Social media and the virtual world – these both are an essential part of our life. Do you spend one day without posting anything on social media? No right? Cause social media are very important for or personal life as well as professional life too. Right now, social media marketing for any business is the cleverest business strategy. Now, while talking about social media and the virtual world, the topic of cybercrime should be added. Now more or less we all have an idea about cybercrime. We all have internet and smartphone accessibility. Also, the internet offers a wealth of opportunities and for many, it is a crucial part of the everyday running of the business. Due to the accessibility of the internet and digital device cybercrime is become a gateway to accessing business information illegally and stealing money. According to a government report last year 45% of small businesses suffered from cyber-attacks. Also, the business of any size can be targeted by cybercriminals. Are you worried about cybercrime? Can’t you understand how to save your business from cybercrime? Not to worry, we brought complete guidance and up-to-date guide to the latest threats.
- Secure the network:
Your business will be connected to the internet through many different sources so your firewall will need to monitor all of these connections. A single installation of antivirus software is not enough. You have to invest in multiple layers of security including anti-virus, anti-malware, and anti-ransomware. Firewalls and anti-malware software are the first line of defense against cyberattacks.
- Encrypt the data:
Encryption will encode all your data which will make it unreadable and completely useless to the hacker. This will be especially important if your business holds personal or sensitive data on customers. This will give you complete protection from hackers.
- Enforce strong passwords:
It is important to have strong passwords that have no link to anything in the business or yourself. As additional security password should be changed frequently and they should be different for every separate account and every employee.
- Back-Up Files:
Back-Up should also be protected with software and encryption. This will help to bring your business back to its place. If you back up all of your files regularly, you should be able to get your business back up and running whilst only suffering minor losses.
- Be aware from email scam:
Phishing emails re very common amongst cybercrime. Usually, fraudsters spoof the display name that will appear in your inbox. You need to ignore the display name and look at the sender’s email address. This usually is something completely made up, containing random numbers and characters. Check the spelling, grammar, punctuation of that mails sent from a legitimate source. Phishing emails do not contain proper contact details. Sometimes your phishing mail must contain threatening languages. Just try to identify phishing emails from these.
- DDoS Attacks:
A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is an attempt by a hacker to disrupt traffic of a server, service, or network by flooding the target with an enormous amount of internet traffic which will prevent normal traffic from being able to reach it. An attacker will infect a network of online machines with malware which will turn each one into a ‘bot’. After placing the ‘bot’ or ‘botnet’ the attacker will direct each machine to the targeted IP address which will respond by sending multiple requests to the target to access its content. With a huge amount of machine doing this action at the same time, the targeted server or network will overflow, the capacity resulting in a denial of service to other normal traffic. An affordable and effective method to mitigate the risk of a DDoS attack is by enlisting the help of third-party protection services. They will be able to monitor your network and watch for excessive traffic which finds to be distinguishable to normal traffic, can be blocked by firewalls or other technical solutions. Make sure you have extra bandwidth.
- Keep system up- to- date:
Keeping up-to-date computer systems are the safest when it comes to being attacked by cybercriminals because they are constantly being developed and being made more secure.
- Internal cybercrime threats:
Many biggest security breaches have come from internal sources such as ex-employees, partners, suppliers, etc. These may not always be malicious attacks, may breaches have come from mistakes, or a careless ignorance towards security procedures.
The methods of attacks can be anything like social engineering, data sharing, unauthorized downloading, physical theft, etc. You also need to prevent your business from insider threats too. Check the backgrounds of your staff properly. Keep an eye on their behavior. Do not ignore anything you find suspicious. Limit your employees with privileges. Don’t let them access any important data related to your business. It is definitely worthwhile investing in a user action monitoring software that will record user sessions. Make your employees aware of the consequences of business. Remember it is your responsibility to keep your business safe and for this, you have to take all these precautions. Use these and you will definitely keep your business safe from cybercrime.