Protect Your Business from Cyber Threats

Whether you’re a massive corporation or a start-up, all businesses are at risk from cyber threats. The risk of cyber threats grows with each of you; so what can you do to protect your business from them? TechQuarters are a London-based IT company. “The IT support London needs is one with security baked into it.” Says TechQuarters. “The city is full of businesses – whether they’re financial institutions, or in the creative industries, they all deserve strong IT security. So, what types of security solutions are recommended for businesses?

Central Company Storage

Making sure that your company data is stored centrally, and not in lots of different locations, is one of the first steps you should take in protecting yourself against cyber threats. Services such as Microsoft SharePoint provide this exact function. SharePoint is cloud-based file management and storage service, and it has excellent security. SharePoint pricing is included in Microsoft 365 license plans.

Mobile Device Management

“Bring your own device (BYOD) policies are useful,” says TechQuarters. “But if not handled properly can create risks to a company network.” Users that mix company and person data on the same device are more likely to lose track of the company data, where it could leak out of the company.

The best way to mitigate this is by using mobile device management. With this type of service, you can ensure that a company is looking after the data on a BYOD phone, thus minimizing the risk of data leakage.

VPNs

If you’re frequently out and about for work then you’re probably using mobile data, or perhaps even public Wi-Fi at a café or other establishment. This is inherently risky, as anyone can access public Wi-Fi, and mobile data is not nearly as secure as your company network. Therefore, it is highly recommended that you use a virtual private network (VPN) if you’re going to be accessing the internet from lots of different places.

Password Managers

It’s a well-known fact that even mid-range computers can be re-purposed to guess millions of combinations of letters, numbers, and symbols, in what is known as a brute force attack, in order to crack passwords and gain access to people’s accounts. With people’s tendency to re-use passwords and rarely change them, it makes the work of password crackers that much easier. You can mitigate this by using a password manager. “We highly recommend programs such as LastPass or BitWarden.” Says TechQuarters. A password manager can generate highly complex passwords for your accounts, and store them in encrypted digital vaults, so you don’t have to remember them all.

DR & Backup

Backup services are something that applies to the whole company, rather than individuals. Backup services involve taking a snapshot of the whole of a business’ network and saving all that data to a storage location with very limited access. This is a very good failsafe for ransomware attacks. Ransomware locks your private data away and threatens to delete it if you don’t send money to the attacker. This is a very effective type of attack, but if you already have a backup of all your data locked away in a private location, you have much less to worry about. “The managed IT services London businesses need will always have Backup services,” says TechQuarters. “It’s really one of the most secure ways of protecting company data.”