Secure access to shield your business from hackers

A good defense is layered and involves both robust technology and smart people. Building that shield starts with knowing the threats you face and ensuring the defenses you have in place are oriented towards those threats. Just as important as having the right defenses is ensuring they are actually used correctly – a lock only works on a door that is closed. Here are four common defenses you can deploy cost-effectively to help seal security gaps.

SECURITY MEASURE: Train your employees.

Help them learn to spot fraudulent emails, not click on suspicious links or attachments, use secure passwords and change them frequently.

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT:

Fraudulent emails are a common first step in stealing passwords or scamming an employee into sending money. Many viruses and trojans (legitimatelooking software that does something bad in the background) come through email or unsafe web browsing. Weak passwords can be guessed in mere hours. All these can be prevented if employees stop, think and make smart choices.

SECURITY MEASURE:

Use email encryption. Install software to encode emails so that they can’t be read if they are intercepted by a hacker.

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT:

A great deal of sensitive business information is sent via email, making it a common target of attacks. Most end users aren’t familiar with the encryption options built into their email system, so setting it up to encrypt automatically is critical.

SECURITY MEASURE: Protect network access and devices.

Require logins on your Wi-Fi, network, computers and mobile devices. Use the latest laptops equipped with security-enhancing 8th gen Intel® Core™ i5 vPro™ processors and hardware login security like TPM 2.0 (Trusted Platform Module), fingerprint readers and facial recognition.

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT:

Unprotected networks and devices offer many opportunities for hackers to get into your system – once logged in, they may be able to log onto computers on the network or get into your shared files, where they can do enormous damage.

SECURITY MEASURE: Use robust anti-virus and firewall solutions.

High-quality security software solutions are affordable and effective at sniffing out attacks and helping repel them.

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT:

Attackers are clever and aggressive. They change tactics often and develop new tools. No security is perfect, but network security systems are best able to keep on top of the latest threats and give you time to react if an attack does get past first-line defenses.