Good and competent cybersecurity practices are essential for businesses if they want to prevent fraud and cyber attacks, which can cost a business serious money.
But what practises are these?
In this blog, we explain the essential cybersecurity practices you should be following.
Implement two-factor authentication
For any business, big or small, two-factor authentication is one of the most valuable forms of cybersecurity, given how low cost but protective it is.
Two-factor authentication is a system in which you connect two or more devices together – say your laptop and mobile.
When you sign into your email account on your laptop for the first time after setting up the authentication, a code will be sent to your phone. To sign into your laptop, you type in the code displayed on your phone – not every single time, perhaps once a month.
But if someone attempts to sign in on an unrecognised device with your username and password, the programme will ask them for a code from your phone – which they will not have access to.
According to leading cloud services like Microsoft, users who enable multi-factor authentication for their accounts incredibly end up blocking 99.9% of automated bot attacks.
Anti-virus software
Right next to two-factor authentication in terms of importance for cybersecurity is antivirus software.
Now, we’re sure you’ve already got some sort of protection, but are you certain your software is up to date?
If not, now is a good time for you to think about an upgrade; no antivirus solution is 100% effective, but the newer yours is, the more effective it will be.
It’s also a great idea to provide staff devices with the proper security already built in. Yes, this will be more expensive to do, but it ensures every single one of your employees’ are protected and no one has been missed off the list.
Cybersecurity awareness training
Did you know that, according to a study by the International Business Machines Corporation, 95% of cybersecurity breaches result from human error?
Generally speaking, human error in cybersecurity can be categorised into skill-based and decision-based errors.
Skill-based errors are generally minor errors that occur while carrying out a daily task due to negligence, tiredness and distraction.
Decision-based errors are ones where a user makes a faulty decision because of a lack of knowledge, skills or information about a specific circumstance – perhaps they click on a suspicious looking email and follow the link or they reuse passwords for different servers, for instance.
In cybersecurity, prevention is the key. So, after you have the tools in place, like antivirus software, focus on creating a culture of cybersecurity awareness and appreciation in your office. Decision-based errors should then fall dramatically.
Data backups
Scheduling an offline backup for each month or so ensures that if the worst happens and there is a data loss, your business isn’t hindered by it; we recommend backing up your data both locally and on the cloud.
Just remember: backups require regular testing. If you have any doubt whether they are working reliably, it’s best to enlist specialist help – we can point you in the right direction.
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