StrategyDriven Risk Management Article | Cybersecurity | Cyber security | What your employees can do to reduce cybersecurity risk

What your employees can do to reduce cybersecurity risk

StrategyDriven Risk Management Article | Cybersecurity | Cyber security | What your employees can do to reduce cybersecurity riskNo longer just the responsibility of the IT department, cybersecurity is something that all employees have a vital role in. From making smarter decisions in the workplace to understanding how to spot common attacks, employees can do much to combat cybercrime in all of its forms. Here we take a look at the things that your employees can do to help keep your business secure.

Install regular software updates

It is unfortunately the case that many employees leave their computer turned on at all times – even when they’re out of the office. The convenience of having all windows and browsers tabs open when they return to work is offset by one a major cybersecurity weakness – computers with out-of-date operating systems and applications.

When an employee does not regularly turn off a computer it can leave the system without critical updates that are only installed when it is shut down. These updates fix vulnerabilities and weaknesses that could be exploited by cybercriminals. This is why it is vital that employees shut down their computers regularly.

Understand the dangers of phishing attacks

Phishing is still a major problem. We have all seen a phishing email; sent from a fake account and designed to look like a legitimate sender. The email will attempt to trick you into clicking a link and being sent to a duplicate version of a genuine site, with the exception that when you enter your login details, these will be harvested by criminals.

You might think you know how to spot a phishing scam – but phishing is becoming more sophisticated in 2020. A rise in deepfake voice phishing could see employees tricked into sending money to scammers or revealing sensitive information after getting voice messages and calls that sound like they are from senior executives.

It is important to understand these risks in order to be able to combat them.

Broaden their cybersecurity awareness

It is important for your employees to stay up to date with the latest tactics and techniques being used by cybercriminals. Providing employees with regularly updated training can be hugely valuable in boosting their knowledge and understanding. Employees with good cybersecurity skills and knowledge make a valuable line of defence against cybercrime.

One way that you can assess the cyber maturity of your employees is by engaging a cyber security company to carry out a pentest of the organisation. For example, this could take the form of a simulated phishing attack to see if any of your employees give out their log-in credentials.

Work closely with the IT department

It is important that employees should avoid any instances of “shadow IT”. Shadow IT is the term for any application or software that is installed on an employee’s computer without the knowledge and consent of the IT team.

Going through the process of having a piece of software signed off and approved can be frustrating and time consuming, but failing to do so can lead an employee to download software containing a vulnerability which can be exploited by hackers. Or which isn’t updated in the future by the IT team when known issues are identified in the software.

Be willing to invest in enhanced security tools like privileged access management, so system users are provided with different levels of access. This ensures greater control and, therefore, security.

Set strong passwords

Experts disagree as to whether employees should change their passwords on a regular basis. On one hand, changing passwords can be an important way to limit the risk of stolen passwords being used to access accounts. But on the other hand, employees being forced to remember too many different passwords will often result in them instead using unsafe workarounds.

It can be agreed, however, that the use of weak and commonly-used passwords is to be avoided. According to cybersecurity specialists, businesses can prevent staff from setting common passwords by enforcing rules and complexity such as the use of special characters.


Follow good cybersecurity practice away from the office

It is important if an employee works from home or remotely, that they should follow good cybersecurity practice when they do so. Any time that an employee accesses company data they should do so in an environment that is as secure as the environment in their workplace. Their remote computer should have cybersecurity measures just as powerful as those in the office – otherwise they are making themselves an easy target. For example, using public Wi-Fi is a major security concern.

Backup data regularly

Ransomware is still a problem, and losing access to business-critical data can be a major problem for any company. That is why it is vital that employees should use their company’s corporate network where possible as this is likely to be backed up regularly by the IT team. However, if staff do store data locally then they need to back up their data on a regular basis – ensuring that it is saved somewhere that would not be compromised in the event of a criminal attack.

Final thoughts

It is important that employees understand cybersecurity best practice so that they can act in accordance with it. Informed staff can be a powerful line of defense against cybercriminals.

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, Top Marketing Tips For Law Firms

Top Marketing Tips For Law Firms

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, Top Marketing Tips For Law Firms

There have been significant changes in the world of the law of late, as we see more firms ramping up their marketing and business growth activities. The days when cases and clients casually sauntered in through the door thanks to reputation has long gone. The market is much bigger, more competitive and more dynamic than ever before.

Clients expect things to happen on-demand now thanks to the growth of high-speed internet and 24/7 connectivity, and the high street is rapidly being replaced with digital-only services. This also gives rise to the popularity of ‘DIY’ – information is at the end at our fingertips, and people are choosing to save money and represent themselves.

