6 Need-to-Know Tips to Keep Your Company Safe From Hackers

6 Need-To-Know Tips to Keep Your Company Safe From Hackers?

 

Where is your company most vulnerable to hackers? Do you know?

The truth is, human error is one of the most common catalysts leading to successful cyberattacks. Nowhere is human error more prevalent than in employee emails and password use. That is because employees often:

  • Inadvertently click on dangerous embedded email links
  • Reuse corporate credentials on less secure networks
  • Share logins with coworkers
  • Send passwords over less secure channels

 

It is not their fault. Most employees are not trained on cybersecurity and don’t know what questions they should be asking.

Let’s review a few Tips Your Staff Needs to Help Make Your Business Safe: 

 

  1. Make Your Email Safer:  

It only makes sense that an employee would click on an email from an unknown or suspicious sender as they are dealing with new clients, issues and requests all the time. Your company should have a policy in place for what to do with emails that do not look right. Perhaps you send them to your tech guy to check them prior to opening? Perhaps you run spyware and malware immediately after any strange email is accessed. Whatever it is you do, set a policy and teach your employees how to be diligent and safe in the event your company is exposed.

 

2. Know What Criminals Are After: 

All businesses, and particularly small businesses are targets of hackers. More than 40% of all cyberattacks in 2016 were targeted against small businesses. Even though small companies don’t store large amounts of customer personal information, hackers need access to their systems. This is because they can use a small business’s network as a lever to pry into larger companies that do store a great deal of sensitive information.

 

3. Don’t use public Wi-Fi to access a corporate networks: 

Hackers routinely steal data that is sent over unsecured or unrestricted Wi-Fi networks by using a “man in the middle” technique. Cyberthieves can use this to steal network login credentials and personal financial information. Regardless of how convenient or tempting it might be to use public Wi-Fi, it is never a safe alternative for accessing your corporate network.

 

4. Perform Regular Software Updates: 

Software updates frequently address security holes that publishers discover in their programs and apps. Hackers share information and take advantage of these known security flaws. Any time you fail to install the updates that address those flaws, you are leaving your corporate network exposed to a cyberattack. So yes, do perform updates regularly.

 

5. Is all Malware Dangerous? 

Malware is a broad term that encompasses computer viruses, Trojan horses, spyware, ransomware, and other malicious attacks on a corporate information network systems. Each of these categories of malware is capable of creating substantial financial losses for its victims. No one type of malware is more or less risky than any other category. They are all dangerous and should be treated as such. Your employees should be trained to treat each type of malware as a serious and substantial threat and take action should they feel they have been exposed.

 

6. Know How a Distributed Denial of Service (“DDoS”) Can Hurt Your Business:

Hackers can us a DDoS attack as a diversion. In its simplest form, a DDoS attack overloads a server with thousands of calls on a single IP address, causing the server to freeze or shut down. While a company’s IT department is engaged in bringing the server back online, the hacker launches a second cyberattack that steals data and information. By one estimate, 25% of all DDoS attacks result in a significant data loss.

Companies and their IT departments will face numerous other questions as hackers gain sophistication and launch newer and more ruinous forms of cyberattacks. Cyber insurance companies can answer safety questions for you and provide cyber insurance coverage to help a company recover from a successful network incursion. They will also work with your IT staff to develop internal protections as well as educate your employees on how to create the most secure information system environments.