Security Tips for Your Business

Here are Syn-Star’s tips on how to mitigate security risks within your organisation:

1. Establish Access Control: Restrict access to sensitive areas and information to authorised personnel only. 

2. Implement Strong Password Policies: Encourage the use of long, complex passwords policies for regular password changes. Use password manager tools such as LastPass or 1Password that can store and generate complex passwords.

3. Use Multi-factor Authentication: Enable MFA for business accounts and applications. These offer a time-based one-time password combined with biometrics to gain access to company resources and a great way to implement extra layers of security.

4. Teach Your Employees about Cybersecurity: Regular training on recognising phishing attempts and other cyber threats is essential. Your employees are the weakest links when it comes to cybersecurity. Regular training will help them to keep up to date with latest scamming tactics and recognise phishing attacks.  

5. Implement Network Security Measures: This should be fairly obvious. Use firewalls, antivirus software, and secure Wi-Fi networks to protect your data. Your firewall is the first line of defence for your network.

6. Conduct Security Audits and Risk Assessments: Monitor and regularly review your network traffic to help the early detection of anomalies. Perform regular security audits to identify gaps in security measures.

7. Develop an Incident Response Plan: Have a plan in place for responding to security breaches or other incidents. All businesses have a clear, actionable incident response plan that outlines the steps to take in case of a breach, the roles and responsibilities of employees and communication protocols. There is a chance that you will also need to have this in place for compliance.

8. Keep software and Hardware Up to Date: To avoid system slowdowns or even failure make sure that you regularly update and patch your operating systems and hardware. It is very easy for hackers to exploit the vulnerabilities of outdated software. To save time, automate updates for both software and security patches.

9. Secure Remote Work: If you have employees working remotely, ensure that they are accessing your network securely. You can use VPNs to create secure connections and implement remote access polices that outline how and when employees can access company resources.

10. Encrypt Your Data: Encryption transforms data into ciphertext, which is indecipherable to anyone without an encryption key. There are three types of data: in transit (data that’s going from one place to another), in use (data being used by a device in a process), and at rest (data not being used). All three types of data are at risk, so it’s best to use encryption across your entire network, including cloud connections.

11. Cyber Insurance: Take out a cyber insurance. Often referred to as cyber liability insurance or cyber risk insurance, cyber insurance aims to protect the policy holder from financial liability in the events of cyberattacks, data breaches, cyberterrorism or regulatory violations.