Cyber Attacks: What Are They and How Can You Protect Your Business from It? | IPSYSTEMS, Inc.
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Cyber Attacks: What Are They and How Can You Protect Your Business from It?

By the time you’re reading this, another cyber attack has just occurred. Cybersecurity has become a crucial aspect of all levels of business. It protects the most important asset of your organization – your data – and losing your data can mean losing your business too. This is the reason why it’s a very attractive target for criminals because they know that if they bypass your cybersecurity, they can control you.

What are Cyber Attacks?

A cyber attack is a criminal assault that uses one or more computers to manipulate or compromise a single computer or multiple computers or networks. The goal is usually to steal data or use the computer as a launchpad for other attacks.

A US Small Business Committee release showed that 71% of cyber-attacks happen at businesses with less than 100 employees. The digital assets at such companies are more considerable than each individual’s capacity, and cybercriminals are eager to exploit this.

How to Protect Yourself from Cyber Attacks

1. Be on the cutting edge of new and evolving risks

Adequate preparation for cyber attacks begins with understanding the vulnerabilities capable of crippling your business. Here are a few you should take note of:

  1. Hacking
  2. Phishing
  3. Social engineering
  4. Malware threats
  5. Keylogging
  6. Identity theft

2. Develop a security policy

Why not take the game to the criminals? It affords you the leverage of them having to play catch-up when your systems evolve.

A great way to begin is to define security protocols for every component of your business. Make them core to your business strategy. As you digitize more of your operations and store more sensitive data, the policy should extend to novel concerns such as cloud computing, social media security, and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Also, ensure to devise an incident response plan, so you and your team can act fast when a network security breach occurs. Everyone has to understand this plan and address any loopholes in the procedure.

3. Restrict administrative privileges

It often happens that unauthorized staff can view sensitive information. It dramatically increases the surface area for a cyber-criminal. Minimize such risks by restricting admin rights to select staff. Also, install a system that provides security for employees.

Administrative privilege enables a person to perform more sensitive tasks like creating new accounts or installing programs. Once a cyber-criminal accesses such privileges, they can initiate social engineering attacks to undermine your data security totally.

Here’s a quick roadmap:

  1. Change all default passwords to hard-to-guess passphrases
  2. Restrict the use of all accounts with administrative privileges
  3. Limit who can access accounts with administrative privileges
  4. Consider disabling administrative access completely

4. Protect your customers

Your business only exists because you have customers. Why not protect these customers online? When they do business with you, they’re trusting you with their information. Losing this information will damage your business reputation, as British Airways found out after two breaches in 2018.

So, your business should:

  1. Invest in and offer internet security solutions for customer transactions
  2. Secure all personal customer data it stores

Ensure that your payment gateway provider also has a comprehensive online payment fraud prevention plan in place. Also, update your privacy policy in line with local laws.

Conclusion

Data security is a priority in preventing cyber attacks. Companies of all sizes have a moral obligation to ensure that customer data remains safe and secure in their hands. It all begins with having a good plan in place to deal with cyber attacks.

Cybercriminals today use incredible sophisticated and convincing methods to fool those who are not aware of their schemes and attack vulnerable systems. But by staying educated and up to date about the latest cyber attack trends, you can keep your employees and business safe.

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