Regardless of the scale of your business and team, having security measures in place will protect you and your business from numerous cyber security threats and data thefts.
A lot of business owners and employees put this responsibility on other departments. We have heard phrases like “IT will handle that”. But an end-user (you) security breach can happen from a very minor loop-hole and cost the entire organisation a large amount.
So, instead of thinking of security as some rocket science, in this article we will share some cyber security tips for businesses that every team or business owner should implement and each employee must be trained to take.
1 – Deploying a 2 Factor authentication policy across the board.
We have seen more and more applications using 2FA now. From everyday email platforms, to cloud storage platforms such as Dropbox, Google, OneDrive, reminding their users to enable 2FA.
Why 2FA important to implement? and must-have for every software, application or system your company and you use (even for personal use). That is because how 2FA works. 2FA brings this layer of security to your account. How? It works on a basic principle of combining the two aspects: Something you have and Something you know.
Something you know, being your password. And something you have, being the decide that generates an auto-expiring authentication code. This way, even if your password is leaked, it can’t be used to log in without an authentication code.
2 – Have a strong password policy
Discourage employees from using generic password of their pets, last name, company names. Implement and enforce a strong password policy. Also via the admin side of your applications, enforce that a user can only set a password which is 10+ characters, has special character, capital, and a number. At least.
3 – Enforce locking devices
Enforce a simple policy of when someone leaves their desk, they should lock their computer or device. You don’t want a non-employee lurking around your company computer.
4 – Don’t forget to log out
Do not assume that closing a window logs you out. Most applications keep your logged in session active for 48 hours or even more. Keeping your account secure requires that you log out when not using the account.
5 – Educate employees about various spamming, phishing and other attacks.
Educate your team, employees or colleagues about the most common and sophisticated phishing methods that hackers use. They should know what to look for in an email before clicking a link. Everyday thousands of people lose their data or money just because they clicked a link they shouldn’t have.
6 – Remove social and personal logins.
Ensure no one is using their personal social media accounts or email addresses to log into work systems. You cannot control their personal accounts’ security and if it is weak, that gives a backdoor to hackers into your organisation accounts.
7 – Have admin accounts under your company domain
Every now and then we hear from a client telling us how they lost access to their domain or mail chimp or YouTube account because the company account was under an ex-employee’s personal address.
Always ensure these accounts are made under your company domain (yourcompanyname.com) so in-case if an employee leaves, you can retrieve the account as an admin. Even better practice, create one admin email address and use that for every account sign up that the company holds (such as YouTube, Social channels of your company, etc.)
8 – Access control
When giving access or permission to certain platforms, select the right access-type a user really needs to perform their job. Not everyone needs to have administrator access.
Remember, security is teamwork. Your organisation and data is just as secure as one of your employees’ weakest password.