Cybersecurity has never been more essential than it is today. With hackers growing increasingly more intelligent, the risks they pose are significant.
Thankfully, it’s not like businesses are only ever one small mistake away from ruin. Provided that all the proper measures are in place, cybercriminals will have a hard time infiltrating your systems and stealing your data. You just need to know what those measures are, which is what this article is here to teach you.
The Attack On Sony
Cyberattacks happen all the time thanks to people visiting malicious sites and downloading stuff they shouldn’t. However, every once in a while, an incident occurs on a much larger scale which does significant damage to a company.
It happened in 2014 when Sony lost 100 terabytes of confidential files. Private employee information was later shared online, along with unreleased movies, corporate documents, and other files the public were never supposed to see. To top it all off, most of the servers were destroyed, with Sony’s internal data centres wiped clean.
Hacking The NHS
A few years later, another incident occurred which targeted companies across the world. One institution significantly affected was the NHS, with dozens of organisations hindered by the incident.
Thankfully, the repercussions of this attack weren’t as significant, with patient data believed to still be safe. However, the NHS could have avoided the whole thing if they didn’t use such outdated operating systems. Despite being warned for months about what would happen, officials didn’t listen, and thousands of people suffered as a result.
Encrypt Your Information
Sony’s cybersecurity downfall occurred for several reasons. One of these was the fact that a lot of their information wasn’t encrypted, meaning there was an extra layer of defence missing when the hackers broke in.
If you want to avoid this happening to you, encrypt everything you possibly can. The more sensitive something is, the more critical it is for you to boost the protection around it. That way, even if someone does get into your systems, they won’t have easy access to all your data.
Update Your Operating Systems
One of the best ways you can stop cybercriminals from putting your business at risk is to ensure all your computers run on an in-date operating system. Support for software like Windows 7 has now expired, which means if your business still utilises this, you’re in danger.
Once an OS becomes outdated, it no longer receives updates and support from the developer, which means they’re a lot easier for people to hack. That’s why the NHS faced such a problem back in 2017.
Thankfully, it’s easy to get hold of the latest operating system by going to MS Office Store. Here you can buy office software, whether that be Windows 10 or Microsoft Office UK. With the products so readily available, you never have to worry about an outdated OS putting your business at risk.
Establish A Security Threat Model
A hacker can infiltrate a business in many different ways. Some leaders may be inclined to focus their security measures in certain places, especially when trying to improve upon the mistakes of the past.
However, it’s a bad idea to put too much emphasis on one potentially weak area, as it just leaves you vulnerable in other parts. That’s why you should establish a cybersecurity threat model.
The most effective way to do this is to think like a hacker and identify where they might attack from. Put up barriers in these problem areas and build up from there until you have a robust set of defences that will be hard to overcome. If this sounds like too much of a challenge, you can always hire someone to do it for you. That way, you’ll know that your security has been handled by an expert.
Give Employees Security Training
No one employee should be held responsible for maintaining the security of the entire business. However, all staff members should know how to stay safe so that incidents like the 2014 and 2017 cyberattacks don’t happen again.
A lack of training proved to be one of Sony’s downfalls when the company was hacked, and it continues to be an issue for many businesses out there. The vast majority of data breaches in the cloud occur because of employee fault, and the blame is likely similar when it comes to traditional IT infrastructure too.
Fortunately, you can easily resolve this by hiring a professional to teach your employees all they need to know. If everyone does their part to ensure security is maintained across the business, hackers will have a hard time finding a weakness they can exploit.
It’s hard to protect against cybercrime 100%. However, by making an effort to learn from past mistakes and put the right security measures in place, the chance of an attack happening will be slim to none.