Law firms are now dealing with digital marketing, social media, website development, and sales training, as well as trying to improve productivity, morale, and retention of employees.

Each obstacle also presents us with opportunities, and there is still time to evolve your marketing strategy to stay relevant in the current legal marketplace. While Elite Lawyer Management can give you expert advice, a good marketing strategy involves listening to what your clients want, then coordinating and monitoring all your marketing activities. See our top tips below for some suggestions on how to get your marketing strategy on the right track.

Make sure you have an online presence

People want to know who they are dealing with. Clients are going to check and look for you online, and if you are nowhere to be found, you are going to be missing a trick. It is a captive audience and the perfect opportunity to highlight your up-to-date professional profile.

Blog

Google loves quality content, so a blog should be a part of your marketing strategy. It will set you up as an authority in a specific area of law and, if done correctly, it will also give your SEO (search engine optimization) a boost, bringing your website higher in Google ranking. Your blog posts should be a minimum of 300 words in length -more, if possible, and provide something of value to a reader. It can be about anything -news, opinions, questions, and answers or informing them about a particular process.

Embrace digital marketing

Digital marketing is getting sleeker. The more you analyze the effectiveness of your online activities, the more you can optimize your strategies to improve your conversion. Digital marketing can have a huge impact on finding the right type of work for you.

Whether you are advertising on Twitter, Google, Facebook or LinkedIn, find your core demographic and try it out.

Sadly, just being a good lawyer is no longer enough, going the extra mile can really benefit you and your firm to make sure that you stand out from the crowd.

Although competition is growing, there are still many opportunities out there!

Remember to listen to your clients and get feedback on each case. If you are not providing them with the service that they need or want, they are going to go elsewhere.

StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | Success Factors | 5 Characteristics of an Entrepreneur Bound for Success

5 Characteristics of an Entrepreneur Bound for Success

StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | Success Factors | 5 Characteristics of an Entrepreneur Bound for SuccessThere is a famous quote that says “ Success is when your photos are uploaded on Google instead of Facebook.”

In just a short span of time, to be precise just 4 years, we were able to rank on the first page on Google. When we started Hostingpill there were already players in the market but that never de-motivated us from marching ahead.

As an aspiring entrepreneur, you must have seen many ups and downs in this journey and of course, you must have read the biographies of leading entrepreneurs, but today we wish to share with you our personal views which we think are very much necessary for any entrepreneur to be successful.

1. Humility and teamwork.

Humility is a quality of ‘Quality leaders.’ It does not come to all easily. As a leader, we should learn to be humble from the ‘water’. It does not have pride, stays grounded and whenever it is faces a hurdle, rather than going against it flows in harmony with it.

So also, it is necessary to attribute the success of an organization to the team collectively. This helps in strengthening the bonds and also motivates the employees to do better. It inculcates the sense of ‘we-ness’ in the minds of the employees which contributes to productivity.

2. Learning from experiments

In the words of Thomas Edison, “ I haven’t failed. I have found 10000 ways that don’t work.” Young entrepreneurs need to keep on experimenting with new techniques to ascertain which works and which does not. They never fear failures or setbacks.

Although experiments are vital they are not applied in toto. They are applied in a phased manner to study the effects.

It is only after a detailed study, that the desired changes are implemented.

3. Risk managers

Yet another characteristic of successful entrepreneurs is that they are risk managers.

They know the potential risks associated with business and always take calculated risks.

They believe in only one thing that ‘ Fear is temporary, Regret is forever.’

4. Knowing ‘why’ behind every task.

Dr. Stephen Covey in his book ‘ 7 habits of a highly effective people’ states that one of the habits of successful people is that they always begin with an end in mind.

Just as an athlete knows where he has to reach to finish the race, similarly a successful entrepreneur knows where he wants to heed and what are his ultimate goals.

All his plans are centered around these goals and being aware of his goals beforehand prevents him from drifting apart from his set standards.

By knowing the ‘why’s’ in advance he is in the position to make the most judicious use of the resources.

By knowing the goals in advance he is in a better position to guide his employees.

The employees too can have a clear cut idea of what is expected from them. This reduces the friction between the entrepreneur and the employees.

5. Open to changes.

Successful entrepreneurs are always open to changes. They practice the principle ‘Nothing is permanent, but change’.

They stay abreast of the latest technological changes and keep on changing themselves to stay updated.

To stay updated they constantly need to keep watch on new happenings and also learn new things.

There is a possibility that you may miss a big chance if you are not ready to change and adapt yourself.

Conclusion

Having own business is rewarding and exciting. But business certainly requires more dedication and effort rather than a job.

