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A Guide for Business Owners: Protecting Your Company from Cyber Threats

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StrategyDriven Risk Management Article |Cyber Threats|A Guide for Business Owners: Protecting Your Company from Cyber ThreatsWhen you’ve spent time building and expanding your business, it can be easy to find yourself taking your foot off the gas. However, there are many areas you still have to think about, and although cybersecurity may not be at the top of your priority list, it needs to be. You may believe that your established business doesn’t face the same risk as new and small businesses, but all businesses — no matter how large or small — face the same threat when it comes to cyber-attacks.

This is why being continually aware of safety and protection methods when running your business will help you to implement them straight away.

What Kind of Cyber Threats Can Your Business Expect to Face?

Even if you employ a dedicated IT team, you may not be personally aware of the threats your business may be exposed to. Here are the most common cyber threats any business can expect.

  • Phishing. This type of attack leaves businesses extremely vulnerable and entails an individual posing as a secure organization in order to gain sensitive data from you. It can be very easy to misinterpret a phishing attempt and surrender personal data.
  • Ransomware. This is where criminals will lock down business information in order to then demand a ransom from the business to unlock it again. This is particularly problematic for businesses because being unable to access data can mean a loss of service or ability to do business until the ransom is paid.
  • Malware. The most common example of malware is a virus. Your business system may become infected or risk having its data corrupted or hacked.
  • Human error through employees. The threat of cyber-attacks increases when you take your staff into account. This is because the more employees you have, the more risk there is that each individual could make a mistake in regard to responding to phishing attempts, downloading information containing a virus, or even posing a risk to your company themselves.

How to Protect Your Business

Below are some of the ways you can incorporate a defense against these types of threats.

Increase Your Web Security as Much as Possible

Do everything you can to increase web security in any capacity. Even as an established business, this should be setting up dependable anti-virus and firewall software as priority. As well as this, be sure to look into the extra security options the services you already use may provide. For those businesses providing a network service for others, you can improve web security by using packages such as Allot’s Network Secure.

Use Strong Passwords

Always use strong passwords for anything you do within business, and be sure to change and update regularly. Try to avoid using the same password for everything within your business. Strong passwords should include a mix of lower case characters, upper case characters, numbers, and symbols.

Always Update Your Systems

It’s easy to let regular system updates slip under the radar when you’re trying to concentrate on running and expanding a business. However, regular system updates for your devices will make sure that the latest operating systems can be optimized and lower the risk of vulnerabilities.

Train Your Staff

Organize training for any new staff, or have a meeting in regard to safe web practices, so that your employees can learn to recognize potential threats, what not to download, and how to best avoid phishing scams.

Factors to Consider When Choosing Managed IT Services

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Managed IT Services|Factors to Consider When Choosing Managed IT ServicesTechnology is on the rise in every sector of the world, including the business sector. Technology demands for business have made it a necessity to have a department managing IT. Management of IT has today become a vital aspect of every business.

As a result, most businesses have opted to have an internal IT department to help manage the technical aspects of a business. However, some companies have opted to outsource IT management services from professional managed IT service providers. Being that technology is an integral part of business IT, it is essential to always choose a provider with high levels of skills that will provide you with excellent services. Settling on a provider is not easy because there are numerous managed IT service providers.

Here are some if the important factors that you should consider when choosing a managed IT service provider.

Security

With the high levels of cybercrime, security has become an important aspect of a business. However, ensuring a high-end securing can be difficult and costly. With that in mind, you must choose a service provider that does not just monitor your information system and infrastructure. But you must consider a company that can also offer strategic security plans.

With a rigid and reliable IT security, you can ensure all customer and employee data remain safe and secure. Reliable IT managed services ensure to encrypt your network to prevent people from accessing it not unless with permission. Network encryption also allows you to monitor any activity that is conducted on your network. This gives you a straightforward way to detect suspicious activities, giving you an opportunity to come up with an appropriate measure to counter it. With this, you can guarantee that you can minimize and prevent risks of cybersecurity threats from infecting your IT system and infrastructure.

Due to the nature of their work, IT support providers gain access to sensitive company information and private data. As a result, you should ensure the company has a high level of confidentiality. Or you can limit the extent of information they access to have some discretion. You should identify the initiatives the company will take to guarantee the confidentiality of your sensitive information and customer data.

Availability

One of the most essential factors to consider about manage IT companies is their service availability. The company should provide service and support 24/7/365. Quality IT managed services company will provide you with qualified IT personnel to take care of your IT needs on a shifting basis. IT service providers assure constant delivery of top-notch managed IT services through continuous and round the clock IT support.

