During the height of COVID-19, more than 70% of full-time employees in the United States transitioned to working from home. As we venture into the post-COVID world, 97% of workers have no desire to return to a physical office space. Although remote positions offer several benefits, they also present a breeding ground for cyberattacks, exposing companies to increased risk.
As cybersecurity threats continue to advance, it’s more vital than ever to assess your company’s vulnerabilities. In today’s article, we share three steps for combating them.
Build Your Team
All organizations, particularly small and medium-sized businesses, may struggle with staffing the right team to ensure an organization is protected from the latest cyber threats and ready to combat an attack. Hiring a security engineer or IT security manager can be expensive, and if you don’t already have the expertise in-house, it may be difficult to assess hard skills. However, an in-house team will give you the most long-term accountability.
Many businesses choose to find a cybersecurity freelancer or hire an outside company such as V2 Systems. Two advantages of working with an outside organization are that they can provide 24/7 monitoring for attacks that can occur at any time, and they are experts that stay up-to-date on the ever-evolving landscape of cyberattacks.
Educate Your Team
Some best cybersecurity practices may seem obvious to most, but it’s important to educate your entire team and ensure everyone is on the same page. Talk to employees about the importance of strong passwords, how to safely use a shared network, what your internet use guidelines are, and how to handle and protect customer data.
Train your team to recognize phishing attacks by looking for URLs or email addresses that are close but not exact, identifying language with misspellings or that feels a bit “off,” and being cautious of requests for passwords or other personal information. Even savvy security teams can fall prey to a cyberattack. Giving employees things to look for can help catch an attack quickly.
Create a cybersecurity policy.
Your cybersecurity policy should be a living document that is updated as attacks evolve. However, the basics of a policy should include guidelines on protecting devices (including up-to-date operating systems, browsers, firewalls, and encryption), multi-factor authentication (not just strong passwords, but secondary methods of authentication), and data protection (including how to handle customer data and what is appropriate to send via email).
Your policies should be readily available to your employees and reviewed frequently to ensure the entire organization understands and abides by the proper protocol.
Having a cybersecurity plan is more important than ever. With the number of cyberattacks always increasing against an ever-growing remote workforce, it is paramount that all companies — regardless of size — understand current cyber threats and what to do to prevent and combat them.
Having a thoroughly executed plan and reviewing it regularly are the best first steps to keeping company and customer information safe. Whether you build up in-house expertise or find a trusted outside partner, cybersecurity can no longer be a project set on the back burner. Understanding the latest threats and what to do to prevent them from impacting your organization is key to protecting your business.
Since 1995, Manassas Park, VA-based V2 Systems has employed local systems administrators, network engineers, security consultants, help desk technicians and partnering companies to meet a wide range of clients’ IT needs, from research, to implementation, to maintenance. Concentrate on your VISION…We’ll handle the TECHNOLOGY!
