Three Quick Ways to Boost Your Business’ Cybersecurity

Cyberattacks are a serious problem that all businesses face in some form or another, but there are small, everyday tasks you can do to ensure that they impact your organization as minimally as possible. It takes intention and effort to protect your business and its infrastructure, but that doesn’t mean that it has to be hard. Here are three simple ways you can keep your infrastructure secure.

Keep Your Software Up to Date

When you have dozens of applications in use at your organization, there’s a greater chance that you’re forgetting to update or patch at least one of them in a timely manner. The truth of the matter is that staying on top of patches and updates is challenging on its own without all the other challenges that come with the territory of IT management and maintenance. In particular, mobile apps and lightly-used programs can be overlooked, so be sure to update all of your solutions regularly so you aren’t accidentally exposing your business to potential threats.

Use Secure Passwords and Multi-Factor Authentication

Even security-minded people might use the same password for various accounts simply because it’s convenient, but this is poor password hygiene. Focusing less on convenience and more on security goes a long way toward improving password practices. Try out the following:

• Use different passwords for different accounts: Never use the same password for multiple accounts, as it increases the chances of one security breach turning into several as more and more accounts are compromised. Use different, complex passwords for each of your accounts.
• Use complex, easy-to-remember passwords: Your passwords should not be simple. They should be complex, using upper and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols, and difficult to guess. That doesn’t mean you can’t make them easy to remember, though. You can use passphrases—strings of unrelated words—to great effect. Pick three words, then make the requisite adjustments for the complexity requirement.
• Length is better than complexity: Obviously complexity shouldn’t be overlooked, but length is also important for password security. Simply put, the more characters that are in a password, the more characters have to be correct and in the right order to crack an account.

Multi-factor authentication and password management tools are great ways to augment your security measures, as well, and should be implemented wherever possible.

Think Twice About Your Wireless Connections

Working remotely is a pretty common practice nowadays, and security becomes more of an issue when work is being conducted out of the office and off the security of the in-house network. Remind your employees that wireless connections in public places, and even in their homes, can be considered risky, particularly if those connections are unsecured. We recommend that all businesses implement a virtual private network to give their employees the ability to encrypt data while it’s being transferred from one network to the next.

If any of the above sounds like something you could be doing a better job of, we recommend you contact us at 607.433.2200. Our technicians can work with your team to optimize security for your business today.