This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Easy ways and cost-effective ways to improve company cybersecurity
Trying to keep up with all the changes that occur in today’s cybersecurity world can be tough, expensive and time-consuming. Every week a new version of malware comes out or an old one has become a threat again. The cost of having to analyze to see if your system is vulnerable to the latest malware can be high. Unfortunately, the analysis must be done because it is cheaper than the alternative of having your data taken. Luckily you can help speed up this process and minimize spending on cybersecurity by helping to prevent breaches. So, let’s cover some ways that your SMB (small/medium business) can help prevent breaches without spending tons.
Relatively cheap cybersecurity tips
First, let’s start with something simple that you are probably already using and that is using Antivirus software. You should be using Antivirus software and some extra firewalls to keep your data safe. If you aren’t using Antivirus software to protect your business’s data this is a great place to start. Sophos Antivirus is a great choice for AntiVirus software if don’t know what to pick. Choosing a good AntiVirus and keeping that software up to date means that you get protection from the latest malware. Thes patches help your software detect the latest malware that comes out.
Next, we will cover another cheap solution that helps you secure your data which is backing up your data. Backing up should be done regularly so that restores to a previous version of your files don’t have much change. This is crucial when you have been affected by a data breach and have been locked out of your files. In the situation of ransomware, you can simply just replace locked out files with copies of their backups. Never pay to have your system unlocked the process which locks them also damages them. It is also important to note that your backups should be in a different location than your normal files. They should also be behind the protection of firewalls and antiviruses. This prevents access to both original and back up files.
Meet with Employees
After, doing those two relatively inexpensive things the next thing is to hold meetings and workshops. Theses meeting should cover subjects such as safe web browsing practices, identifying suspicious emails. They should cover the step to take once they have identified unsafe emails or websites. Having meetings with employees can inform them of new trending malware that they should be wary of and what they can do to protect themselves. Use these meetings to create your company security culture, which will ultimately help you save on expensive costs of recovering from a malware breach.
Also, while having meetings on security try to instill a culture of having strong passwords and policies in place for how long passwords can stay the same. A general guideline for how long you should keep a password for is about 90 days after this the risk of breaches increases. Like with the safe browsing you need to educate your employees so holding meetings and workshops on how to make good passwords is key. If you are finding that you have a hard time instilling the practice for creating passwords it might be a good idea to talk to your IT to see if there are ways you can force those practices as requirements. Having built-in ways for machines that do multi-factor identification like fingerprint readers reduce the number of times the password must be changed or compensate for the weak passwords.
What else can we do
Next, we can move onto adding multifactor identification, which is just a fancy way of saying you need more that one step to login or access sensitive information. This will require some work on the part of your IT department or your organization going out and finding outside assistance to have this feature set up. As such this will most likely be more expensive than the other steps that we just talked about. You might wonder why this step will be effective, well because even if one of your employees fall for one of the many malware attacks that exist you won’t be affected. In these situations, even if they have login information, they will require that second step for logging in, and if that second login step requires the employee to be on-premise you have thwarted the complete breach.
If you having a hard time with your cybersecurity needs or want a consultation on what can improved contact us. Contact Powerland to learn more about what we can do to help by contacting us online using the contact form below or by emailing us at marketing@powerland.ca. We will happily redirect you to the correct Knowledgeable Security representative.