What is Cyber Security?
Many people think that cyber security refers to the software and monitoring that protect their email, operating system, network, and printing devices from malicious attack or data theft. True, this is a large and important part of cyber security for business. But employees also play a significant role in making sure your company is protected. The proper training and awareness of best practices can help prevent many major security breaches. In this guide, you’ll learn about the many areas of your organization where cyber security is needed and how to keep your business protected.
What Does Cyber Security Mean for Businesses?
Business data is more vulnerable than ever before. Cyber security is necessary to efficiently operate your business—but it’s also critical for protecting your customers’ information. Following IT best practices goes beyond using the latest technology at your company; it’s about staying ahead of risks and disasters that have the potential to bring your company to a screeching halt.
When creating cyber security procedures, it’s helpful to use a layered security model. This model begins with the internet and ends with your employees. Use this guide to determine how well your current IT security procedures are working in your organization.
Most major security breaches involve an employee action that enabled hackers to gain access to the system. Employees must be educated on network security best practices. Your employees should be your human firewall.
The filtering of spam and virus infected email should occur outside your firewall. Not only does this reduce the amount of traffic on your internet connection, it ensures that email-based malicious code never enters your network. Additionally, you can set up your firewall to only accept email from a known source, your email filtering service.
Employees should be prevented from accessing websites that are known malicious sites. This is not simply a matter of making sure that users are not wasting time or exhibiting questionable taste. This is about real threats to your network.
This is the cyber front door to your organization. Just like your physical front door, it should be locked down and only authorized traffic should be allowed through.
Network Access Control
Only authorized devices should be allowed to connect to your network. In the case of wireless devices, access should be limited to only resources necessary to do business. For example, wireless guest access should only allow users to get to the internet but not have any visibility to internal network resources.
Network Security Monitoring
Just like you might have motion sensors in your office to detect suspicious movements when you are not there, you might have monitoring on your network to detect suspicious traffic. Similar to your physical security, this may be a service provided by a third party.
OS Security Patches
Operating Systems (OS) are constantly being updated with security patches as vulnerabilities are discovered. Failure to apply these patches and reboot systems regularly leaves an organization vulnerable to exploits by hackers. Once a patch is released, the entire hacker community is aware of the vulnerability.
New viruses are deployed every day. Your antivirus and antimalware software needs to be kept up to date. If your AV/AM software has not been kept current, it will be unable to detect and protect your system from new viruses.
Application Security Patches
Similar to an OS, applications are regularly updated to address newly discovered vulnerabilities. Something as simple as opening a PDF file can put an organization at risk if the application is not up to standard.
Multifunction Printer Security
Printers are so ubiquitous that many companies don’t realize they are also a security risk. But today’s printers are advanced, and many are fully-fledged networked computers. Be sure to configure the proper settings as well as complete necessary firmware updates and patches.
Cyber Security Resources
Use these links to find all of the information you need for creating cyber security policies and practices for your business. From setting up secure passwords to securing your multifunction printers, these resources and tools will provide the guidance you need to get started.
- Creating a Culture of Cybersecurity in Your Business [INFOGRAPHIC]
- Top 10 Things Every Employee Should Know About Network Security
- Understanding Firewalls for Your Small Business
- Three Tips to Securely Filter Company Email
- How to Keep Your PC Squeaky Clean with Antivirus and Anti-Malware
- How to Protect Your Password Every Day
- How to Protect Yourself From Hacker Holidays
- How to Respond to a Network Breach
- How to Protect Your Multifunction Printer From Cyber Attacks [GUIDE]
- Securing Your Network and Application Infrastructure [eBOOK]
- Top IT Security Threats to Your Business
- How to Protect Your Business From WannaCry and Other Ransomware Attacks
- 3 Business Document Security Gaps You Need to Solve Right Now
- How to Protect Your Network From Vulnerabilities [WEBINAR]