Reggie Dejean Director of Operations View Bio

cyber attack

As cyber-attacks are becoming more complex, it is critical for organizations to reassess their data protection practices each and every year in order to help protect themselves from catastrophic data breaches.

To help you steer clear of a cyber-breach, we’ve got the Top 10 Cyber Safety Tips of the year to keep your digital data locked down:

  1. Your employees might be your greatest vulnerability—When dealing with potential cyber security threats, educating your employees is foundational to establishing a solid first line of defense. Even the most sophisticated data protection solutions can be infiltrated by one unsuspecting click of a seemingly legit phishing email. Through comprehensive training of personnel on company cyber security policies, common cyber threats, and how to respond— employees will understand the dangers of visiting harmful websites, leaving their devices unattended, and oversharing their personal information on social media.
  2. Beef up your anti-virus software—Outside of training your employees about the imminent danger of less than stellar cyber security practices, robust anti-virus software is one of the best ways to protect your data. Conduct thorough research before choosing the software that’s best for your company needs. Don’t forget, once installed, anti-virus programs are useless if not kept up to date.
  3. Instill defensive web browsing practices—Deceptive and malicious websites can easily gain access to your network, ultimately leading to damaging cyber-attacks. Secure your organization’s data by training employees on proper web usage with emphasis placed on interaction with only secure websites. You can stop potentially malicious webpages in their tracks by taking your security to the next level and blocking unsecured pages.
  4. Bolster company password policies—Prevent unauthorized attackers from compromising your organization’s password-protected information with continuous password management. Your policy should require employees to change their passwords on a regular basis. Other critical policy elements include prohibiting use of the same password for multiple accounts and requiring the use of capital letters, numbers, and special characters for strong and complex passwords.
  5. Double down with multi-factor authentication—Sure, excellently crafted passwords can help deter cyber criminals, however, they’re not bullet proof and can still be cracked. This is where multi-factor authentication comes in. By implementing an additional layer of security, companies are protected against potentially compromised credentials. With multi-factor authentication, users must confirm their identity by providing extra information such as a randomly generated security code when attempting to access your company network.
  6. Simulate an attack—The best way to evaluate your company’s defenses against data exposure is through a vulnerability assessment. Through a course of simulated attacks and stress tests, vulnerability assessments help to identify the flaws in your security system. After the tests are complete, experts then present their findings and provide recommendations for improving network and data safety.
  7. Patch system vulnerabilities and eliminate bugs —Software vulnerabilities provide easy access for cyber criminals. By exploiting known issues they quickly sneak into the system’s back door leaving you none the wiser. To prevent this, it’s critical that you deploy patches and update your applications, operating systems, security software, and firmware on a regular basis.
  8. Back up your data—Imagine your system has been compromised and your network has totally crashed. Backed up files can save the day! In the event of a data corruption incident, backed up files are deployed in place of the damaged ones, protecting you from the loss of critical business or proprietary data.
  9. Understand phishing threats and how to respond—Cyber criminals use phishing to gather personal information. Typically, an email is sent directing users to fraudulent websites and asking victims to provide sensitive information. Though they may look authentic, individuals are tricked into providing information such as credit card numbers, account numbers, passwords, usernames or other sensitive info. Phishing is becoming more sophisticated by the day and as a result employees are being duped more frequently. Providing real-world examples during training will help them better understand what to look for.
  10. Create an incident response plan—Your organization has some form of data protection in place. You’ve trained your employees and prepared for the attack. The cyber criminals found the chink in your armour and are raiding the castle. Now what do you do? A cyber incident response plan will eliminate the post breach confusion and provide a step by step procedure to follow. Response plans enable organizations to promptly notify impacted customers and partners quickly and efficiently, limiting financial and reputational damages.
  11. Make Sure You Have Cybersecurity Insurance – This is a bonus tip because at Lawley, we’re in the business of protection. All of these other helpful hints will aid you in preventing a cyber attack…but what happens when a cyber criminal gets through anyway? That’s where cybersecurity insurance comes in. Depending on your exposure and industry, cyber protection can be as little as $100/month for $1,000,000 worth of coverage. This can help you recover data, hire a PR firm to protect your image, and save the reputation of your business. Just ask yourself, do you have 1 MILLION DOLLARS to spend after you’ve been hacked? If not, give us a call. We’d be happy to protect everything you’ve worked so hard to build. For more information on Cybersecurity Insurance, click here.