Cyber-security is a topic you have heard of in the recent years, whether in the news or an action point during one of your team meetings. The bottom line is – Cyber-security is very important.
According to the 2018 Privileged Access Threat Report, “59 percent of UK organisations have possibly or definitely suffered a data breach in the last year.” (S. Tierney, Microsoft UK, 2019)
Threats today are automated and designed in a way to affect as many targets as possible. This means that sophisticated attacks can affect all sizes of businesses. Common exploits include employees opening well designed phishing emails, connecting to unsecure Wi-Fi network or simply not keeping software up to date. As you can see, the issue not only affects your IT department or person in charge of the technical side of the business, but essentially your whole organisation.
The tricky thing about data breaches is the fact that they do not only affect you as a business but also your customers, the relationships with them and ultimately, the trust in your organisation.
Here are some tips which will help you to protect yourself against the cyber-security threats;
Train your staff
Simple yet vital. Once your team understands the risks it will be far easier for them to assess them and in most cases prevent breaches from happening in the first place. Simple training sessions on spoof emails, data protection and safe online activities can go a long way.
Email Security
Email is a fundamental communication tool for any business and because of this, it is one of the most common threat vectors. Outlook from Microsoft 365 can automatically recognise the difference between spam, phishing and real emails. It also secures data and provides substantial protection against threats.
Policies
Threats can come from any direction, not only email therefore make sure that you have protocols in place which will protect your devices, use multi factor authentication for devices which leave the office and make sure that team members know what to do when a device goes missing.
Software Updates
Software updates provide general updates and patches to the software but also update security, therefore it is critical to make sure that everything is up to date. The benefit of having cloud-based software is that any updates take place automatically.
Keep on learning!
Cyber-security threats are here to stay and evolve with technological advancements. Keep on underlining the importance of cyber-security to your team to make sure that it remains a ‘hot’ topic around your workplace. This will build confidence and will encourage everyone to act before a risk becomes a threat.
Many Managed IT Services Providers will offer some of the security measures mentioned in this article. If you would like to learn how IT Champion can help your business to improve and manage IT security, please contact us by email hello@it-champion.co.uk or give us a quick call on 01392 454750.
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