The Reality Is That You Could Know More About Cybersecurity, Part 1

The modern threat landscape is vast and unpredictable, and even if you think you know enough about cybersecurity to protect your business, we bet that you don’t. It’s not even just in the business world, either; individuals also struggle against cyberthreats, and so too do IT administrators. The next couple of weeks will be dedicated to cybersecurity to get across everything you need to know about it.

Data Breaches and Hacks Are Not Ideal

The last thing you want to deal with is a data breach, as it could set off a chain of events which could be potentially catastrophic for your organization. It could derail operations, ruin your reputation, and subject you to expensive fines that could cripple your budget for the foreseeable future.

The best thing you can do is be educated about security, as even a baseline level of knowledge is more than enough to make a difference. Let’s go over the three-step process you can use to secure your business.

It All Starts with Training

Comprehensive cybersecurity starts with you and runs through the chain of command down to your employees. Training is a great way to make sure that everyone stays informed on security best practices and expectations. There are two major components that you’ll need to focus your training on: password security and phishing attacks.

Password Security

Most accounts require passwords, but not just any passwords. You should prepare your accounts with those that are complex and hard to guess, but they also need to be easy enough to remember, for your own sake. Teaching your employees this becomes crucial, but it’s easier said than done.

We recommend you set up passphrases to get the most security out of passwords while retaining the ease of use. Passphrases are the next-best option compared to a password manager, which we will discuss next week. Passphrases consist of words that don’t normally go together, mixed in with letters, numbers, and symbols, to create a complex password that is much less likely to be guessed.

Phishing Attacks

Additionally, your team should be prepared for how to identify and respond to phishing attempts, as they are responsible for the vast majority of cyberattacks. This is primarily due to most business tools using encryption, meaning the only way to break into a system is to trick someone into giving you access somehow.

Social engineering tactics are often leveraged against employees to convince them to inadvertently hand over their credentials, providing access to a system. Hackers might send suspicious messages under the guise of someone else, urging individuals to take immediate action in a situation they don't fully understand. If the hacker successfully tricks the user, they will have easy access to a network or network-attached account.

Here are some of the things that people need to look out for:

1. Messages from people/addresses employees don’t recognize demanding they take immediate action.
2. Strange grammatical mistakes that wouldn’t normally be in a piece of official correspondence.
3. Directions to click on suspicious links or open attachments.

Phishing attacks can be remarkably sophisticated and can often appear to come from someone within your organization, a family member, or authority figure. Be sure to encourage your team to always follow up in the event they receive an email or message about this. It could save you from a lot of headaches moving forward.

Next week, we will address some of the ideal tools and strategies you need to resolve the issues outlined in today’s blog. In the meantime, we urge you to contact us at (217) 428-6449 for any and all security-related concerns.