This week as part of our weekly article series, we will be talking about password security, data backups and how these two elements are essential parts of data breach threats. What most businesses don’t consider is that planning on implementing effective strategies to prevent cyber attacks can save a lot of money and a lot of headaches.
In today’s world, cyber attacks are no longer something that can happen exclusively to large corporations, in fact, in 2019 more than 55% of businesses reported breaches in Australia alone and more than 30,000 websites were reported to be hacked everyday.
With such high numbers, businesses can no longer afford to think about the if possibility of getting hacked, but more of the when it will happen. Therefore, it is better to be prepared for when it does happen to your business.
Password Security
The easiest way of preventing a security breach is by maintaining safe passwords. Ironically enough, having poor password management is also the reason why 80% of data breaches occur.
Most users recycle their personal passwords and use them for their professional accounts as well, which means that if one person has a breach in one of their personal accounts, that is enough to breach a professional account.
This brings us back to cybersecurity education in the workplace; with the appropriate training, users can be more educated towards the risks they run by the lack of password security implementation.
To prevent password security risks, a company can use tools such as password managers, which helps employees to manage multiple passwords for all of the systems they log in to. Implementing a tool that creates difficult passwords and changes them according to the platform they are being used for, surely mitigates the risk of a data breach.
Backup Solutions
The whole point of cybersecurity is to protect data, and the reason why data is so valuable is because it provides leverage. This leverage is used for a dangerous cyber threat called ransomware, which is one of the largest threats to small business.
The worst part is that it cannot be fought or prevented with antivirus. Ransomware is one of the largest threats to SMBs because these are the types of companies that are the least prepared when it comes to cybersecurity.
Ransomware works by hacking or acquiring data from a company and asking for ransom in exchange for returning the data, as they often delete it all after taking it, or in exchange for not leaking sensible information until a ransom is paid.
To prevent falling victim to ransomware, it is important to maintain a backup solution of all data and a disaster recovery system, which is continuously monitored and tested for recovery regularly.
Having your equipment protected against data breaches by implementing a backup solution and a password security manager, will certainly mitigate the risks you may run from a cybersecurity breach.
If you need more information regarding how to implement either of these systems, Kaesim Cybersecurity can help you protect your staff and equipment from data breaches.
