5 Ways to Do Cybersecurity Without Breaking the Bank
Keeping your cybersecurity up to par can be very difficult. The latest policies and systems are always updating and changing, and it’s easy to forget about when your juggling an entire business. With cyber security becoming a bigger piece of everyday business, it may feel like it takes too much time and too much money to do cybersecurity well. To help you with this, we thought of 5 different ways you can get your IT up to snuff without breaking your budget.
1. Have a Robust Password Policy and a Method to Track Changes (With the Password Policy.)
One of the best and easiest ways to better protect yourself is to create strong, unique passwords and use different passwords for different accounts. If you use one password for multiple accounts, change them right away. As for what qualifies as a strong password, we recommend having a string of random words (at least four) rather than the conventional random letters numbers and symbols. For example, HorseGolfBoatYoyo is a better password than LastName2323$$!X and is also easier to remember. The random letters and symbols are easier for a computer to guess than it is for it to guess a string of words. If you want to know more about this, you can read about it in our other blog.
2. Use a Syslog Product
A syslog product, which is short for system logging, allow your team to track key event logs on the severs networks architecture that captures cybersecurity events. This will allow you to go back and look at any event that happened on your servers, however long ago, until you manually clear the events out of the system. This will be extremely useful for analyzing and reporting and security breaches or cyber attacks that might happen to your business. Syslogging can take up storage space, so be sure to have a plan in place for storing this new data set.
3. Ensure You’re Doing the Fundamentals
The basics of cybersecurity are not very difficult, yet many companies fail to do them. The majority of cyber attacks happen due to employee error. Perhaps they click on a malicious email or download some software containing a virus. A lot of these employee-caused incidents can be avoided with proper training. Don’t let your employees give out any personal or company information that may jeopardize your business such as email passwords. Teach your employees what to look for when avoiding malware and phishing attacks, and how to be smart about deciding what is safe and what isn’t. Continually train your employees so the information stays fresh in their minds. Make sure your software is constantly up to date, and keep an eye open for any updates or patches that need to be installed. Any vulnerability in software that becomes open information to the public has also become known to hackers, meaning the chance of the vulnerability being exploited is increased drastically.
4. Have Cybersecurity Be a Topic at Board Meetings
It doesn’t need to be long, it could be only 15 minutes, but cybersecurity should ABSOLUTELY be a topic at your company board meeting. Considering the number of massive hacks we’ve seen recently there’s no reason the board wouldn’t want to know where your company stands in terms of cybersecurity. You should also have a person on your team assigned as the cybersecurity staffer and make sure they are present at the meeting, so that the conversation is taken seriously and you are getting great input on the topic. Having cybersecurity be a topic during the meeting will result in everyone thinking about the business a little differently, and be more security conscious than they would be if it wasn’t a topic. It’s also a requirement for some new DFS cybersecurity regulations. It’s good practice and good compliance.
5. Use an IT Vendor (Like Groff Networks) to Stay Compliant on Changes
As mentioned earlier, cybersecurity can be tough, and with so much on your plate it’s hard to stay on top of it. An IT vendor like Groff Networks is PARANOID about taking note of every change your company makes and tracking those changes for you. It is safer to come to an expert and have your IT done properly than attempt to do something you’re not entirely confident about, especially when it’s something as important as cybersecurity. IT vendors come with all the perks of an in-house IT staff without the cons. No time or money needs to be spent on training, and with flat fees, it is a much cheaper option as well.
IT and cyber security is no longer something that can be ignored. It is a business aspect that grows in importance every day, and is not something you want to be behind the curve on. Stay on top of your IT and if you want us to help you do that, or just have questions in general, please contact us on our website or call us at (518) 320-8906.