One small Cyber Security mistake and your multi-million dollar business could burn down to the ground! Gone are the days when security was dealt with physically, with guards, guns, and vaults. Today in the digital landscape attacks are done with the click of a button and the surprising part? It’s not easy to catch the criminal!
Whatever is the nature of your business, I have compiled 7 of the most incumbent security measures to employ at your workplace.
Top 7 Cyber Security tips
Here I’ll talk in detail about the security measures that you need to take to safeguard your workplace from any kind of cybersecurity threat, no matter how small.
Employee Awareness and training
Besides the tools and techniques I’ll be talking about later on in this article, employee awareness is by far the most important factor that you need to keep in mind.
Your employees are your organization’s most important resource, they are the building blocks of your business. Educating them regarding cybersecurity threats and scams eliminates the risk of theft to a great extent.
They are the ones who deal with thousands of emails and standard operating procedures every day, they have access to some of the organizations most confidential information. Investing in their cybersecurity awareness is one of the most important steps in securing your data at the workplace.
It is estimated that by the year 2027, investment in employee training will reach a staggering amount of $10 billion.
Anti-Virus Software
You’ve probably heard of famous Anti-Virus software like Norton, Kaspersky Anti-Virus, MacAfee and the likes for more than a decade. Well, guess what? They are not there to just download and be kept disabled.
All computer systems at your workplace must be installed with the latest version of credible Anti-Virus software and enabled for regular checkups and updates.
Why is it so important to update your Anti-virus software? Because every single day, criminals come up with new ways to attack your system and for that, you need to be updated with the latest armors available to you.
Anti-virus companies constantly create new ways to counter such attacks, in addition to that they also clean them from your system making it safe again. Business level security software contains many other features too, such as email scanning, secure browsing, and even malware identification and protection.
Secure your connection with a VPN
One of the most important security tools for safeguarding your data, a VPN secures your online activities and masks your IP address. This makes it impossible for any intruder to snoop on your data. Data theft alone is estimated to cost $6 trillion by the end of this year.
The user data maintained by a company is its real asset and a signal of its goodwill. However, not even giants like SONY, Marriott, JP Morgan and many more have been victimized by criminals despite having secured data highly, then what are the chances of you not being targeted?
In fact, 64% of small business are the primary target of hackers and cybercriminals.
A VPN is short for Virtual Private Network, today there are hundreds of providers that claim to provide the ultimate security whilst maintaining no logs, but this is not true. Especially with free providers as they have little incentive to protect your data and may sell it to advertisers. A lot of VPN user reviews comes in handy in picking the best VPN service.
Be Careful What You Download
It’s almost impossible to go on the internet and not do a little bit of random surfing here and there, going through articles, blogs, news sites, etc. and somewhere in between a smart and sharp hacker has placed an irresistible clickbait that looks totally safe and credible.
While the golden rule is to not go for something that looks too good to be true, hackers can entice you by simply offering a box of doughnuts or access to a software or anything that may interest you. These links contain malicious codes that can ruin your computer system. Click baits can also come in the form of links that are very similar to the original website such as dunkindonots.com, dominoes.com, bankoamerica.com.
Therefore, before clicking on any such link look twice, think thrice! When it comes to working place computers I would strongly advise you to not get involved at all with any such link.
Strict Admin Controls
Even small to medium-sized companies employee anywhere around 30-700 workers, which means hundreds of weak points for your data to be leaked out! Along with awareness about cybersecurity, the management also needs to keep an eye on the employees and the activities they carry on their computers.
It is highly possible that a particular employee might have grievances with the organization and may try to harm it or sell sensitive user data.
Strict software control policy
The management should make sure that there is a very strict software control on the computers at the workplace. Employees should not be able to download third-party software which is not approved by the security team of the company.
This can pose serious threats to the data the company is holding.
Encrypt data on the go
If there’s a certain situation where you have to use a public WIFI, try to pick the one which is the most secure. It is still better to use mobile data and pay for it rather than risking your data.
The best practice for complete protection is to always encrypt your data as soon as possible so that, in the event If you lose your laptop, smartphone or USB flash drive at least your valuable data will be secured.
Concluding!
Data is the new oil! And guess what? It will only keep increasing and we will have to educate ourselves to handle it. Companies can do wonders in bringing great technologies to the world with the data they have!
‘With great power comes great responsibility’
Therefore, with such massive resources at our disposal, we must also learn how to protect them so that we can get the best out of them
Neha Nidhi
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