An increase in remote and hybrid work is driving the need for more and tighter security architectures in organizations across diverse sectors of the globe. This is important because traditional network and security systems were targeted at providing security only for people working within an office system and not from distributed locations outside the official workplace.
Remote workers also use devices that are not adequately secure or could be vulnerable to planned attacks or public networks that could leverage by hackers. Hence, it is critical to incorporate modern ways of securing business data and resources from external attacks.
AdvisorSmith indicated in a report that over 42% of small business owners were faced with unexpected cyberattacks in a year. However, 28% of these victims of attacks were still lazying around implementing viable cybersecurity protocols.
While many business owners are not equipped with the highly sophisticated tools required to defend their enterprise networks and secure their businesses from attacks, less costly measures can be considered to ensure sanity on the networks.
Digital transformation has connected people from different parts of the globe. However, it is admiringly critical to address security challenges as you need to secure vital business information. Closing up security loopholes and implementing promising security practices will help to advance security in connection with simplifying basic security needs.
Your first move should be to employ the perfect cybersecurity policies. These policies should include high data encryption, role-based access, and complex passwords, among others.
Cyberattacks to Watch Out For
One of the best ways to secure your business against attacks is first to }understand the kind of attacks and the method of implementing them. The list below covers many aspects of cyberattacks but is not exhaustive since cybercrime constantly evolves.
Phishing: This form of attack is the most common. It generally involves collecting sensitive information like credit card details, login credentials, etc., by faking a trusted platform or using malicious links to steal information.
This tactic is often implemented via emails from the target. There is also the spear phishing tactic which is quite advanced and requires the deep knowledge of specific individuals and social engineering to build their trust and penetrate their circle.
Advanced Persistent Threat (APT): APT is often a long-term strategy that sees the attacker break in successfully into a networking several points to avoid being detected. And once access is gained, they can hardly be detected as they continue to establish their foothold on the system, wreaking further havoc and plundering data.
DDoS: A distributed denial-of-service attack is targeted at denying legitimate access to a person’s website or network by overloading the platform with unwarranted requests till it shuts down.
Inside Attack: An inside attack is a form of attack carried out by an insider with administrative rights. The person who is perceived to be a legitimate member of an organization purposely misuses their credentials to siphon sensitive information from the company.
Categories of people often perpetrators of these acts are former company employees. Especially employees who left the company on bad terms. It is therefore of high necessity to establish a protocol that ensures all access to company data is revoked once an employment termination is approved.
Malware: Malware is a short form of “malicious software.” it signifies any form of a tactic designed to either steal information, cause damage, or gain unauthorized access to a system. Some popular malware types include worms, viruses, Trojan, spyware, and ransomware.
Man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks: In this form of attack, a hacker places himself between two people in a negotiation through the use of malware that interrupts the flow of information between the parties to steal information that can be used to commit further crimes. In most situations, it is successfully implemented when one or more parties in the negotiation use an unsecured public Wi-Fi network, especially where the hacker has placed malware that accesses data.
Password attack: These kinds of attacks are major of three types; brute-force, key logging, and a dictionary attack. Brute-force attacks involve using different tactics to guess passwords till there is a correct one. Keylogging attack uses software to track a user’s password, including IDs and usernames. A dictionary attack uses a program to try multiple word combinations of dictionary words.
Ransomware: A ransomware attack send malware into your system and then encrypts sensitive information needed to carry out day-to-day operations, making it impossible for the company to access until a ransom has been paid to the hacker. Most attackers find ransomware quite lucrative, and therefore it is one of the fastest-growing types of security breaches.
Zero-day Attack: To exploit users, attackers take advantage of technology and software flaws. Sometimes, these attacks can go on for a very long time before it is even discovered and fixed.
Engage these Solutions to Protect Your Digital Business
As more organizations continue leveraging the internet to grow their business, it is essential to safeguard business activities and data online. The approaches below will protect your business online.
1. Backup Important Organisational Data
Backing up your organization’s data is very critical to having something to fall back on after all efforts fail.
Even the most secure system may still be penetrated by ever-evolving hacking tactics. Hence, it is important to have something to fall back on if there is a successful attack.
Consider deploying multiple backup methods. Ensure to check often to be sure that data is actively being backed up, and check how you can restore it. And if you’ll be using portable devices too, ensure to disconnect them often from your device to prevent theft and physical damage. However, you’ll find cloud delivery systems like SASE most efficient.
Some SASE benefits include enhancing network and security infrastructure, improving user experience, delivering network resources across widely dispersed locations, etc.
2. Install SSL Certificate
Many small businesses still haven’t upgraded their websites to HTTPS. Most of them do not know that not installing an SSL Certificate on your website is synonymous with sending invitations to hackers.
These hackers are constantly looking for vulnerable platforms. And one of the viable ways to avoid them.is to improve your cybersecurity by exploring and switching to HTTPS protocol. It is simply HTTPS = HTTP + SSL. And it helps secure data transfer between your web browser and client-server, thereby putting potential hackers.
3. Invest in Training Your Workers
Your employees are your company’s first line of defense when fighting cyber attacks. Hence, it is important to train them adequately and help them understand how to handle certain cyber situations.
4. Implement Multi-factor Authentication
Another common solution to cybersecurity is to implement multi-factor authentication (MFA). With this, a user will need to pass through two or more levels of authentication before gaining access to network resources. One approach to this is to One Time Passwords (OTP) and another is to provide an answer to an extra question.
