Understanding cyberattacks & how your business can stay protected! 

There is no denying that 2020 has been a year of disruptions. The pandemic has changed the way businesses operate, and this holds true for almost every industry. The workforce is scattered, and unless things move swiftly with vaccines, a considerable segment of employees would continue to work from home, where possible. It is a no-brainer that cybersecurity is more important now than ever before, and businesses need to fix all possible vulnerabilities to stay protected against cyberattacks. In this post, we are discussing at length about cyberattacks and how your business can stay protected. 

Types of cyberattacks

There are varied ways in which scammers, cybercriminals and hackers can impact your business. It could be a case of identity theft & fraud, malware & phishing attacks, spying, stealing of hardware, denial-of-service attacks, ransomware attacks, and so on. Other examples would include defacing websites, exploiting backdoors, and unauthorized access. Hackers are either interested in the data, or in other cases, they merely want money. In both cases, your business may have to suffer serious consequences. 

How to prevent cyberattacks?

Here are some basic steps that you can follow for preventing cyberattacks – 

• Update all operating systems, software, firmware, and plugins to the latest versions, as soon as an update is made available by the parent company. 
• Get cybersecurity experts to train your employees. This is one step that actually works in the long run. 
• Use a reliable and known antimalware software. You can also consider antivirus, anti-ransomware, and antispyware software suites too. 
• Where possible, enable multifactor authentication. A secondary security question, onetime password, or pin can take device & account security to the next level. 
• Ask your employees to use strong passwords and a password management tool. Ensure that the passwords used are never repeated, reused, and should not contain personal or business information. 
• If you don’t have a disaster recovery plan as yet, consider talking to cybersecurity experts for developing one. 
• Firewalls are really handy for protecting networked devices. Make sure employees have firewalls on personal devices too (the ones used for work). 
• Data backups are necessary. With data backups, you know that your business is prepped for the worst-case scenario. 
• Never fail to report a cyberattack, no matter how small the incident may seem. Also, restrict access to devices and networks, so that unwanted usage can be minimized. 

Take steps right away to protect your company IT assets, data and resources.