Important Cybersecurity Tips for Anyone

Whether you’re referring to ransomware, phishing, data theft, spoofing, any of the many forms of cybercrime, it is something that all businesses need to prepare themselves for. While different business sizes will have differing scales to contend with, these kinds of preparations will involve the same basic principles. To help you best defend your company against cybercrime, here are a few tips based on those principles.

Consider What You are Clicking On

One of the most tempting things about using a computer is to click on a link to see where it goes. The trouble is, it is very simple to be fooled this way, and hackers know it.

Make it a habit to always pause a moment to reconsider a link, checking the URL that should pop up to tell you where it will take you by hovering your cursor over it. 

Keep Access Under Control

All your software needs to be properly reinforced against unauthorized access, meaning that you need the protections necessary to defend your digital assets as well as your workplace’s physical network infrastructure. In addition to locking doors and requiring access codes for entry, make sure that any devices are password protected and require some form of multi-factor authentication.

Remember You Can Be Tricked

To support their use of misleading links, cybercriminals will also write emails that make these links seem to be legitimate. This practice—known as phishing—has steadily grown in popularity as a very effective way to coerce a target into trusting a link or scaring them into action. 

While some phishing attacks are very vague and meant to fool the largest number of people possible, others are very direct and specific, meant for a single heavily researched target. Make sure that your entire team is aware of this possibility and knows to confirm incoming requests through another means of communication.

Double Down on Security

Naturally, all your devices need to have onboard protection against threats as well, in the form of an antivirus program that is frequently updated to add more threat definitions. Require the use of a virtual private networking program (VPN) each time that the Internet is accessed. There are many ways to make sure that all the little holes in a security strategy are at least acknowledged (if not resolved outright), you just need to be sure that you have them all actively in place.

At Washington Works, we’re able to assist you with implementing any of these safeguards and can answer any other questions you may have. To learn more, give us a call at 301-571-5040.