To help tackle the cyber threats your business is facing today we have put together 5 things you should do to help reduce your exposure to these risks.

We are living in unprecedented times as the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe. Many of us had no choice but to adopt a work-from-home (WFH) strategy in little to no time. This tactic has kept businesses running but raises some major security concerns especially for companies who hold large amounts of sensitive data.

Do you know the vital actions you must take to secure your business data while working from home?

1. Use strong and unique passwords

Having a password that is too common or easy to guess leaves your sensitive data open for attack. We are aware of the devastation caused by poorly managed IT, some of which could have been easily avoided with a stronger password.

While we agree you should follow best practices when creating your passwords such as; utilizing a combination of upper case, lower case, numbers and symbol characters, this strategy can become problematic if you need to remember complex passwords, especially if you have a lot of them. So we highly recommend using password phrases that are personally unique to you, that way not only are they harder to guess but are much easier to remember.

2. Setup Multi-factor Authentication

Imagine opening your laptop and realizing that you can’t access your online accounts anymore. Your email has been breached, your website hacked, your hard work is gone, and your credit card charged with transactions you never made.

Technology advancements have armed everyday online users with a double barrel shotgun to help protect us. Multi-factor authentication is a powerful mechanism employed to double check that your identity is legit.

This additional layer of protection makes it a lot harder for cyber criminals to take advantage of your critical data. So if you haven’t already taken the steps to setup multi-factor authentication for your online accounts and applications we strongly urge you to as soon as possible.

Google Authenticator
2FA for websites
Microsoft Authenticator
Duo

3. Connect using a secure gateway

If your organization has moved to a remote workforce it is crucial that your staff connect to your corporate network using a secure gateway:

• Virtual Secure Network (VPN)
• Web-based gateway with bank level security

For many businesses a VPN is the go-to option, however they don’t fully guarantee security and are often slow and clunky to work with. Whereas a web-based gateway with bank-level cyber protection like Cover Cloud, allows users to connect securely and work at the speed of internet.

4. Back up data every day

While we can implement strong security measures to our hardware and software to defend against cyber attacks, people are not infallible. They make mistakes, emails containing viruses are accidentally opened and important files are often mistakenly deleted. There is no reason to fear these issues if you take frequent backups of your data.

Nowadays with the advancements of cloud computing it is easier than ever to setup an automated recurring backup system to give you the much needed peace of mind.

5. Leave it to the Professionals

These tasks might all seem too much to think about now and you may even need to fulfill stricter measures to adequately protect your data assets. FocusNet specialises in assisting companies safeguard their corporate data by leveraging internet edge protection, encryption, real time attack correlation and mitigation.

Our Cover Cloud offering ensures your data assets are always protected and compliant with the Essential Eight mitigation strategies as set out by the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC).

If you have any comments or queries regarding the Essential Eight or anything IT-related that can impact your organization, please get in touch with us today on 1300 077 7777.