The need for strong cybersecurity has never been greater. No matter how big or small your business, cyber-attacks can be costly in both financial terms and in terms of the loss of trust that your customer base may have in your business. For this reason, it is essential that all organisations take steps to improve their security. Here are our top tips for how you can protect your organisation’s security posture: 

Regularly Backup Your Data 

Some data breaches are intentional, whilst others are accidental: if a piece of hardware containing confidential information is lost, wrong access permissions are given to an employee, for example, then this can result in a data breach that is not intentional. You can minimise this risk by understanding how your data is stored, who has access to essential data within your organisation, and most importantly, ensuring that you regularly back up your data. Cyber security is a rapidly changing field, so it is vital to regularly review information storage and access, even if you feel that you have a handle on data management within your organisation. 

Manage Physical and Environmental Risks

You can’t protect what you don’t understand. Therefore, one of the best ways to manage the physical and environmental risks of your business landscape is to be aware of what those risks might be. Some examples of physical security risks include inappropriate physical access to your assets, theft of physical assets (such as laptops or mobile phones), and vandalism. Some examples of environmental security risks include damage caused by accidental, intentional, and natural events. These could include fire and water damage or could be the result of power cuts. You can mitigate this by taking obvious precautions such as installing fire and smoke alarms, security systems to minimise the risks of theft and vandalism and ensuring that you have more than one power supply if necessary. 

Implement Two-Factor Authentication 

If you’re concerned about being exposed to cyber-attacks, then implementing multi-factor authentication (MFA) is a great way to mitigate password guessing and theft. Two-factor authentication is easy to implement and will strengthen user authentication with ease. Easy Business IT can take control of your organisation’s security posture and implement this on your behalf, helping to protect your business whilst you focus on growing your business, and the other elements of running your organisation that you do best! 

Use Anti-Malware Software 

Finally, malicious software (also known as 'malware') is software or web content that can harm your organisation by infecting your computers, tablets and smartphones. Installing anti-malware software into all of your business hardware is the best way to prevent this from occurring. The primary way to prevent malware from damaging your organisation is to install antivirus software, ensure that it is turned on at all times, and update it regularly. You should also consider restricting the apps that your employees are able to download, controlling the USB drives and other external memory cards that are used within your organisation, and switching on your firewall. Your firewall will create a 'buffer zone' between your own network and external networks and is easy to both install and use.