9 Tips to Promote to Your Staff During Cybersecurity Awareness Month

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October isn’t only the month of ghosts, skeletons, and goblins, it’s the month that we are acutely aware of something else that can be even scarier – cyberattacks.

2004 was the first year Cybersecurity Awareness Month was enacted, and for every year since, it’s been a time when we’re reminded of the importance of preventing devastating attacks like a data breach of personally identifiable information (PII), a ransomware attack, or something else. 

The theme for the month is “Do Your Part. #BeCyberSmart,” and we have several tips below to help you do just that.

Each of these adds another important layer of protection that makes your network security stronger and keeps your business safe from a costly cyber incident. 

Treat Business Information as Personal Information

It’s easy for an employee to feel more disconnected when they’re working with business data than when they’re guarding their own debit card number or SSN. But business information can contain highly sensitive information, including:

  • Tax ID

  • Customer credit card and bank details

  • Employee SSN & payroll data

  • Trade secrets

  • And more

When working with business data, it’s important to treat it just like your own personal information and protect it from being shared or stored in a non-secure manner.

Keep Software & Apps Up to Date

Approximately 60% of data breaches are enabled because a system was left unpatched. When you put off software and app updates, it can mean that vital security patches are not applied.

All your devices should be put on a regular update schedule or have updates automated.

Watch for Phishing on Social Media Too

Most people know to watch out for phishing when it comes to their emails, but they aren’t as suspicious on social media. Social phishing has been growing and it’s often all too easy for scammers to find victims that will click shortened URLs to phishing sites.

Be wary of social phishing and use privacy settings to stop strangers from being able to access your profile information. 

Double Your Login Protection with MFA

Everyone should be using multi-factor authentication (MFA) on all their online accounts. It’s 99.9% effective at blocking fraudulent sign-in attempts. The few additional seconds it takes to log in are well work the big increase in protection.

If You Connect It, Protect It (IoT Security)

IoT devices pose one of the biggest security threats to a network because they’re often left less protected than computers. Yet, they are still endpoints that provide a way into a company network.

Make sure to secure IoT devices with protections like strong passwords, MFA, and keeping the firmware updated.

Keep Your Wi-Fi Connection Secure

That large Facebook outage that happened in early October was a reminder of just how important your network connection is to your business continuity. Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp all went down for nearly 6 hours because of a network connection problem.

Make sure you keep your network properly secured with a next-gen firewall and ongoing monitoring for any potential threats.

When on free or public Wi-Fi, it’s important to use a VPN (virtual private network) to encrypt your connection.

Be Careful About Permissions When Sharing Cloud Files

Cloud storage has made file sharing much easier. You can share any file or folder you like by sending someone a link. But if you aren’t careful, you could have an unauthorized intruder compromising your cloud storage account.

Review sharing permissions regularly and use options for time-sensitive links, meaning that after a certain period the link access expires.

Also, if you can share a file rather than an entire folder, that is more secure and can prevent an accidental risk when you add other files to that same folder that you didn’t mean to share.

Double Check All Email Links & Attachments

Phishing remains the top enabler of cyberattacks. Employees clicking links and opening attachments in emails are the most common ways that companies end up with large data breaches of malware infections. 

As a best practice, you should always double-check any links or attachments you receive to ensure it’s not a phishing scam. 

Establish Safe Computer Use Guidelines for Remote Employees

It’s easy for your data security to get out of hand if you don’t provide safe use guidelines for your remote employees. They may not realize that allowing a family member to use their work computer could constitute a violation of a data privacy compliance standard.

Take time to put together requirements for data security, device security, and router security.

Where Are Your Cybersecurity Weak Spots?

Are there some poor cyber hygiene areas at your company leaving you at risk? BrainStomp can help you with a full IT security review and follow-up recommendations to keep your business secure.

Schedule a free consultation today! Call 260-918-3548 or reach out online.