6 Things You Should Have In Place to Protect your Systems
In the modern digital age, our businesses need the security and reliability of our IT systems and infrastructure. Any outage or loss can seriously disrupt the efficiency and security of business operations, potentially creating financial loss, and breaching industry compliance obligations.
Where to begin
The security of your IT should be a priority but how do you achieve it? You should start with these six key tools that give your business the best chance of preventing a cyber-attack.
Six tools to help protect your systems
Firewalls
A firewall protects the perimeter of your network by sifting inbound and outbound traffic. It looks for open ‘doors’ that could leave your system vulnerable to exploitation or take over from cyber criminals. A well configured firewall, (hardware or software) will allow or disallow permissions to enter your network for both people and data traffic. Perhaps most importantly, it monitors and protects information and data, making it much more difficult for data to be stolen. But a firewall alone, especially without continuous updates, will not serve you well for long.
Secure configuration
To achieve a secure configuration, you must implement a series of security measures when building and installing your computers and network devices. By doing this, you reduce your risk of becoming a victim of a cyber attack. Criminal hackers look to exploit your security misconfigurations to gain access to your system. Apply best practices to the way your network and systems are configured to prevent misuse and exploitation.
Access control
Between cyber security and company best practice access protocols, you should limit system access permissions on a ‘need to know’ or ‘need to access’ basis. Restricting access will stop staff from accessing files and folders that do not pertain to their role, while simultaneously limiting the potential reach should a cybercriminal successfully breach your system. Administration rights are seen as the `master key` for cyber criminals. Losing that key could have serious consequences for an individual computer or in the worst-case scenario, your entire network.
Malware protection
Malware protection comes in the form of software that is designed to protect IT and individual computers from malicious software. Malware is the umbrella phrase used to explain malicious software, or what is more commonly referred to as viruses. A virus is essentially designed to cause disruption or steal information from your network. One of the most common forms of malware is ransomware. Ransomware is used by the criminal as a means of locking out your access to your files & folders, sealing them behind the criminal’s own encryption key, only allowing you access after you pay a considerable ransom.
Patch management
Hackers are constantly working to exploit vulnerabilities within the software applications and operating systems you use every day. By employing patch management, you will keep your software up to date and secure by rolling out critical updates as they become available.
Education
There is absolutely no point in implementing all the above tools in your quest for cyber security without educating your staff. Everybody should be aware of best practices when it comes to navigating their cyber environment. Think of it like this — the tools you implement are the armor and the person inside is the soldier that uses them all. They are all there to help as best they can, but ultimately the quality of their defense comes down to the capabilities and knowledge of the person behind them.
How to begin your implementation
If you have an IT person, ask if all the above has been implemented. A lot of businesses just get a firewall and some form of malware protection installed and feel their security is covered. It’s not. Cybercriminals do nothing but look for new ways to attack. Your business cannot passively protect itself against an active, motivated, stalking, evil predator. So start with a conversation with whomever is responsible for your network security to get an idea what measures are in place. If that falls short, or you’re not sure, you need a good IT partner who will work with you, and your IT person, to ensure you have real, up-to-the-minute security measures in place, that are appropriate for your business and budget. The ideal partner will adopt a customer-first approach while having the technical knowledge and competency to see things as they apply to real world solutions and your business.
mPoweredIT – cyber security experts
At mPoweredIT we are proactive in keeping systems secure. We never leave things to chance or wait for a problem to arise. We take care of your business systems with the attention and care as if it were our own network on the line.