4 ways your company can improve its cyber security measures

When it comes to understanding basic cyber security and other hacking problems, any novice IT employee knows that there are always threats. However, when you think about the best practices with respect to security, many employees will continue to make completely illogical decisions and potentially expose the entire organisation simply because they don’t even know what they are doing.

That is why when it comes to getting your company up to speed with the top cyber security methods, you have to take the following four measures:

Restrict or eliminate downloads

While your employees might just think that you are being a jerk, the fact of the matter is they should not be downloading anything when it comes to company property. Even relatively safe programs and trusted apps can still come with packages of bad information or viruses. That is exactly why one of the first things that an IT company needs to do is to limit or even remove the possibility of downloading and installing any sort of software that isn’t approved ahead of time. The goal of the business is to perform business functions, and when you let employees bring in potentially harmful programs then you could be putting the entire organisation in jeopardy.

According to ZDnet, the number of virus downloads out there is reaching into the millions already and will only continue to grow. That’s exactly why every computer needs to be locked down so you can avoid any sort of infection to your central business functions and operations. You might have employees who basically know what they are doing, but even if you wind up making a simple mistake then everything could be infected and it could cost countless dollars and man-hours to recreate.

Only use encrypted channels

If you happen to be an organisation that deals with sensitive information, then you simply cannot stress enough how important it is to ensure your data is always protected. It would be bad enough for your information to fall into the hands of someone who is a hacker, but when you think about all of the fallout that can occur if you have a data breach or a privacy invasion then you could see significantly problematic consequences. Besides just the bad press and the potential loss of customers that could happen as a result of a hack, you could even be sued or could see fines due to not taking care of the information of customers well enough.

There is also the importance of being secretive and confidential about many things including financial data within a company, medical information and HIPAA law, and even personnel issues from an HR point of view. For all of these things that must be discussed, it is important to utilize Encrypted Video Communications For IT offered by vendors like BlueJeans to ensure that everything you think is confidential actually is – and stays that way.

General organisation and cleanliness practices

One of the simplest things that can be done is to come up with simple plans for employees to remember to log out of things when they are not using them. This also has some benefits and merit in that they won’t leave out sensitive information on the screen in front of them, but it will also be a tremendous habit for the full organisation because individuals will not be logged in so hackers will not be able to steal the screen for any reason and won’t have a path to sensitive or internal data via your employees.

Require strong passwords

One of the simplest things that employees can do to protect sensitive information is also one of the most neglected. According to the Small Business Association, if employees simply continue to have their passwords be the same and they don’t make it at least difficult for outside threats to break in, then it can literally put the full organisation at risk. Once one person has their account compromised and an outside threat has found their way in, then the entire organization is now susceptible to losing information and being attacked again.

Regardless of the additional risks your organisation does have, and the additional steps you take to correct those possible problems and potential threats, you have to be concerned with the ways that you can move forward with protecting your company. Remember, you don’t have to have a full organisation full of people who are risks online or who simply don’t know what they are doing. The scary thing about cyber security is that it only takes one weak spot to become an entry point, and it only takes one foolish or unknowledgeable employee to open that weak spot. Instead of waiting for the potential problem to become a reality, start protecting your organization now with these steps.