3 ways to protect your business

Date Posted:

3 ways to protect your business

Date Posted:

protect your business

Ransomware is on the increase and is expected to one of the main contributing factors to cybercrime costing the world $6 trillion by 2021 (annually).

For a business of any size being locked out of your IT system and the loss of your critical data can have far-reaching effects, potentially costing thousands or tens of thousands or more, or even seeing your business go under.

Here are 3 ways that you can ensure you are protected against cyber criminals. They may seem quite simple but they will put you in a much stronger position in the battle against cybercrime:

1) Take physical action:

Install the latest version of top performing anti-virus and anti-spam software on all the devices in your business. Once you’ve done this make sure you install the updates regularly and don’t forget to install on any new devices you introduce.

Patch and update automatically any software your business uses. The safest way to do this is to let a quality IT support company manage it for you. Cybercriminals and ransomware often rely on businesses running outdated software with known vulnerabilities. Make sure you are set up to accept automatic updates from the software vendors as they often release updates outside of the update cycle to react to known threats.

Get into to the habit of backing up your critical data regularly. Be aware that malware encrypts files on drives that are mapped and have been assigned a drive letter, and sometimes even on drives that are unmapped. This includes any external drives such as a USB thumb drive, as well as any network or cloud file stores. Hence, a regular backup regimen is essential, ideally using an off-site, offline device for storing the backup files.

2) Educate your employees on issues of security:

One of the most common infection methods is social engineering – methods that are based on fooling users and trying to convince them to run executable files. By claiming to be a tracking notification email from a delivery company (such as FedEx or UPS), an email from their bank, or an internal company message such as New_Payroll.pdf.exe, the attackers try to fool employees to achieve their malicious goals. To prevent this from happening, employees should be trained not to open any unknown or suspicious email attachments, links or files.

3) Seek expert advice:

Running a business and doing all the things that make your business a success is really where you should be concentrating your efforts. If you take the steps above you will be in a much better position to fight the malicious activities of the cyber criminals but the reality is that it takes time and effort to stay ahead of the game. Let’s face it, cyber security is not where your expertise lies, so you could potentially get it wrong, make a poor decision, forget to install or update vital protection, forget to run backups and so on. It is the business of an IT support company to make sure you are protected and monitored so that system security is up to date and all your systems are optimised for performance.

We’re experts in cyber security and ways to protect your business from the rise of ransomware so if you’re concerned or want to know more about online security contact us and we’ll help to secure your business.

Find more information and IT security news here.

protect your business

Ransomware is on the increase and is expected to one of the main contributing factors to cybercrime costing the world $6 trillion by 2021 (annually).

For a business of any size being locked out of your IT system and the loss of your critical data can have far-reaching effects, potentially costing thousands or tens of thousands or more, or even seeing your business go under.

Here are 3 ways that you can ensure you are protected against cyber criminals. They may seem quite simple but they will put you in a much stronger position in the battle against cybercrime:

1) Take physical action:

Install the latest version of top performing anti-virus and anti-spam software on all the devices in your business. Once you’ve done this make sure you install the updates regularly and don’t forget to install on any new devices you introduce.

Patch and update automatically any software your business uses. The safest way to do this is to let a quality IT support company manage it for you. Cybercriminals and ransomware often rely on businesses running outdated software with known vulnerabilities. Make sure you are set up to accept automatic updates from the software vendors as they often release updates outside of the update cycle to react to known threats.

Get into to the habit of backing up your critical data regularly. Be aware that malware encrypts files on drives that are mapped and have been assigned a drive letter, and sometimes even on drives that are unmapped. This includes any external drives such as a USB thumb drive, as well as any network or cloud file stores. Hence, a regular backup regimen is essential, ideally using an off-site, offline device for storing the backup files.

2) Educate your employees on issues of security:

One of the most common infection methods is social engineering – methods that are based on fooling users and trying to convince them to run executable files. By claiming to be a tracking notification email from a delivery company (such as FedEx or UPS), an email from their bank, or an internal company message such as New_Payroll.pdf.exe, the attackers try to fool employees to achieve their malicious goals. To prevent this from happening, employees should be trained not to open any unknown or suspicious email attachments, links or files.

3) Seek expert advice:

Running a business and doing all the things that make your business a success is really where you should be concentrating your efforts. If you take the steps above you will be in a much better position to fight the malicious activities of the cyber criminals but the reality is that it takes time and effort to stay ahead of the game. Let’s face it, cyber security is not where your expertise lies, so you could potentially get it wrong, make a poor decision, forget to install or update vital protection, forget to run backups and so on. It is the business of an IT support company to make sure you are protected and monitored so that system security is up to date and all your systems are optimised for performance.

We’re experts in cyber security and ways to protect your business from the rise of ransomware so if you’re concerned or want to know more about online security contact us and we’ll help to secure your business.

Find more information and IT security news here.

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