With employees now working away from the office more frequently, the threat of a cyber-attack on your business data is higher than ever.
Working in an office environment, you can guarantee the safety of your data as you are in complete control of its security. However, now that employees are working away from the office and in constantly changing locations, there is a risk of working on exposed networks that can easily be compromised by hackers
Additionally, hackers are becoming increasingly literate, creating emails filled with threats that are believable to the reader. Where employees may not be experts on the tell-tale signs of virus emails, the risk of data leaks is increased further.
There are now threats everywhere and if not properly equipped and prepared, you can run the risk of your business data being exposed, bringing it long-term negative effects.
In this article, we will give you 5 tips on how to keep your data safe from cyber-attacks, and how we here at Deans can help you to avoid this.
1. Back Up Your Data
Creating back-up copies of your data on a regular basis can be a valuable way to keep your data secure.
If you are solely storing all of your company data in one place, for example a desktop computer or laptop, you are increasing the risk of it being intercepted during cyber-attacks or being destroyed if this equipment becomes damaged.
If you don’t feel that you have the time to be regularly backing-up your data or feel that you may not remember to do so, utilising a cloud service provider can be extremely valuable.
Using an cloud service will help to maintain the security of your data, as the cloud will automatically back-up your data once you have finished and saved it to the cloud. As well as cloud backup abilities, the cloud also offers many other beneficial features to ensure the protection of your sensitive data.
At DCS we offer Amber Vault Cloud Services. An extremely cost-effective cloud service option, Amber Vault can provide you with a well-rounded disaster recovery solution in the event of a security breach.
It also includes a standard quick restore procedure allowing you to resume with your normal working after such an event, so you can keep your customers happy.
2. Use Strong Passwords
Passwords are an aspect of IT security that can often be overlooked, and it can be extremely easy to use the same password for all of your login details to save yourself remembering an individual login for every platform.
However, something as simple as a password can be very easily optimised to reinforce the security of your data. The more complex you make your passwords, the better protection you can provide for your company data.
There are a few general rules to abide by when creating your password. At minimum, it should be eight characters long and you should look to integrate a range of numbers, letters, and special characters into it to make it harder for intruders to guess. It would also be beneficial to change your password every so often to further decrease the risk of someone guessing it.
If you are worried about remembering your password, particularly if you are thinking of changing it often, installing a password manager on to your device such as LastPass can be a good idea.
Having a password manager installed can be beneficial as it means your staff won’t need to worry about remembering their passwords all the time, and risk writing them down instead.
3. Look Out For Suspicious Emails
Although you might not want to think it, human error can often be the biggest threat to data security, and cyber attackers always look to take advantage of this.
Humans are naturally curious and when what we think is an urgent email pops up with access to a link, we think the right thing to do is click it. However this is a key way hackers look to infiltrate your systems.
In an effort to avoid this, you should educate your staff on tell-tale signs that they have received a threatening email. These signs can include bad grammar, payment requests and unexpected urgent action emails.
Having all staff be knowledgeable on this subject is important but more so for those employees who are further up in the hierarchy. These individuals tend to have better access to sensitive company information, and therefore are more likely to be targeted by potential threats.
Although it is reasonably easy to identify some suspicious emails, others can be more discreet. At DCS we offer an anti-spam filtering service that will help to defend your network from threatening emails and allow you to block up to 99% of spam and virus emails.
4. Dispose Of Your Data Correctly
The disposal of your data from your device would be a task you would assume to be easy, however it is not as simple. After deletion, with the use of the right tools, a lot of this data can still be recoverable. Particularly if you are handling sensitive customer information, having this data remain accessible can be risky.
When it comes to the point of disposing of your data, make sure you have an adequate data destruction policy in place. This will ensure the proper eradication of your data as it will overwrite it multiple times, making it inaccessible and unrecoverable.
5. Use Data Encryption Software
A final aspect of data security to consider from the get-go is using a data encryption software to encrypt your networks.
Now that many employees are constantly moving around and working remotely away from your personal company network, your data is more exposed and susceptible to threats than usual.
To minimise this risk, look to encrypt anything that your staff use whether it’s a hard drive, usb stick, staff phone or laptop. Having these devices installed with an encryption software will make it more difficult for hackers to infiltrate your data.
At DCS, one of the products we can offer is ESET Endpoint Encryption Software. This software is beneficial to both large and small companies and offers full disk encryption, providing security when beyond your corporate network. This service also offers file, folder and email encryption as well as many other features to ensure a well-rounded security system for your data.
Why Is Data Security Important?
The security of your data is of extreme importance to protect yours and your customers data, and utilising any of the mentioned software’s or tips will help to minimise any risk of a data breach.
As well as the above software’s, we offer various IT security packages to suit your needs here.
If you would like to discuss any of your cyber security needs further, contact us at DCS NOW!