Continuing the discussion on cyber security during this year's National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NCSAM), we will be talking about the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency's (CISA) list of cyber security essentials.
There are three specific actions that CISA recommends all people take.
1. Backup your data
First of these actions is to make and keep regular backups of your data. In the unfortunate event of a device malfunction or if a malware attack renders your data inaccessible, having backups can change the scenario from disastrous to inconvenient. You can read more about backups here.
2. Utilize multi-factor authentication
Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) wherever it is applicable. MFA is one of the easiest and strongest ways to help prevent your accounts from being hacked, and you can read more about MFA here. The quick explanation however is that MFA is essentially having two passwords required to login, and the second password is randomly generated by a program and changes every minute. As you can probably guess this makes it much harder to guess the second password and thereby makes it much harder to hack into your accounts with MFA enabled.
3. Stay up to date
Third is to keep all your devices and software updated with their latest security patches. Unfortunately, hackers are tenacious, and are always working to break through whatever security systems are in place to keep them out. Thankfully developers and security specialists are working as well to keep them out, and as such whenever an opening is found that would allow a hacker a patch will follow as quickly as possible to close that opening back up, but it will only work if you keep up to date with those patches.
Of course, it is also important to remember that cyber security does not stop at the essentials. While they can go a long way towards keeping your data safe from cyber criminals you still need to take precautions and stay active in guarding your data. You can achieve this by staying up to date on what is going on with cybersecurity and being aware of any new scams or vulnerabilities that could threaten you and your data.
Is your network up-to-code?
Our Secure-IT Cyber Smart Assessment is a self-assessment of your network! You can fill it out be yourself to understand if your company's network has any major issues, but we can help guide you through the assessment this entire month! Because all this tech stuff can be a bit confusing, we want to guide you through so that you can learn what everything is and truly understand the thing your company relies on every hour of every day. Again, your network is only as strong as its weakest link, and that weak point is almost never obvious.
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