You may not realize it, but your business is constantly under attack from hackers. Opportunistic criminals are using sophisticated technology to target your business’ data infrastructure. They want to be able to cripple your business and hold you to ransom. They want to steal your data and get to your money. They want to steal your customer’s data in order to assume their identities and commit fraud. If you are not making the protection of your business a major priority, then you are doing your customers a huge disservice.
There are several types of attacks that all businesses face. Knowing what is at stake is vital. Ransomware attacks will be designed to hold your company to ransom. By bringing your website or IT systems to a complete standstill, or by stealing or freezing your customer’s data, hackers have a hold on your business and will demand money in return for normality to be restored. Of course, there is never any telling whether a criminal that does this will not just exploit the data they have accessed even if the ransom is paid.
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are also quite common. These involve sending more page requests than a website can handle rendering it incapacitated.
The other form of malicious activity that businesses are often faced with is phishing attempts. These are where a seemingly genuine email is sent out from a company that you might well use the services of. It asks that you click on a link to complete a vital action. From there you will log in to your account. But you won’t have done. The website will have been fake and you will have given your login details to the hackers. Often, they can use this information to start finding out lots more about you.
Using Managed Services To Protect Your Business
One of the most reliable methods of protection for your business is through the use of managed service providers who deliver IT Management Solutions which include disaster recovery, and ransomware prevention.
Having expert support with your cybersecurity and data protection may cost money, however, the savings that you would make compared to the worst-case scenarios associated with a data breach are massive.
Managing Permissions
All of the data on your IT systems should be protected with passwords. Every user should have their own password. These should be strong, unique, and changed frequently. You should determine different access levels based on the requirements of the employee’s specific role. For example, the more sensitive data should only be entrusted to more senior members of staff who have a relevant use for it.
One of the problems with passwords is that if they get into the wrong hands, hackers can just enter your systems through the front entrance completely undetected. Multi-factor authentication should be used wherever possible to ensure that the right person is accessing the data. Often, multi-factor authentication will ask for biometric data or a code that is generated to email or phone.
