Doing Your Part To Enhance Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity relies heavily on your company, their technology and the individuals that operate and manage those systems. But it is unwise to think that your IT department or cybersecurity teams are the only ones with the ability to stave off cyber attacks. When you do your part in protecting your data, you do yourself, and your company, a big service.

Things You Can Do To Enhance Cybersecurity

There are a number of ways you can enhance your cybersecurity, and many of them don’t take much effort. Below you’ll find some easy ways to add several layers of protection for your personal life, and your business.

Change Passwords

This is one of the easiest ways to protect against cybersecurity, yet many people use one password for all of their logins, and the same password they have had for several years. Not smart. If a cybercriminal cracks the code, that person could have access to more than just company data.

For businesses, make changing passwords mandatory. IT departments can do this by setting up an automatic prompt requesting employees change their passwords every 90 days. If passwords haven’t been changed, personnel will be locked out of company systems, and IT will be asked to manually change the password for you. Having mandatory password changes ensures that nobody has the three-year-old “password123” as their password.

Businesses and individuals should consider using a password manager. These can create custom, random passwords for all of your logins. This accomplishes two things: you don’t have to worry about changing your passwords because a password manager does it for you, and you don’t have to worry about remembering the logins for several different sites. Password managers are an easy and secure way to keep you and your company safe.

Two-Factor Authentication

We’ve written a lot about two-factor authentication and why your company should use it. To reiterate the importance of two factor authentication, the FTC claims that 1.8 billion dollars was lost due to fraud in 2018. A lot of that could be prevented by simply adding two-factor authentication.

It works like this: let’s say you have two-factor authentication applied to your Gmail account. You type in your password to log in. You’ll then be asked to input a pin that is sent via text to your phone. After you receive the pin on your phone, and enter it into your Gmail account, you’ll receive access. It may seem tedious, but it goes a long way in protecting your data. And you’ll know when it’s working when you are away from your computer and unexpectedly get a text asking you to verify a login from a strange location. We highly recommend two-factor authentication to all of your logins and systems.

Stay Updated

Don’t ignore update prompts to your security software. These updates ensure that you stay safe from vulnerabilities in previous versions. And if you have old virus software protecting your computer, it’s basically swiss cheese at that point. Try to stay on top of updating your virus protection software.

Backup Your Data

We understand that some companies don’t allow individual employees to backup data on physical hard drives, but if you can, it is a good idea to do so. If your system or computer becomes compromised, you’ll want a detailed backup to restore all of your data, especially if your machine needs to be wiped clean.

It is also a best practice to store your work in a cloud server, especially if your work provides one. That way, you can have two copies — one on your computer and one in the Cloud, just in case. Not all has to be lost when you backup your work.

Training

Training employees on the small things they can do to avoid being scammed or compromising the company doesn’t take much effort, but it goes a long way. Here are a few key points courtesy of Coordinated Business Systems to share with your employees when crafting a training plan:

• Don’t open emails from unknown sources; report them
• Don’t write down your passwords or share them with fellow employees
• Don’t share hardware or software with anyone outside the organization
• Turn off your computer when you leave for the day
• Stay away from unsecure websites

When you follow these simple tips, you can help to prevent a significant amount of damage from happening to your company or personally. If you are looking for additional information on cybersecurity, reach out to our Dealer Care team about our new partner INVISUS, a leading company in personal and business cybersecurity.