Are you aware of the cybersecurity best practices? Do you ensure that you are keeping yourself and your business safe from hackers? Even if this is the case, your employees may be unaware of common cybersecurity knowledge and could open up your business to complications. This could be costly and cause issues to your company’s reputation and profit margins. While cybersecurity is talked about a lot, you need to ensure that you and your employees understand how they can protect not only themselves from hackers and those with malicious intent, but also your business. After all, a security breach can damage your business’s reputation as well as cost you money trying to reclaim or retrieve missing, stolen or damaged data.
What are the best ways to teach your employees? And how can you ensure that the security measures you put in place are followed? Here are a few tips and tricks to share with your employees, but you can also use them yourself.
Do Not Neglect Your Devices
How many times have you misplaced your phone, tablet or even laptop? While this may be fine when at home and without anyone else around you, it can turn into a bad habit. Rather, you need to get into the habit of protecting your devices so that you know where they are, and if you are to leave them somewhere, they need to be locked and inaccessible. This is because people could try to hack into your phone so that they have access to sensitive data. Of course, this can cause issues for you personally, but if you use your phone for work such as checking emails, etc., it can cause problems there, too.
Teach your employees to keep their work devices safe by using VPNs or an android PGP, and to keep them out of sight and reach of others. You can have rules in place that if an employee is to leave their desktop, they have to lock their PC so that other people, such as fellow employees or even visitors, cannot gain access to any sensitive data.
Install Proper Anti-Virus
All PCs should have anti-virus installed on them so that they are protected from any malicious viruses that could be lingering on websites that employees visit or any links they accidentally click on. Of course, there are various other benefits of installing anti-virus software, such as:
- Blocking ads and spam such as pop-ups
- Providing a line of defense between you and hackers
- Protection from spyware
- Protection from phishing attacks
Anti-virus software may not provide 100% protection, but it does provide an additional layer of security to your PC or laptop. Plus, this can be enough of a deterrent to a hacker who wishes to locate an easy job so that they do not have to linger too long. Therefore, any additional barrier or layer of defense can be worthwhile.
Be Wary of Social Media Scams
Social media is very much a part of our society, with many users being active on the biggest social media platforms out there, such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and even Pinterest. Therefore, you need to be aware that there will be hackers and cybercriminals who will leverage these platforms so that they can gain access to your sensitive data.
How can you determine a social media scam? Much like a phishing email, you need to ask yourself whether the deal is too good to be true, whether it is coming from a legitimate profile, and how the message has been written. For the latter, is the message riddled with spelling mistakes (whether it is a direct message or a comment)? If so, this is a sign that the link they have embedded may not be trustworthy.
The best way to counter these scams is to simply not click on any links that an unknown profile has posted. While this may seem excessive, it can protect you from accidentally giving hackers access to your data or PC. You will come to know when a link is trustworthy, but until then, it is better to be safe than sorry when it comes to links on social media platforms.
Do Not Click on Unusual Links
Much like the advice provided above, you should refrain from clicking on unusual links throughout the internet in general. This is because you do not know whether the link is trustworthy. There are ways for you to determine if the link is trustworthy, of course. You can use a link checker; these link checkers will alert you if it is compromised or has any safety risks.
Enroll Employees on a Training Course
The best way to teach not only yourself but your employees about proper cybersecurity measures and best practices is to find a reputable online security training program like those provided by Inspire eLearning. Inspired eLearning’s security awareness training teaches your employees about online threats and how to detect them. Their online security training will also help your employees handle other forms of threats, such as in-person threats and attacks.
Through online training courses, your employees can be kept up to date on the latest security threats and how they can protect themselves as well as their co-workers. Educating your employees on cybersecurity is essential and can help keep the integrity of your business.
Do Not Use Public Wi-Fi
Public Wi-Fi should never be used, especially if you are logging onto a device that is used for business. This is because you are leaving yourself open to malicious hackers who can access all your data. Remember that public Wi-Fi does not have any security measures in place, but if you do need to log into a public Wi-Fi, you could get around the security implications by using a VPN. This is because a VPN encrypts your data so that hackers cannot gain access to your sensitive information.
Protect yourself but also your employees and your business by ensuring that everyone knows the cybersecurity best practices. Keep yourself knowledgeable in how you can keep yourself protected so that you do not have to experience a hacker gaining access to your sensitive data.
Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.