10 basic (but essential) business tech security tips

Being aware of basic IT security isn’t just the first step towards a safer network for your business, it is essential knowledge. Hacking is both lucrative and more common than we know.

For any professional serious about protecting their tech, we’ve put together 10 basic, but essential, security tips:

1. Leverage Cloud technologies

The cloud is an incredibly useful tool for small and medium sized enterprises as it allows easy-access to a secure data centre. By utilising cloud-based computing, you can rest easy in the knowledge that the protection of your important data has been outsourced to a larger company with heightened security capabilities. For this reason, be sure you know all the facts before signing up to any service, especially where their data centres are stored.

2. Use a good Firewall

Firewall’s may seem like a bit of a no-brainer, but really they are the epitome of frontline protection against network intrusions. Rather than opting for free software, it is very much recommended that medium-sized businesses invest what they can into a good Firewall to ensure the best protection.

3. Keep it clean and tidy

Clean and tidy is the way! In order to ensure that your computer isn’t at risk of security breaches through old software exploits, keep all of your primary software updated and remove any unused applications. This has the added bonus of keeping your systems running at optimum speed for longer.

4. Have your webmaster enable HTTPs on your website

This sounds over-complicated but with a little Google search you’ll soon see that it’s really not. The benefit is that HTTPs websites have an SSL/TLS Certificate installed onto their servers. This encrypts all data transmitted from browser to server. They also have the added bonus of tying your brand identity to your web presence, which encourages visitors to engage with your site safe in the knowledge that it isn’t a phishing attempt.

5. Keep passwords strong and secure

Passwords are very valuable to hackers. To ensure they don’t get yours, create longer passwords with more variety of numbers and special characters, and never use the same one twice.

6. Create level-specific user accounts for your network

Whenever you create a new user account for your business network, bare in mind what that person will need access to and limit their privileges. Admin privileges should be reserved only for IT administrators and the like. Alongside this, create a limited account for guest access for those who don’t work with you.

7. Understand what data is most important – and lucrative

Perhaps one of the best ways to ensure tech security for your business is to get better and understanding what data of your is the most lucrative. Once you understand this, you can work on ensuring that it is well protected.

8. Create social media guidelines for employees

Social media sites can be something of a cornucopia of information. Using social media advocacy can be a great way to increase your brand’s marketing reach. Ensure you create social media guidelines for your employees to ensure that they know what they can – and can’t – share.

9. Hide your business Wi-Fi network

Hiding your Wi-Fi network is a simple way of reducing hacking attempts. This can be done by editing the SSID display options on your router settings.

10. Train your team on identifying phishing

Finally, nothing beats training to ensure the best practice by your team. Alongside password and basic cybersecurity training, ensure that they are able to identify and know how to report email and web phishing attempts.

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