Determining the availability of the company is crucial. This is because it will help you ascertain how proficient the IT service provider can be. 24/7/365 IT monitoring means that the company will be in a position to offer updates and provide technical support as quickly as possible. On top of this, the constant monitoring of systems also allows them to detect IT related issues in a timely manner before they became a major problem in the organization.

With early detection of problems, your provider will be able to quickly come up with solutions to the problems. This guarantees that your business can prevent worse system problems and IT disasters in the future.

The managed IT service provider you choose must be capable of addressing all your concerns. Apart from 24/7 system monitoring, the company should also provide a responsive service desk where your employees can be able to reach them for support, either through call, email or chat. This allows you staff to have a faster resolution to any IT challenge that they might face, such as problems logging in.


Scalability

You should always remember business growth when selecting an IT managed services provider. Your business demand today may not be as critical to what your business will have in a few months or years. That is why it is important to hire a service provider that understands your ever-changing business needs.

Reliable and experienced IT managed service providers offer scalable services. This means that their IT services will adapt to all the technical needs of your business. For instance, if the number of employees in your organization increases by a large number, say from 3000 to 4500, the IT service provider should be able to provide you with enough skilled personnel to provide quick and timely resolutions to prevent a decrease in productivity. This allows the It service providers to meet all your IT requirements smoothly and effectively. Through this, you can ensure that your IT system and infrastructure will be able to adapt to the changes as a result of business growth.

Experience and expertise

It is imperative to consider the experience and skill of the company. Should the personnel have the right skills, knowledge and expertise? The IT service company should have a team of professionals in IT who are certified to offer these services, thereby preventing amateur companies from experimenting with your IT infrastructure. Reliable service providers are ones that have successfully handled a number of clients from different industries.

Every industry is unique. Similarly, every organization and company has its own way of handling day to day operations. Consequently, every business has varying and different IT requirements. As a result, you must choose a provider with a proven reputation and experience of handling IT needs of a diverse set of clients. This shows the company can offer unique IT services that your system needs.

Additionally, you should choose a company with the ability to provide cloud back up and data recovery services. Generally, the company should be able to provide solutions to any problems with your network and computers. If you hire a company that does not offer full IT support, then you will have to incur additional costs of hiring a new company or losses from unsatisfied customers or clients.

Conclusion

Outsourcing managed IT services allow you to focus on other vital needs of your business. With the best IT service, you can ensure that your network is secure and stable. This allows you to maintain smooth business operations. You need to ensure you only outsource services from a well proven and reliable company.

Keeping Your Business Safe From Any And All Threats

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StrategyDriven Risk Management Article |Keep your business safe|Keeping Your Business Safe From Any And All ThreatsYour business is constantly in danger. It might not be imminent, and it might be through no fault of your own, but you’ve got to make sure that you are protecting it. Make sure that you take preemptive measures, and this will ensure that you’ve given your business the best possible chance of staying safe. In this article, we’re going to talk about what some of these measures are, so keep reading down below if you would like to find out more.

Online Security

The first thing that we are going to look at is online security. Unfortunately, cyber crime is constantly on the rise, and your business needs to be protected as much as possible from it. Make sure that your network has firewalls, encryptions and antivirus software to allow for maximum protection. It’s essential that you hire an IT expert to set all of this up for you if you don’t know what you are doing. Don’t try to do it yourself to save money or for whatever other reason, because it must be done right.

It’s very easy to leave holes in your security if you don’t know what you’re doing, which leaves your business vulnerable. The whole point is that we are trying to keep your company safe, so all of that goes out of the window if you try to save a little bit of cash by not using an expert.

Pay Back Any Loans

If you have borrowed any money, then you need to make sure that you are paying it back in a timely manner. We’re not saying that people are going to come round with baseball bats and trash everything, but the person you borrowed money from could take you to court if they don’t get it back. Don’t think that they are going to forget about the people that owe them money, because this is not going to happen. In fact, they use exception tracking and other methods to ensure they always know who owes how much.

You need to be careful about borrowing money in the first place, because you wouldn’t want to be in a position where you can’t pay it back. Stick to your payment plan and everything should be fine. You don’t want to lose your business over something like this, and you very well could if you aren’t careful.

Have People On The Door

The final thing that we are going to mention is that you should always have people on the door of your business premises. Nobody should be able to get into your business building without the proper clearance and authority to do so. That is where teams like this come in handy though. Having security on the door will act as a deterrent to those who would seek to do something harmful to your business premises or anyone on it.

We hope that you have found this article helpful, and now see some of the things that you are going to need to do if you want to keep your business safe from any and all threats. Of course, there is more that you can do but this is just to give you an idea of a couple of them. We wish you the best of luck, and hope your business remains safe for years to come.

