4 Ways of Improving Cyber Security For Small Businesses

Improving cyber security is extremely important for small to medium-sized companies. Cybersecurity is a rapidly growing industry, driven by consumer demand and an increasing need among consumers for more security in their personal information. With the right tools, anyone can protect their company and their customers against cyber threats. Read on for some of the most critical elements to consider when it comes to improving cyber security:

• The primary goal of any security measure is to prevent unauthorized access to a company’s data. Cybersecurity experts agree that one of the most effective ways to accomplish this goal is to implement strong passwords and other security measures designed to make it difficult for an unauthorized party to gain access to a company’s systems. Unfortunately, the prevalence of Internet password theft means that many companies don’t have the resources or expertise to implement strong passwords and other measures, leaving themselves open to cyber attacks. To avoid vulnerabilities that could lead to unauthorized access, companies should implement security measures such as restricting access to sensitive data using common sense and implementing strong authentication methods such as Oaths, fingerprints, and smart cards.
• A second way of ensuring that small businesses are taking advantage of improvements in cyber security is to minimize the scope of company exposure to virus attacks. For this reason, software such as firewalls, anti-malware programs and antivirus software should be used to prevent hackers from getting into employee’s computers and databases. Ensuring that employees know how to make safe Internet usage is also extremely important. In particular, organizations should implement processes such as educating current employees about viruses and how to avoid them, implementing policies discouraging employee computer use and implementing patches to minimize the risks of exposing company information to outside sources. Additionally, companies should regularly update virus definitions so that they will be able to better respond to new threats.
• The third way of ensuring that small businesses are taking advantage of improvements in cyber security is to install antivirus software on all their computers. Antivirus software will detect and remove any malware that is found on a computer. Depending on the type of antivirus software used, this could be a one-off operation or require continuous scanning of the entire system. However, having antivirus software will ensure that all potential malware threats are eliminated, minimizing the risk of an unauthorized intrusion into a company’s network.
• The fourth way that improving cyber security for small businesses can help is by encouraging companies to make confidential documents easily readable and accessible. For example, documents containing information that is highly sensitive should be encrypted before being distributed, with the decrypting process being performed off-site. This ensures that hackers won’t be able to read the information, giving it more value and preventing them from distributing confidential data to unauthorised sources. Similarly, encrypted email is another way of ensuring that emails sent from the company are not intercepted or compromised.

Conclusion

Finally, installing security software on the company network will help address one of the biggest causes of cyber attacks: using Wi-Fi to send confidential data over public networks. Most antivirus software for enterprise level networks do not allow data to be transmitted over unsecured Wi-Fi connections, so installing a device that acts as a Wi-Fi filter can ensure that this data cannot be transferred without the proper authentication. Security software for enterprise levels also works to prevent the distribution of software viruses that could attack internal company network devices. An antivirus and firewalls solution that allow filtering of Wi-Fi traffic will effectively block attackers from penetrating a network and accessing important information.