Keeping your business secure is a vital consideration in today’s technologically advanced society. There are multiple threats to your business that internet accessibility creates, but the answer is not to take your business offline. Rather, you should be making use of the latest cybersecurity methods to ensure your business is protected as effectively as possible.
Antivirus Software
Your business’ cybersecurity measures should start with a top-rated antivirus protection suite. It should be an application that can be installed on your system and used to protect all of your devices. While you can buy a pre-packaged antivirus program, many business owners prefer to have an antivirus package designed by a cybersecurity company. This allows you to adapt the protection to suit your business’s unique needs. The application developer will help you install the software to ensure it is operating on all of your business’ devices. Since businesses now share sensitive data and documents via laptops and mobile devices, the added protection of customized antivirus protection is especially important.
Firewall
A firewall is another type of software that’s better to have designed specifically for your business. This will help you customize the application to ensure your business’ online activities will be protected without hampering the productivity of your employees. It provides protection in a couple of different ways. First, it sets up a defense against unauthorized personnel who are trying to access your business via an open internet connection. Secondly, a firewall will monitor the activity of users on your business’ end to ensure your employees aren’t accessing harmful sites. Simply visiting the wrong website can expose your business’ computers to malware or ransomware, so this type of monitoring is essential. Your employees should also be trained to know what firewall warnings mean and what to do if they run into a potentially dangerous website. Any firewall program will allow you to adjust the level of protection, so you can modify its use to ensure your business is efficient and protected.
Network Security Monitoring
While general network monitoring collects data to identify performance issues, data overflow, and network issues, network security monitoring uses the same software tools to identify threats to your network’s security. Where network security monitoring really differentiates itself is in its responses. Rather than just monitoring for weaknesses, it will take action to close off those paths of access. It does this by monitoring the flow of data to recognize changes in bandwidth usage. This saves you from having to manually watch your bandwidth usage to identify when a potential threat is trying to access your network. The system will do that monitoring for you and take predetermined actions to protect your business’ network automatically.
Encryption Tools
Data encryption software is used to help you protect the documents and files you send over internet protection. This software application disguises the document to ensure people monitoring your business’ internet activity won’t know what is being sent. Even when you use other software applications to simplify the transmission of documents, you should still use encryption software to protect those documents. For example, one of the Sharepoint benefits is that the application makes it easier to send documents over a secure internet connection, and it includes a robust encryption feature and cloud backups. This will keep your data secure when sending files. If you have alternative encryption software adapted for your business, you can ensure it works well in conjunction with Sharepoint and any other applications your business uses.
Web Vulnerability Scanning
Your business should also invest in web vulnerability scanning software to ensure your business’ computers are protected against a variety of online threats. This is an automated application that operates in the background to look for security protocol breaches from external sites. Some of the threats it looks for include cross-site request forgery (CSRF) and cross-site scripting (XSS). It’s important to keep the application updated because it identifies threats by looking for known descriptors, such as coding bugs, errors in packet construction, and open paths to sensitive data. As a threat is detected, the user will be notified and asked to choose an action to eliminate the threat.
Utilizing the latest in cybersecurity software will help you ensure your business remains compliant with government regulations. While keeping updated on cybersecurity technology won’t guarantee that your business will never be breached, it does significantly lower the risks. That can be enough to help your business earn a reputation for being a secure and trustworthy organization.