You hear it more and more these days. Companies have fallen victim to a cyber attack, and a lot of data ends up on the street. Solving this major problem costs a lot of money and time. You want to avoid this at all costs as a company. Prevention is better than cure, right? So, what could you do as a company to minimise cyber threats? In this blog, our consultant Nick gives useful tips and easy-to-implement tools to improve security.
1. Secure your Personal Identifiable Information (PII)
Why is securing your Personal Identifiable Information important? First, it is important to know what it means. PII is all data that could be used to perform identity theft. Examples are addresses, usernames, social security numbers, or financial data. This kind of data is extremely popular on darknet markets because it is highly valuable for people with bad intentions, such as hackers. That is why it’s important to keep your PII safe.
2. Implement Multi-Factor Authentication
You’ve probably dealt with it yourself at one time or another. You are asked to fix your authentication. Although it can be annoying, it is very important. Nowadays, you can’t rely on a single password anymore. The solution for this is Multi-Factor Authentication or Two-Factor Authentication. But what are the differences between these two types of authentications? The difference is easy, Two-Factor Authentication has two factors, and Multi-Factor Authentication means any number of factors greater than one. This means the last one could contain more than two verification steps. Implementing these kinds of authentication makes sure your data is protected.
3. Only use private network connections
Although it’s very tempting to use free WIFI, it is something you want to avoid doing. Using free WIFI makes your data more vulnerable to hackers and data leaks. Want to use it anyways? Always make sure that you are using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) at the same time! A VPN encrypts your internet traffic and disguises your online identity. This makes it harder for third parties to track your activities online and steal data.
4. Keep your software up to date
Another way to minimise the risk of being a victim of a cyber attack is to keep your software up to date. Outdated software is more vulnerable to ransomware, while systems are less updated than they should be. An easy way to solve this is to turn on automatic system updates and keep your web browser plugins updated.
5. Make data backups
Finally, making data backups is an efficient way to secure your data. The best is to put this on a local or external hard drive while hackers can’t reach these places/devices. Also, when you become a victim of an attack, you can immediately erase your data on your systems and use your backup to restore your data.
There are several ways to minimise cyber threats. For example, securing your Personal Identifiable Information, implementing extra authentication methods, and using private network connections. This is how you reduce your chances of becoming a victim of a cyber attack and keep your data safe.
Do you want to learn more about data and security? Get in touch and see what we can do for you!