With today’s ever-increasing dangers to online businesses, having a reliable security solution is critical.

Cybercriminals are not just targeting large enterprises. Unfortunately, mid-sized and even smaller businesses are increasingly falling victims to cyberattacks. There are too many cyber threats out there, ranging from ransomware to phishing, for companies to overlook the dangers.

Thus, one issue arises: how can businesses avoid cyberattacks and defend their networks from destruction? Here are ten things you can do to strengthen your defense against cyberattacks:

The Biggest Threats to Cybersecurity

The deliberate exploitation of your systems or network gets referred to as a cyberattack. Malicious code is used in cyberattacks to breach your computer, logic, or data to steal, leak, or hold your data hostage.

The following are some examples of common cyberattacks and data breaches:

• Breach of access
• Denial-of-service and distributed denial-of-service attacks
• Identity theft, fraud, extortion
• Instant messaging abuse
• Intellectual property (IP) theft or unauthorized access
• Malware, phishing, spamming, spoofing, spyware, trojans, and viruses
• Password sniffing
• Private and public Web browser exploits
• Stolen hardware, such as laptops or mobile devices
• System infiltration
• Website defacement

Common Cybersecurity Mistakes Companies Make

A holistic organizational strategy for cybersecurity is required. From the top down to the bottom up, a concentrated effort must be developed, implemented, and followed through on a plan to address cyber-risk management from all company levels.

With that, the following are the top three mistakes businesses make when it comes to protecting their assets against cyberattacks:

Considering Cybersecurity as a Purely IT Issue

Businesses must secure Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and intellectual property, trade secrets, research and development, and other assets. Cyberattacks harm a company’s bottom line, financial situation, reputation, and operations; therefore, having clear policies and procedures in place can help companies and their workers respond more efficiently.

Implementing Anti-virus Software Exclusively

Anti-virus solutions alone are unable to combat persistent and complex attacks in today’s sophisticated cyber threat landscape.

Security companies are unable to keep up with the evolution of attackers’ tradecraft. The fact that attackers are increasingly using malware-free entry techniques is exacerbating the problem. As a result, businesses cannot rely solely on perimeter security to keep their operations safe.

Assuming You are Safe and Not a Target

Companies of all sizes, whether large or small, are vulnerable to cyberattacks. However, grand-scale cyberattacks are the ones that only make news headlines. In truth, however, cybercriminals are launching large campaigns to access networks and exfiltrate information throughout every economic sector.

Adversaries are increasingly adopting digital attacks to destroy tangible assets, in addition to stealing data physically. As a result, businesses must take these cyber risks seriously.

10 Steps Every Company Can Take to Improve Their Cybersecurity

Every business and organization must take precautions to avoid cyber attacks. To increase your organization’s cybersecurity measures, consider the following steps:

Acknowledge Your Strengths and Weaknesses

Regardless of your company’s business or size, it most likely has information that a cybercriminal would find valuable. Make a list of all your sensitive data and who has access to it, including workers and vendors. Moreover, ascertain that appropriate procedures are in place to protect sensitive data.

Educate and Train your Employees

Employees are one of the most popular ways for cybercriminals to gain access to your data. This threat is why training your staff on cyber-attack protection and informing them of current cyberattacks is one of the most effective strategies to protect against cyberattacks and all forms of data breaches.

Ensure Endpoint Security

Endpoint protection safeguards networks that get connected to devices via a remote bridge. Mobile devices, tablets, and laptops connected to corporate networks provide security threats with access points. Thus, you must use endpoint protection software to safeguard these pathways.

Keep Cybersecurity Assessment as a Continuous Effort

Organizations run the danger of adding new risks to their systems every time a network changes. Organizations must be aware of these flaws and conduct periodic risk assessments to detect weak spots, build incident response plans, and maintain those plans up to date by revisiting risk assessments whenever networks change.

Maintain a Backup of your Data

You must have your data backed up in the event of a disaster, which is frequently a cyberattack, to avoid significant downtime, data loss, and financial damage.

Secure Sensitive Data

The speed at which you can avoid cybersecurity attacks and restore data is critical to the long-term stability of your company. Even if you have strong protection measures in place, if ransomware manages to infiltrate your system and cause havoc, it may attack your backup software and corrupt your backup files. As a result, be sure that all sensitive data is encrypted.

Limit Control Access to your Systems

Physical attacks are one type of attack that you can receive on your systems. Thus, having control over who can access your network is critical. As a result, it is essential to keep track of who has access to your computers. Installing a perimeter security system is an excellent technique to deter cybercrime as well as break-ins.

Use Distinct Accounts for Each Employee

Every application and program requires a unique login for each employee. Having many people connect with the same credentials can put your company at risk. As a result, having distinct logins for each staff member can help you decrease the number of attack fronts.

Access Management

As a business owner with employees, one of the concerns is that they may install software on company-owned devices that compromises your systems. It is beneficial to your security to have managed admin permissions and prevent your employees from installing or accessing particular files on your network.

Form Strong Partnerships with Your Vendors

Learn about the policies and procedures of businesses that have access to your company’s or customers’ information. Once the data has passed on, the responsibility and liability do not stop. To protect sensitive data, build a partnership.

Consider run2biz in this regard. Run2biz is a global information technology firm specializing in developing agile technology solutions that help businesses simplify and generate real value.

Simon, an Artificial Intelligence solution for IT operations with Predictive Analytics, is part of run2biz’s AIOPS/SIEM solutions. It features active monitoring of numerous data sources, automatic topology verification, anomaly detection, and event evaluation. With run2biz, rapidly detect and respond to IT issues with predictive analysis and 100% automated risk mitigation.

Contact run2biz immediately to keep your company safe from cyberattacks and other threats.