Nine Cyber Security Tips For Any Business

Many of us conduct a lot of our business online now. With company websites, cloud software, remote working and a reliance on the internet, it’s essential that businesses prioritise cyber security. You should use an IT management service like Zeta Sky, but there are things you can do yourself. Keep customer data safe and protect your business from cyber attacks and hacking with these top tips. 

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1. Application Whitelisting. When you’re running a company with a large team all using laptops or other devices owned by the business, it can be a challenge to keep track of the use of cloud applications or other software. To help with this, use application whitelisting to be certain that only software applications that you’ve approved can be run on company owned devices. All other applications are automatically blocked by your malware protection. Restrict administrative privileges to only those who actually need to stop anyone from installing software that you haven’t approved to be used. 
2. Multi-factor authentication. Add tougher security elements, beyond a simple account password. Add more security measures, like a passphrase or PIN, a physical token, software certificates or biometrics data like a fingerprint. 
3. Restrict administrative privileges. Only employees who actively need it for their job, such as IT staff, need administrative privileges. By restricting access, you can make a big improvement on your net security quickly and easily.
4. OS and application patch management. Any software, applications of operating systems that you use should be patched thoroughly and regularly. Keep their security tight and up to date by patching as soon as fixes become available.  
5. Disable untrusted Microsoft Office macros. Office can, and should, be configured to automatically block macros from the internet. It will only allow macros that have been pre-vetted. Pre-vetting protects against common ingress attack methods from hackers.
6. User application hardening. You should have in place security measures like blocking web browser access to things from the internet like Adobe Flash Player (uninstall it if you can), advertisements and untrusted Java code. This will guard your network and make sure that the firewalls you use even more effective. 
7. Next-generation firewalls. A next-generation firewall is an effective security system for your network which will detect and block more sophisticated cyber attacks. A strong firewall will boost your security policies at the application, port and protocol level. A NGFW combines a number of important security options, such as URL blocking, packet filtering, SSL inspection and application awareness. 
8. Bring in a SIEM solution. Smaller businesses won’t always need to go as far as this, but if your business is growing rapidly, you should definitely consider a security information and event management (SIEM) solution. This will detect and respond to threats to security continuously. This means real time collection is enabled and the solution can conduct historical analysis of security events. With this data, you can stop similar breaches from happening to you again in the future. 
9. Employee training. Train your all your staff on your IT security protocols to automatically add an extra level of security and protection against data breaches. Train them on how to recognise scam or phishing emails.