Modern businesses rely on their IT networks more than ever before. Unfortunately, many believe that protecting their data isn’t essential. They are “too small” to become a cybercriminal target – or so they think.
Criminals, however, don’t see companies as they see themselves. Instead, they view any firm with an active revenue stream and unprotected data as an easy target for all manner of crimes, including blackmail and ramson demands.
Business bosses, therefore, need to fight back. In this post, we’re going to take a look at some of the strategies that you should use to protect your network if you want to prevent disaster. Read on to find out more.
Update Your Network Regularly
Have you ever wondered why developers so regularly update their software? Partly, it has to do with ironing out bugs that improve the user experience, but there’s also a vast array of fixes out there expressly for eliminating exploits.
As time passes following the release of a particular software version, it allows hackers to find weaknesses and use them to their advantage. When these weaknesses become public, developers must respond by rewriting the code for the program and sending out a new release to “patch” the old one.
Updating your network regularly, therefore, is a vital component of any anti-cybercrime strategy. If you don’t do it, you leave yourself vulnerable to becoming a victim.
Secure Your Network Physically
While most hackers will usually try to infiltrate your network remotely, there’s still a genuine risk that criminals will break into your premises and physically take your servers and other equipment.
Smart companies, therefore, keep their servers and networks physically security. Ensure that all wiring closets are in locations that are well away from the public and employees. Use door and cabinet locks on your server room and individual server units.
Use Mobile Device Management
Today, employees connect to company portals using a range of devices, both terminals supplied by the firm and their own devices. Managing all these points of entry to your secure data, however, is challenging. When employees use their own devices, they take them out of the protective environment of the office and into the world at large.
Fortunately, all companies that have complex device arrangements can benefit from mobile device management today. Here you pay a third-party agency to manage the security of all your devices remotely, ensuring that each person in the organisation has the right access level. If a colleague loses a device, the mobile device manager wipes it remotely and blocks access, preventing anyone from accessing restricted data.
Use MAC Address Filtering
MAC address filtering won’t stop hacking altogether, but it can make your private networks more secure. These filters prevent colleagues from connecting possibly compromised third-party devices to your system that could deliver viruses or keylogging software. MAC address filtering also allows you to see who is accessing your network at any given time and block them if you so choose.
In summary, network security is relatively straightforward, so long as you know how.
