10 ways to protect your business from cyberattacks



One of the biggest threats businesses face in 2019 is cybercrime. There are many malicious parties online who are willing to take extreme measures to hack your business to steal your money, business information, or even the personal data of your staff and customers. For this reason, it is of critical importance to implement rigorous security measures to protect your business from these cybercriminals. Here are 10 ways you can protect your business from cyberattacks.

  1. Regularly change your passwords
Password security is a popular discussion point when it comes to online security, as weak passwords can be hacked and used to gain access to your business systems. What is less discussed, however, is the fact that changing your password regularly is an additional step that can improve your security substantially. This means that if a password is leaked, there is a good chance that it will no longer be useful by the time a malicious party tries to use it.

  1. Set clear administrative rights
Not everyone in your business needs to have access to all areas of your systems. By setting clear administrative rights for individual users, you can ensure that if an individual’s credentials are exposed, the hacker cannot access your entire business’ data. 

  1. Train your staff
When it comes to protecting your business, ensuring that your staff is knowledgeable on best security practices can be one of the most effective ways of upping your security. Many security breaches happen because individual users are not following efficient security measures on their individual devices, which can offer malicious parties access to your entire business network.

  1. Monitor your network
It’s one thing to implement strong security software on your network, but even the best software can have its flaws. It is therefore important that you actively monitor activity on your network, which will allow you to spot any issues that may crop up, and deal with them before they become bigger problems.

  1. Maintain your firewall
Firewalls are one of the most fundamental elements of digital security, so it is important that your firewall remains operationally optimised.

  1. Install email security software
Email security is another popular avenue for malicious parties to attempt to access important data. Phishing is a popular and efficient way to collect valuable data from unsuspecting users. To combat these and other email security threats, it is important to use powerful email security software, such as that from Mimecast.

  1. Keep your software updated
A common way that security systems are weakened is by failing to update your software. Out-of-date software is significantly more prone to being exploited by hackers, as it is often no longer supported by the developers.

  1. Encrypt and backup your data
How you store your data is a critical element of keeping it secure. It is crucial that you encrypt your data wherever it is stored so that it is not easily accessible to malicious parties. You should also backup all data so that if it is compromised, you can ensure business continuity.

  1. Have a disaster recovery plan
Sometimes disasters are unavoidable – but it is important that you have measures in place to deal with these disasters efficiently and timeously. This will save your business lots of money, as you will be able to minimise downtime and keep important systems running through the entire process.

  1. Check physical security
When one thinks about protecting your digital data, it’s easy to forget to ensure that your data is secure at a physical level. You should ensure that your data is stored at a location that is secure – ensuring that none of the storage devices your data is on can be stolen. It is also critical that the physical location of your data storage is not exposed to natural and man-made disasters such as flooding or fires.

CipherWave – Data protection as a service

CipherWave has partnered with a variety of leading data security companies to ensure that their data hosting, backup, and recovery services are highly reliable and efficient.

Recent additions to the stack of products that CipherWave uses for data storage include the likes of Mimecast and Fortigate – who offer leading email security and firewall products respectively.