October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NCSAM)!
Now is the perfect time to talk about being safe online!
One of the most important things to remember for cyber security is that everyone needs to be active in it. It only takes one person clicking a sketchy download from a phishing email to compromise an entire network. Knowing how to be safe online does not require you to learn a load of technical jargon. You simply need an idea of what actions could be detrimental and be able to keep an awareness for anything that seems fishy. This can keep you much safer.
There are lots of actions you can take to increase your safety such as:
- Checking that your system is running up-to-date security programs and read up on what scams and exploits people are using.
- Making sure you have an enterprise-grade firewall protecting your business.
- Backing-up all of your data so that you are ready for the worst.
- Implementing user-based security and permissions to minimize human errors.
- Getting a password and document manager to ensure password security.
- You could even enlist the services of a certified ethical hacker to test your system's security and inform you of any vulnerabilities they find.
NCSAM has a theme for this year “Own IT. Secure IT. Protect IT.”
Own IT is all about being aware of and protecting your privacy online. Own IT means doing things like not sharing personal details or sensitive information online and checking/updating your privacy settings for you web browser, plus any apps you may be using.
Secure IT deals with a more active approach to protecting yourself online. You Secure IT by taking actions such as updating to stronger passwords with mixes of letters numbers and symbols, using multi-factor authentication for your logins, only trusting verifiable sites for online shopping, and knowing how to spot and avoid phishing attempts.
Lastly, Protect IT focuses on keeping your security strong and up to date. Protect IT involves making sure you're running the latest version of your anti-virus software, having backups of your data kept secluded to protect against ransomware, and making sure you have a secure firewall.
Cybersecurity can be scary, but we hope we can calm for of those fears!
Lighthouse IT Solutions hosted a webinar (October 31st 2019) in which we went over the many things you should be aware of in order to help keep you safe in this digital world.