In a job, you are working for someone else and getting the salary whereas in business you need to motivate yourself to work.

You are the boss. So unless you are a self-disciplined person, it is hard to stay ahead.

With a proper mindset and ability to adapt to the changes, you can strive ahead to become a successful entrepreneur.


About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Chris WagnerI’m Chris Wagner, Head of Content @ HostingPill. I regularly write about Hosting, Web servers and WordPress. I have more than 9 years of Industry experience.

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |managing your business|Managing Your Business From Afar

Managing Your Business From Afar

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |managing your business|Managing Your Business From AfarIf you are the kind of manager who likes to have a real hands-on approach with your business and what is taking place inside it, then you probably want to be able to do that no matter where you are. You might be travelling the world or on break, but you still want to be able to look into what is going on in your business and work out how to make the changes you want. Actually, it’s always possible to manage your business from afar, and as long as you are aware of how to do it, you will find that it is easier than you think.

Remote Viewing

One of the best ways to maintain a real hands-on approach even while being nowhere near the office is to use remote viewing, which is a means of taking control of a computer screen from somewhere else. There are many ways of doing this, but the best ones are those that allow you to have a whole overview of what is going on in your systems from a piece of software on your own computer or smartphone. Something like teamviewer might be helpful here – and if you are lucky you can find a teamviewer coupon to help reduce the cost a little.

The Cloud

More and more businesses are using the cloud, often without even really knowing what it is or how it works. In essence, the cloud is just a server that is held externally, and used by you the client from whatever device you happen to be on. It’s actually much simpler than it might seem. If you have ever used Google Docs, or shared files in Dropbox, then you have used a cloud service of some kind. This is obviously very useful if you want to manage your affairs from afar, especially if you have previously shared the right files on the cloud.

Your Smartphone

Your smartphone is likely going to become one of the most important things that you have on you if you are going to want to travel and still be in touch with the business back home. With a smartphone, you can send and receive emails, do some twitter marketing, access a cloud service, and of course take phone calls. It’s a great way to stay in touch, and you will find that it is hard to really go without it these days if you want to manage your business no matter where you might be.

Putting Someone In Charge

Of course, whenever you are away, you will also want to put someone in charge whom you trust with proceedings. You can also then communicate with them directly if you want to get a sense of what is going on in the business, and that is something that you are going to find incredibly useful indeed. With that kind of person on board, managing your business from afar will feel like a much easier thing indeed, and it will help you to have trust in what is going on too.

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |IT Support|Five reasons you need IT support for your business

Five reasons you need IT support for your business

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |IT Support|Five reasons you need IT support for your businessNo matter the size of your business, you should consider having some form of IT support for your brand. Why is that, though? If it’s just you or you have only a small team, you might be thinking there are very few benefits for this – you could think you can do this yourself.

However, you should not underestimate the advantages of having an expert in this area on hand to help you with any problems. Whether your problems are show-stopping issues or minor hassles, having someone who can resolve them quickly, efficiently and in the best way possible can be a great asset. Here are some reasons why you should have IT support.

Information management

Having proper management of all your digital information is vital if your business is to succeed. You will need to have a proper IT support system to ensure that, if you want to log in or look at sales and orders, you should be able to do this with little fuss. You’ll want to avoid large issues like viruses that lose your files or infect your whole system.

Virus protection

The number of viruses and Trojans, as well as other damaging data, has grown in recent years. Every day, there are attempts by hackers trying to get access to an organization’s IT system to plant ransomware.

If these hackers are successful, then you will have to pay a large sum of money to retrieve your business records. By having the required antivirus programs installed to avoid these types of attacks, then you can ensure that your system won’t be affected.

Security

There will be many details you don’t want hackers to have access to, such as customer addresses, personal details, or even payment information. So, for your online business, these all need to be protected – and your IT support can be useful here.

Using the services of a proactive technical support team and using certified professionals means your IT infrastructure can be monitored around the clock. Issues can be dealt with before they become a problem, so you can eliminate complaints and increase productivity.

Maximize productivity

Small businesses depend on staff to be efficient, so downtime because of technical problems can cause significant productivity losses. Items such as computers, networks, smartphones and other technology will fail – and IT departments can perform these crucial tasks for maintenance and repair, so you can have your employees working again. Your staff will then have the support they need to perform as efficiently as possible.

Integration of technology and updates

New upgrades can be time-consuming and confusing – and IT professionals will help integrate those old and new systems. Without them, then your brand might end up being behind on adopting this new technology.

They will also help to troubleshoot the use of new systems and monitor them to ensure that they’re running well. You can also receive recommendations on what new services you could also use, based on your company’s specific needs.