Everywhere you look today, cyber attacks are becoming more prevalent. In fact, over half of all businesses (58 percent) are worried about cyber attacks. Recent research has shown that business cyber attacks occur as often as 4,000 times per day.
With so much regarding cyber attacks, it’s becoming increasingly important for offices to upgrade their IT services and do what all they can to protect themselves online. This is especially true of companies that rely on cloud computing.
Cloud computing makes things easier, but when it comes to protecting your privacy on the cloud, there is always a risk. There are have been many leaks of private information that was previously saved to a cloud service and companies must take care to find a cloud service that will keep their information safe. Since cloud systems are Internet based, nothing on the Internet is truly safe from attacks. Cloud systems are meant to be public services and that comes with the risk that someone can get ahold of private information.
To make sure your business is airtight when it comes to protection against cyber attacks, here are five things you can do.
- Educate: Many security breaches in an office happen because of ignorance. Sometimes an employee will click on a link, which activates a virus. Other times, an employee will unwittingly provide information to a non-secure site or some other way that allows a cybercriminal to steal information. The best way to avoid these mishaps is to invest in cyber security training for employees.
There are many cyber security training courses available for office workers that can be very engaging while teaching the seriousness of cyber security threats. - Have A Plan: It’s impossible to make an office network 100 percent, but having a network security appliance (NSA) can help protect important information. An NSA or in other words, a firewall can also control data coming in or going out of an office network.
This guide can help you get started trying to find a strong firewall for office use. - Have Protection: Having strong antivirus software can do wonders for an office. Nowadays, most antivirus software is scanning constantly to let workers know if there’s potential danger. While antivirus software is an effective tool against viruses, it’s important to keep that software updated to protect against new or changing cybersecurity threats.
Business.com offers a list of some of the best antivirus and internet security software for 2018, which can help protect your office network. - Strong Passwords: Making your office password “password” or password123” is a surefire way for cybercriminals to access a network. To protect against security threats, establishing an office policy of strong passwords is a good idea. This policy will help create strong passwords, protect those passwords and help protect vital information.
Too many people still use common passwords, so here are 5 tips to create a stronger one. - Backup: All too often a virus that wreaks havoc on an office computer system and a company or business loses vital information and can never recover it. Having effective backup ensures that important information won’t be lost and regular backups of a computer network help keep all saved information as current as possible.
CIO.com offers several options for data storage for small businesses, but some of the tips certainly apply to bigger companies as well.
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Many IT support companies such as ReachOutIT provide many of the protections against cyber attacks that businesses are looking for. Finding a reliable company for IT support is important as a 2016 Global Outsourcing Survey indicates that 31 percent of IT services have been outsourced.
IT companies providing IT support will be in high demand as Gartner indicates that worldwide IT spending is projected to reach $3.7 trillion in 2018. Companies like ReachOutIT provide IT security services such as password management, SPAM protection and two-factor authentication to give companies and businesses a high-level of protection from threats.
If your company is in need of IT support or IT solutions for security upgrades, take a look at Consumer Affairs’ list of top tech support companies.