3 Necessities Your IT Department Should Have

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |IT Department|3 Necessities Your IT Department Should HaveThe IT department is one of the essential parts of your business. This is because the department is responsible for running the whole system. Bearing this in mind, it is crucial to fully equip your IT experts to facilitate their job efficiency fully.

Since there is always a chance to improve and implement functions, the following are some of the trade tools you should equip your IT department.

Cloud Backup

Frequent loss of data can be damaging to your company or business. Data loss can be linked to power outages, hardware failure, human error, and malicious intervention through hackers and viruses. This may cause various problems during the occurrence of the loss and in the future.

Therefore, it is essential to integrate your existing system with cloud computing. It is recommendable to consult your internal IT team on suitable packages to work with based on your business’s IT hardware and the amount of data produced.
It is also crucial to have a constant backup to refer to, mainly if system failures occur. The cloud is currently convenient, secure, and more flexible to use as data back-up storing space in a higher capacity as your company or business may need.

Business Intelligence Suite

Since your IT officers in your business have to deal with large networks and several branches of reports, analytics, and operations, having the software is necessary to maintain the systems’ smooth running. The application of an intuitive business intelligence suite enhances your IT department’s ability to use a flexible toolbox.

Additionally, a business intelligence suite creates an avenue for other workers to place their reports and feedback in a more accessible manner. These systems are designed to facilitate businesses to assemble reports and manage performance in a more organized way. These systems are also accessible by users who aren’t so familiar with the techs.

It is essential to consult reputable companies that provide automation solutions and computing devices such as industrial monitors and a Modular panel pc. This will enhance the communication and information connection of your business.

Network Security

Apart from data loss issues due to viruses and hackers, your business or company may heavily suffer due to improper network security. Unauthorized access to data and files, slowed down systems, and general vulnerability of your business network even within your internal people may compromise your network security.

You can protect your critical business data from sabotage and spyware by creating safeguards, firewalls, and authorization procedures. Network security may also act as extra protection if grievous errors are made due to insufficient training of your workers.

Additionally, network security enhances your IT department to implement some restrictions and guidelines that ensure the efficiency and proper use of your business’s workstations based on their work-related actions.

Conclusion

Applying these tools ensures that your IT department is equipped with the power they need to ensure your business’s operations are smooth and efficient. Additionally, these tools may also prevent your business from incurring losses that may arise due to loss of data.

Keeping Your IT Systems Safe

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StrategyDriven Risk Management Article |IT Systems|Keeping Your IT Systems SafeBoth small businesses and large corporations are vulnerable to data breaches and cyber-attacks. Small businesses are more vulnerable because they don’t have enough resources to set up high-tech security systems to keep their data and IT systems safe.

But there are ways around this. If you are on a shoestring budget and cannot afford to get a security system for your business, here some practical ways you can protect your data and keep your IT systems safe and secure.

Keep your remote collaborations secure

Team messaging apps have become an integral part of our day-to-day business operations. They have simplified the way people transact businesses by providing intuitive collaboration tools that make communication and information sharing easy. Messaging apps like Slack and Mattermost are at the forefront of remote collaboration. These apps enable companies to manage projects and internal teams easily and effectively.

As for security, when you compare Slack vs Mattermost, the latter offers an array of features to help protect your business from data breaches. Mattermost is an open-source app that you can install on an on-premise server giving control over who can access information. Since it gives your complete control over your information and data, this can help minimize the risk of data breaches.

Use strong and unique passwords

Make sure all your employees use strong and unique passwords. Don’t use your name or date of birth as a password as they are easy to guess. Create a password that has a combination of letters, symbols, and digits, and make sure it has more than eight characters long.

If you are going to find it difficult to remember the password, write it down in a notebook or use a password manager.

Secure your Wi-Fi

Many small businesses don’t have the necessary resources to secure their network. This makes them vulnerable to cyber-attacks.

To minimizes the risk of external entities hacking into your network, make sure that every device you use at work for connecting to the internet is secure. This includes routers, smartphones, laptops, and tablets.

Install an antivirus

Antivirus software can help prevent data breaches and protect your computer systems from getting hacked. Many antivirus programs come with free plans, which offer some level of security for your data. It would be advisable to pay for a premium plan, as it includes advanced security features that keep your data and systems safe.

Control access to systems

You need to control who has access to your data and information. If you are a large company, you need to limit access by department. You cannot have employees from different departments accessing all the company data, as this can lead to data breaches.

If you are a small company, you can limit access to specific individuals. It is also important to make sure that if someone no longer works for you that you disable their access to all your electronic systems.

Takeaway Point

Securing your IT systems ensures that all your company data is safe. If you cannot afford a high-tech security system, take other steps to ensure that your systems are protected from outside attacks.