Cybersecurity is serious business. Regretfully, there’s no panacea to keep your network completely secure. This especially holds true when considering the weakest part of every cybersecurity solution, the user. A single click on a suspicious email or attachment sent to one of your users can cause a breach.
We at CHR, have compiled a list of some of the most important tips users need to know for a secure network. Though you may have already heard some of the tips, it never hurts to reinforce your cyber defenses.
- DDoS is always a threat.
Everybody is vulnerable to a DDoS attack. A successful attack will take your services offline, immediately affecting your reputation and revenue. If your customers cannot connect with your service, will they retry or are they going to your competition? Consider employing cloud-based anti-DDoS solutions so you won’t have to find out..
- Change your passwords often.
Staying with the same password for an extended period of time makes it easier for hackers. At the very least, change your password every 90 days. If you access sensitive data or are a system administrator, consider changing your password more often as 90 days is too long.
- Be complex.
Passwords should be complex enough to stop any hacker. While many companies require at least 12 characters, a decent password has at least eight. The password should also include at least one capital letter, a lowercase letter, and a special character or number.
- Knowledge is power.
Educate your team. Social engineering is still the number one threat in cybersecurity. A culture focused on continual employee education can combat threats like phishing, whaling, and other social engineering based attacks.
- Back that data up.
Backups and snapshots are an integral part of any security plan. If afflicted with ransomware there is only one solution, loading a backup.
- Invest in protection.
Do you have end point protection, and is it up to date? Make sure your anti-virus and anti-malware are on every PC, server, and virtual machine on the network.
- Stay up to date.
Update all your firewalls and software to the current version. If any devices connected to the network are not updated, then force an update. Also, consider Next Generation Firewalls (NGFW) to keep even more malicious data out.
