Cybersecurity remains a critical aspect of protecting your business.

Frequently, the significant threats to organizations are more digital than they are physical and, sadly, many small businesses don’t feel ready to handle a severe threat. Actually, many of them are. But in the end, the size of your company doesn’t matter when it comes to security. So, if you want to protect your business, you should consider improving your IT security.

Here are some methods that can help you improve your business security!

Understand what you are protecting

Understanding what you are attempting to protect is the essential starting point towards protecting your company. In other words, your data assets should be evaluated and your defense prioritized accordingly. For instance, the payment data of your customers is definitely a top concern.  Basically, this means that you should concentrate your efforts and money on your most significant assets.

Also, examine what systems and applications you are using for security, against what is available on the market. Cost is usually an important factor when choosing new solutions, but keep in mind that the most costly option isn’t always the one that will be best for you.

Data leverage

Implement solutions for threat detection. Cybersecurity is best when actions are made on data instead of just wild estimates, as in the rest of the business world. You can look for possible problem areas and also determine what is likely to be a top target by tracking for potential threats.

Moreover, you can check the nature of breaches at other businesses. Investigating these will help you properly prepare your organization for a thriving defense.

Implement single sign-on

Single sign-on solutions will help you improve the protection of your authentication considerably. It allows members of your team to sign in with a single set of user credentials for any service your organization uses. As there is only one password to remember, it is possible to make those credentials more secure.

Then again, using multi-factor authentication can further solidify your single sign-on. In addition to the usual password, this allows the user to have something (usually a phone app) to obtain a one-time password. Having various authentication factors definitely increases the challenge of compromising a system.

Threat monitoring

Identifying and reacting to threats quickly is critical. No amount of protection will forever safeguard the IT resources of your organization against all attacks. So, you need to know where and what is happening.

Threat monitoring systems can give you some early notice of possible breaches. Although you’re not going to be able to jump on a machine and battle off the intruder like on a TV show, you might have a chance to lock down the attacker’s exploit.

Train your people

Two of the most significant threats organizations encounter are phishing and ransomware, both of which target human error.

If your people receive phishing emails and are unable to recognize that they are scams, the entire company is at risk.

That’s why a successful training program will allow your people to better understand the security standards and the logic behind the activities of your organization. It can be a huge benefit to your security to actually train people on how to recognize suspicious attacks.

Not only does cybersecurity training eliminates security breaches, but it also comes with several other advantages.

Have a recovery plan 

Incidents involving protection will happen. If your organization is large enough to be the victim of a premeditated attack, then someone is likely to attempt to get into your networks. It is therefore essential to have an effective strategy to mitigate the effects of a breach and to plan for any organizational or legal repercussions.

For example, it can be beneficial to have a defined strategy for how you can evaluate the attack and make adjustments. As in all crisis-response scenarios, before you need to deal with the actual emergency, it is important to think about how you will respond.

Always be prepared! Even the most reliable cybersecurity systems can be compromised, so you should always have a strategy to deal with an attack. You can implement early alerting – Set up firewalls and security software to notify you when anything odd is happening.

Keep your infrastructure and computers up to date

Outdated hardware and infrastructure can generate easily exploited vulnerabilities that software updates can’t solve. Where possible, update your hardware and infrastructure periodically to stay up to date with the newest technological development and enhance your security.

To keep all your computers up to date, it is necessary to allow periodic software updates. This can usually be done by enabling your operating system or software packages to be auto-updated. A centralized security update policy within organizations ensures no computers are left vulnerable.

These methods can help you make your business’s cybersecurity stronger. Get started today and make your organization’s IT security practices, training, and tools more efficient.

Read more in our article: Cybersecurity in 2021 – What You Need to Know