The 7 Best Ways to Protect Your Business from Cyber Attacks

Cyber attacks don’t just happen to someone else! This post covers 7 ways you can protect your business from cyber attacks starting today.

Image by Darwin Laganzon from Pixabay

Businesses lose millions to cybercrime attacks every single year. It is essential that businesses protect themselves from cyber attacks, and that they constantly upgrade their protection plans.

How dangerous are cyber-attacks, take a quick look at this post.

Here are the 7 best ways in which companies can protect themselves from the scourge of cybercrime. 

1. Install Antivirus Software

The simplest way to avoid cyber attacks is to install comprehensive antivirus software on all company devices. Antivirus software detects and deletes any malware that comes into contact with an operating system. 

2. Get Insured

It is not always possible to prevent financial losses resulting from successful cyber attacks. Your business must be comprehensively insured against the financial damage caused by data leaks, ransoms, and man-in-the-middle attacks. Companies like kbdinsurance.com offer specialised cyber attack insurance, which is becoming more popular with business owners afraid of the growing cybercrime threat. Having the security of services from this kind of business provides peace of mind that you’re in the best position to avoid unnecessary damages to your company.

3. Hire Some Experts

Don’t try to implement all these strategies if you don’t have the necessary expertise within your company. Even companies with dedicated IT staff may not have all the tools they need to correctly secure themselves against cyber threats. Hiring a consultancy or cyber security specialist is a sure-fire way of getting the right measures in place for the security of your company. Many cyber security experts specialize in a certain area of protection. If, for instance, you are migrating your company’s storage and computing capabilities to the cloud, you’ll need a cloud network security specialist. 

4. Secure Cloud Networks

A vast number of businesses are migrating to the cloud: and for good reasons. Cloud technology is one of the most revolutionary advances in networked computing and storage to have occurred during the 21st century. The cloud relies on high-speed internet connections. Instead of using on-site hardware for storage and computing, a cloud user will access these functions hosted on a remote server. This allows for the seamless sharing of files, the distribution of software to thousands of end users, and the swift upgrading of storage capabilities.

Unfortunately, the cloud computing revolution has opened the door to some inventive cyber criminals. Hackers can exploit cloud networks thanks in no small part to the networked nature of such a system. Data is vulnerable to ‘man-in-the-middle’ attacks when it is in transit between a cloud server and an end user device. To counter this threat, it is important to adopt a cloud network in which all data is end-to-end encrypted. End-to-end encryption is a simple measure that can prevent the cloud from being a massive data security risk. All data sent between end users and the cloud is scrambled, and only the correct authorised hardware and software possess a decryption key. Although almost all cloud service providers claim to offer end-to-end encryption, it is worth shopping around to find the most secure provider. If your company has a sufficient budget, it is worth hiring a cloud onboarding consultant that can take care of the process for you and take some of the responsibility for onboarding security away from your in-house IT team. 

5. Utilize Multi-Factor Authentication

Unfortunately, password protection simply does not cut it in today’s security environment. It is vitally important that you implement some kind of multi-factor authentication system on all of your business IT accounts and cloud networks. Multi-factor authentication does exactly what it sounds like: ensures that there is more than one layer of authentication before a person can access something. There are two kinds of authentication that have gained traction with businesses in recent years: biometric and device based.

Biometric authentication makes use of the unique features of every human being’s biology to ensure that they are who they say they are. Every human being has unique fingerprints, iris patterns, facial shapes, and vocal identification features. Modern software can quite easily authenticate a person based on these features.

Device authentication solutions use the mobile devices of employees to verify their identity. A unique code is sent to a worker’s mobile device, which they then input into an authentication page on a different device to gain access. In theory, only the owner of the correct mobile device will be able to gain access to a system. 

6. Use a VPN

Virtual Private Networks reroute internet traffic via a secure remote server. This serves several important security functions. Firstly, VPNs obscure IP addresses, making it far more difficult for a cybercriminal to spoof an IP to gain access to a system or pretend to be an authorised person or device. Secondly, VPNs add an extra layer of encryption to all data that is being sent over the internet – reducing the risk of man-in-the-middle attacks. 

7. Mandate Separate Work Devices 

Remote work and ‘bring your own device’ working models are more common now than ever before. In the last 3 years, the coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the adoption of work-from-home policies massively. Working from home is not just a necessity – it is popular with employees. In the United Kingdom, a whopping 78 percent of employees contacted during an Office for National Statistics survey claimed that working from home had helped them develop a better work-life balance. Workers also claimed that home working solutions helped them meet deadlines more efficiently. Like it or not, working from home is a ‘new normal’ model. 

When your business enables employees to work from home, they must be given dedicated work devices on which to complete their tasks. A company can’t mandate what an employee does with their own computer. With a company computer or mobile device, a business can ensure that selected security protocols are adhered to, and that no potentially dangerous software is downloaded. 

Avoid using working models that involve employees bringing their own laptops to work. Mandate that all work is completed using company-owned or leased devices. This provides a better level of control and security for your business and also your employees.

Parting Words

If you want to protect your business from cyber attacks, these 7 tips will help ensure that it happens. Don’t forget to take a look at the additional resources included in this post.