Ransomware is a global problem that costs businesses around the globe billions of dollars every year in damages. One of the biggest struggles that businesses have is not implementing enough security measures prior to being hacked. To help protect your business from ransomware, it’s advisable that you implement the seven strategies below.
Backup Often
One of the best ways to help ensure that your business recovers from a ransomware attack is to back up your data frequently. When you have your data on another server that the hacker doesn’t know about, you can still run your business. To reduce your risk of having your backup infiltrated, you should store your data in the cloud or on a local storage device that is not directly connected to your system.
Teach Email Screening
One of the biggest reasons that businesses get hacked is due to employee ignorance. Ransomware can come from many different sources, including advertising links and email. It’s a good idea to hold a seminar to inform your employees of the various methods for phishing so that they understand what to avoid.
Update Software Patches Regularly
If you’re like most businesses, you utilize third-party software for your day-to-day operations. This can be extremely helpful for your business, but it can provide an in for hackers to reach your data. When software vulnerabilities become public knowledge, hackers can exploit those vulnerabilities until you update current patches for them. For this reason, it’s advisable that you update patches to all of the software programs that you regularly use to avoid any data infiltrations.
Implement Whitelisting
Whitelisting is the practice of selecting certain applications and programs that the computer user can have access to. Everything else is considered blacklisted where they cannot have access to them. It’s a good idea to go through each machine at your business, identify the legitimate apps that the user will need, and block everything else.
Use Zero Trust
What is Zero Trust security? According to Zscaler, “Zero trust is a framework for enabling certain capabilities that secure organizations in the modern cloud and mobile world.” With it, all users must provide verification before they can have access to any of the company’s data. This helps to block out all users to start out with and only allow those with the right credentials to move forward in your data structure.
Install a Firewall
An absolute must for any business in today’s environment is installing a firewall. This basically works as a barrier that monitors network traffic coming in and out of your network. It also sets specific rules for what type of traffic is automatically blocked to help protect against ransomware attacks.
There are numerous types of sophisticated data breaches, and new ones emerge every day, sometimes even making a comeback. One of the most effective ways to defend yourself against any cyber-attack is to put your network behind a firewall. A firewall system, which we can assist you with, will stop any brute force attacks on your network and/or systems before they can cause any damage.
Be Mindful of Wi-Fi Security
Wi-Fi is something that most of us just take for granted without realizing how big of a security threat it can be. When it comes to your business, any device that is infected which connects to your business’s Wi-Fi network can get into your entire system. For this reason, it’s highly advisable that you take care of your Wi-Fi networks by not allowing any customers or even personal employee devices to connect to the network.
Ransomware is a constantly growing problem for businesses around the world. It’s necessary to take active measures to help protect your business and its precious data from being hacked. By implementing the seven tips above, you can set your business on the right course of security going into the future.
Control access to your systems
Physical attacks on your systems are possible, believe it or not, so having control over who can access your network is critical. Someone can simply walk into your office or business and insert a USB key containing infected files into one of your computers, giving them access to or infecting your entire network. Controlling who has access to your computers is critical. Installing a perimeter security system is a great way to prevent both cybercrime and break-ins!
Passwords
It can be risky to use the same password for everything. Once a hacker has your password, they have access to your entire system as well as any applications you use. Having different passwords for each application you use is a great way to improve your security, and changing them frequently will keep you safe from both external and internal threats.
Segment LANs
Intrusion detection systems that are based on the host or network deserve a prominent spot on your internal defence list, but finding good monitoring points can be difficult. Agents are typically used in host-based systems, whereas LAN sniffers are used in network-based systems.
It’s simple to monitor a single internet connection, but finding good locations — choke points — within often-chaotic LANs can be challenging. Each LAN segment should ideally have its own sniffer. This is unwieldy, impractical, and will most likely overwhelm you with useless alerts in a large network. A better approach is to think of your LAN as a series of enclaves, each of which has its own zone of trust and is separated from the corporate backbone by firewalls.
