Some Advice to Take Your Company’s Cybersecurity to the Next Level

Businesses don’t typically pay enough attention to the possibility of a cyber attack--a scary thought if you’re unprepared. Instead of just hoping that hackers will overlook your company, you need to equip your network with enterprise-level security tools while taking proactive measures that keep threats out of your infrastructure.

Stay Vigilant
Even if your network is equipped with the best security solutions, you still need to think about what could happen if you have to deal with a situation that puts your data at risk. A Unified Threat Management tool is a great way to neutralize many threats, but even a UTM doesn’t cover every single threat out there. Viruses and malware come in many different forms, so if you’re not careful, you or another user could accidentally walk right into a trap (like a phishing scam). After all, hackers are always trying to subvert the latest technologies, which explains how threats evolve over time. Therefore, you need to make sure that your security solutions are up to date with the latest threat definitions, while being on guard for whatever new threats may come your way.

Did you know that there are some threats that can be missed by a firewall? Threats like spyware or trojans are specifically designed to not be identified and lurk on a network for an indefinite amount of time. These hidden threats can siphon data from your network or allow for remote access by hackers. The only real way to identify whether you’ve been infiltrated in this sense is by monitoring your network in real time.

What Do You Do When Your Security Plan Doesn’t Cut It?
It might be scary to think about what would happen if your security plan fails, but it’s important to have a backup plan and be prepared for the worst. Single security solutions can only do so much, and then there’s the possibility of facing cyber attacks that are specially tailored to infiltrate your organization and bypass your security measures. Therefore, you need to have a battle-tested security plan.

Additionally, hackers will try to use your own assets against you--including your employees. If your employees were to receive a spam message, do you know how they would react? Would they disregard it as a threat, or would they download infected files, click on malicious links, or reply with personal or confidential information? These all-too-possible scenarios are why it’s absolutely imperative that your business trains each and every employee on cybersecurity best practices. Phishing scams and CEO fraud are on the rise, and an uneducated staff member is far more likely to fall for this trap than you would like to think.

Network Security Plays a Major Role in Business Continuity
There’s one way that your business can ensure its survival in the event of a hacking attack, and that’s to take network security into account when creating your business continuity plan. You should know how your organization will react when there’s a security breach, how to gauge whether data was stolen or corrupted, and most important of all, what data was affected. To learn more about how your organization can prepare for a security breach and how to prevent it altogether, reach out to us at 407-478-6600.