A search for ‘IT support in London’ is an understandable one for any business owner. You want to ensure that every single part of your business is fully functioning and maximising its potential. Why would you not look to boost the cybersecurity of your company when that is one of the biggest potential threats that any modern business will face? Ransomware attacks are on the rise in recent years, and with countless other types of cyberattacks out there, you have a responsibility as a business owner to protect the systems you have in place and to ensure that sensitive, personal data held on customers, employees, and suppliers is in safe hands and protected from data breaches.
What are the top 5 tips that will help you to keep your business secure from cyberattacks?
1. Education
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It is so important to ensure that your entire staff understands what is expected of them when it comes to cybersecurity. The larger you grow as a company, the greater the chances of individual employees becoming a weak link that allows for a vulnerable position that cybercriminals can potentially attack. Teach your employees about ransomware threats, how they should never open email attachments or click on links within emails unless they are 100% sure on the legitimacy of the person who sent it to them. Also make sure that your employees understand the importance of a strong password, and that they should keep personal and business accounts/passwords completely separate to protect the integrity of the company network. As tactics from cybercriminals evolve over time, keep up training for your employees.
2. Keep software up to date
You might have installed some anti-virus software, sat back, and thought ‘that’s a good job done!’. This is a great first step, covering the bases when it comes to protecting your employees and business network, but you need to do more. Whatever software you have installed on the company network and devices, ensure that they are constantly updated and upgraded wherever possible. Software doesn’t always automatically update, so check that this is possible to make things easier for everyone and conduct a regular review to see if your software is the right type to protect against the latest cyber threats.
3. Restrict employee access and encrypt
One way to ensure that your business data is protected is to encrypt it, this should be for any data that is utilised within your network on site or sent out into the world. Alongside this approach, think about the different permissions you can grant employees. There are always specific bits of data and information that only need to be seen by certain people. Make this a process early on in the business and it will help to create these natural barriers as the company grows and limits access to data by employees who don’t need to be there. The fewer eyes on the data, the fewer the vulnerabilities as it relates to a cyberattack.
4. Backup and have a clear response plan
It is essential to backup those important files and documents that your business needs in order to be functional and operational moving forward. Even in the event of a ransomware attack, you’ll still have access to these critical files and lower the impact this has on the day-to-day running of your business. This should be part of a clear, precise response plan. Understanding what this response plan is, what it entails, and the different individual responsibilities in each case, is also a vital part of the process. All your employees should know what is expected of them in the case of a cyberattack. This also helps to minimise disruption and get you back up and running as quickly as possible.
5. Hire a specialist IT support team
Last, but maybe the most important tip, is to hire specialist IT support in London. For any business based in the capital, looking for assistance with cybersecurity this is the best decision you’ll make today. Without this expert guidance you could leave your company open and vulnerable to a wide range of potential cyberattacks. Putting in place robust protections and plans for the worst-case scenario is a sensible approach that could end up saving your company a lot of money in the long-term.
As you can see, there are a few different ways in which you can make your business more secure in the fight against cybercrime. The biggest is to hire IT support in London from a team that understands your business and industry and has experience of helping other business in protecting themselves from potential data breaches and cyberattacks. With this expertise and assistance on your side you’ll have a much better chance of warding off cyberattacks and in the worst-case scenario, understanding how to react quickly and effectively to minimise disruption, lost revenue, and reputational damage.