Cybercrime is becoming more and more common as hackers find new ways to exploit businesses and steal data. If you’re not taking steps to protect your business from cybercrime, you’re putting yourself at risk! In this blog post, we’ll look at some of the best ways to improve your cyber security measures and protect your business from cyber attacks.
What Is Cybercrime?
Cybercrime is any crime that takes place online, including everything from identity theft and hacking to phishing scams and cyberstalking. So much of our life takes place online, that it’s no surprise cybercrime is on the rise.
With cybercrime rising each year, the UK economy suffers huge losses running into billions of pounds. As a result, people are providing efforts to combat it. However, cybercrime continues to adapt and evolve. It affects not just essential public services, but, businesses and private individuals too.
The frequency of attacks is on the rise, especially owing to the current epidemic and the emerging number of businesses that operate from home. Criminals are moving online to target people who are working remotely and may not have the same level of cyber security protection in place.
Hackers now have more opportunities to exploit IT systems, partly thanks to the rise in connected devices and the Internet of Things (IoT). No longer is it safe to assume that the vulnerabilities lie solely with your mobiles and desktops or laptop devices. Any device that is connected to the internet – from security cameras and printers to security monitors and even vending machines can be hacked. When looking at the reasons for past recent cyber assaults, it is extremely unusual to find a sophisticated or advanced threat as being the primary cause. In almost every circumstance, a discovered vulnerability has been utilised.
Your business simply cannot afford to be complacent about cyber security, especially if you hold sensitive customer data. The first step is to understand the types of threats that you could face and then put measures in place to protect your business from them.
How can businesses respond to strengthen cyber security?
There are a number of steps you can take to improve your cyber security measures and protect your business from cybercrime.
One of the most important things you can do is to backup your data. This means you can restore stolen or corrupted data from a backup. Therefore, make sure you have a robust backup system in place and that you test it regularly to ensure it’s working properly.
Educate yourself and your employees about cybercrime and how to spot it.
This will help you to identify attacks early and take steps to protect your business. Arrange to have regular training sessions on cyber security for all employees.
Invest in strong cyber security software and make sure it’s always up to date.
This will help to protect your systems from the latest threats. Any antivirus or other software installed should be kept up to date with the latest security patches. Outdated systems and software are more vulnerable to attack. Therefore, it’s important to keep everything up to date. This includes operating systems, web browsers, plugins and applications.
Be careful about what you click on and download.
Emails and websites can be spoofed to look like they’re from a trusted source but clicking on a link or downloading an attachment can install malware on your system. Be cautious about what you click on and only download files from trusted sources.
Use strong passwords and two-factor authentication.
Passwords should be long, unique and not used for any other accounts. Therefore, we always recommend two-step authentication where available, as this adds an extra layer of security.
Monitor your systems for unusual activity
This includes things like unexpected changes to files, new programs appearing, and increased network activity.
Put strict limits on who has access to sensitive data.
Only give employees access to the data they need to do their job. Unauthorised individuals can access unprotected data. Encrypt your data when possible.
By taking these steps, you can help to protect your business from the growing threat of cybercrime. For more information on how to improve your cyber security measures, contact Venom IT today.
We have over a decade of experience in the IT industry and our team is always happy to help!
