone in your organization. People are the weakest link.
- Security awareness training helps your employees know how to recognize and avoid being victimized by phishing emails and scam websites.
- Employees learn how to handle security incidents when they occur.
- A comprehensive cybersecurity training program will teach your staff:
- How to identify and address suspicious emails, phishing attempts, social engineering tactics, and more.
- How to use business technology without exposing data and other assets to external threats by accident.
- How to respond when you suspect that an attack is occurring or has occurred.
5. Develop a plan for what you will do if you have a cybersecurity incident.
- An incident response plan is necessary to rapidly detect incidents, minimize loss and destruction, mitigate the weaknesses that were exploited, and restore IT services.
- According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an incident response capability should include the following:
- Create an incident response policy and plan.
- Develop procedures for performing incident handling and reporting.
- Set guidelines for communicating with outside parties regarding incidents.
- Select a team structure and staffing model.
- Establish relationships and lines of communication between the incident response team and other groups, both internal (e.g., legal department and external).
- Determine what services the incident response team should provide.
- Staff and train the incident response team.
For more information, contact Outsource IT Solutions Group.
