4 Resolutions to Keep Your Business Secure in 2018

  • Published byadmin
  • January 22, 2018

4 Resolutions to Keep Your Business Secure in 2018

With every new year comes great new opportunities, and 2018 is no different. However, change can be a good thing, and with a new year also comes more perspective and knowledge that you can use to make considerable improvements to the way you run your organization. Here are four ways that you can use developments in cybersecurity to help your business succeed in the new year.

Monitor Endpoint Security
One of the first things you need to check is how secure your endpoints are. By endpoints, we’re talking about any employee devices or workstations that access your business’ network. You need to ask yourself if your employees are using these endpoints as securely as possible. Do they have permissions that they need (or don’t need)? Do they misuse any permissions that they do have? These are all questions that will clue you in as to how secure your endpoints really are.

Your network security starts with your end users, and any risky situations that they find themselves in can reflect on your network. Your employees should understand how their actions can impact the way that your organization functions as a whole. In the same train of thought, your employees should understand the proper way to use devices, usernames, and passwords, so that hackers can take advantage of as few endpoints as possible. If you lose any employees, be sure to revoke their permissions so that you minimize the risk of unmonitored accounts becoming dangerous endpoints.

Apply Updates and Patches
One of the best ways to ensure network security is to keep your patches and security updates implemented as soon as possible. Cybercriminals and malware developers are always trying to overcome the security of software solutions commonly used by businesses and individuals. To counteract these malicious intentions, software developers are always fixing flaws that surface in a (hopefully) timely manner. Unless you implement these patches and security updates, you’re putting your business at risk.

Patching and updating your software solutions is the only way to make sure that your company is as secure as possible from threats. If you don’t take action now, you could very well be putting your company at risk of a data breach. You need to regularly patch your software solutions to make sure that hackers can’t take advantage of the latest bugs to infiltrate your organization.

Keep a Positive Attitude
Some of these resolutions might feel like you’re focusing too much on the negative, but there is always room to focus on the positive. Use your imagination a little bit and focus on what kinds of attacks you could potentially see against your business in the future. How would you protect from these attacks? You always want to make sure that you’re considering the best-case scenario.

To attain this standard, you want to take an honest look at what you’ll need to go one year without a cyber attack. You should then work toward this idealistic goal.

Cover Your Basics
Forgetting about simple security tactics can be the downfall of your business. Be sure to always follow password security requirements so that you can keep threats out of your network and accounts. Furthermore, you should implement two-factor authentication to make each hacker’s job even more difficult.

You should always be keeping your team in the loop, as well, ensuring that they know about any changes to procedure or new solutions implemented. Do you have any questions about how to optimize security in the new year? Let us know in the comments.

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Keep Your Best Employee From Becoming Your Worst Problem With Data Management

  • Published byadmin
  • July 10, 2017

Keep Your Best Employee From Becoming Your Worst Problem With Data Management

Chances are that you, like most business owners, have assembled your staff very carefully, looking for people who are the best-in-class, willing to work their hardest for the good of the company. However, this staff will be made up of humans, and will therefore make mistakes. As such, you need to make sure that your data is managed in a way that keeps it safe.

Are you confident that you know where your company’s data is currently stored?

Unfortunately, if you are relying on your eager, diligent staff to allow you to answer “yes” to that question, then you may be answering incorrectly for the right reasons.

The thing about diligent employees is that, well, they’re diligent. They want to get the task at hand done to the best of their ability and as quickly as possible–and if that means they have to work from home, then that’s what they’re going to want to do. Which wouldn’t be a problem, if their home networks were nearly as secure as the ones you have in place at your business.

What’s to be done? You don’t want to discourage your more diligent employees, but you also want to make sure your data is safe.

The easy answer is to meet employees like these halfway. Give them access to a Virtual Private Network to help maximize their security as they access your data remotely. Ask them to have their personal devices checked by IT before they use them to access the network. Ask them if they’re willing to allow IT to remotely wipe their personal device if it should be lost or compromised as a precaution, if they were to be able to use it for work. An established Bring Your Own Device policy will make enforcing this requirement a little easier.

Of course, this does not mean that you should give all employees carte blanche access to all of your data. Network access control solutions are an effective way to restrict your employees from accessing data that is above their pay grade, either intentionally or by accident. Requiring authentication has become the norm in most of society, and so your loyal employees are unlikely to have a problem with it in the workplace. Passwords, PIN access, and other identification factors will prove useful in keeping employees where they are supposed to be, and able to access what they need for their job requirements.

The reason that it is so important to allow your employees to work as they wish is because it will allow them to be productive, without resorting to their own methods outside of company control, which are far less secure than what you have implemented.

For help implementing these features into your IT infrastructure, make sure you give Catalyst Technology Group a call. We have the solutions you need to safely allow your enthusiastic employees to work the way they work best. Give us a call at (317) 705-0333 today.

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