Cybersecurity Isn’t Supposed to Get In Your Way

With so many threats in business, it doesn’t take much to fall victim to a cyberattack or a scam. Understanding the dangers out there is the first step in enacting a cybersecurity process that can keep your users and your business safe. Let’s take a look at how to build one in this month’s newsletter. 

Building a Secure Network

When looking to put in place a comprehensive network security strategy, you have to first look at the threats your business faces online. At one point, you just needed an antivirus, firewall, and a routine to update the software you use, and it would work to keep unwanted entities off your network and out of your information systems. Today’s threats are a little more sneaky. 

Today, the prevalent form of attack is the phishing scam. Instead of trying to find vulnerabilities in the computing network itself, now most hackers look to users to be the vulnerable parties. The phishing scam is a form of social engineering attack where people are targeted to unwittingly provide authorization (or at least enough information) to gain access. When it is successful, it can be potentially devastating. 

What Your Employees Need to Do to Protect Your Business

With quite literally billions of phishing attacks sent out each year, it’s only a matter of time before your employees come into contact with one. As we mentioned earlier, your business’ security is stronger now than it has ever been, so chances are, if you are ever going to deal with a cyberattack, it will come through a successful phishing attack. This means that you have to come up with a plan to train your employees on how to identify a phishing message and what to do with the message once they've identified it as phishing. 

Here is a three part strategy that you should use when coming up with your own cybersecurity training strategy for your business. 

• Use Password Management - Since most of the attacks that come in are looking for access to password-protected accounts, it stands to reason that you should make it known that creating unique and complex passwords has to be a priority. A password management system allows users to keep their passwords in an encrypted repository, ensuring that they are secure. These tools generally come with a password generator too. 
• Provide Comprehensive Phishing Training - As we stated earlier in the article, phishing is by far the most common way your business gets hacked. Having a dedicated strategy to train (and test) your employees is important. They need to be able to understand what havoc a successful phishing message could have on your business, be able to identify phishing messages, and understand how to proceed when they do identify one. 
• Have Trained Support In Place - One problem some businesses run into is not having access to tech support when they need it. In this situation, it is often left to them to try and troubleshoot the problem, or just leave it and play Candy Crush on their phones until something can get done. You need access to trained IT talent to help you fix problems, even simple ones, when they arise. 

If you need help coming up with a thorough cybersecurity plan for your business, look no further than the IT experts at White Mountain IT Services. Give us a call today at 603-889-0800 to learn more.