When such large sites as Yahoo, LinkedIn, and Target all suffer security breaches, in spite of the millions they spend to try and prevent it happening, how can you, as a much smaller business, stop it happening to you? It is a concern many business owners have. They cannot be without an online presence, but that opens them up to security problems they would rather not have.

Hence, it can be necessary to implement security methods to protect from security breaches by making the data unreadable. You might need to be aware of certain methods such as encryption of data or others, so that you can choose a system that suits your business needs. In this blog, we uncover some types of security that usually ensure your data is safe:

Secure The Cloud

Securing your use of the cloud is important and can be done with a cloud access security broker (CASB) from somewhere like Fortinet (https://www.fortinet.com/products/cloud-access-security-broker). The best way to describe it is that it is a software tool that sits between your computer infrastructure and the cloud provider’s infrastructure as an extra layer of security. It will block malware and monitor any unusual activity, notifying you immediately of anything it considers to be a threat. If a user violates your policy, it will encrypt your files so that information stays secure. At Hdd Mag, this concept is explained in far more detail, along with many other tips for keeping your data safe.

Advanced Passwords Can Help Prevent Hacking

Passwords should be changed frequently to help prevent hackers accessing your emails, or even worse, your online banking. Advanced passwords include upper and lower case, numbers, punctuation and often make no sense. Don’t make them a personal reference and make sure you use different ones for each application.

Keeping a list of them on your computer is not a good idea, but there are tools to help you store them securely such as iPassword and LastPass.

Update Your Software Regularly

As software providers find bugs that could be a security problem, they will issue updates to secure your data from them, so make sure you update your software every time an update is provided. In fact, it is not a bad idea to set your computers to update automatically. Although you can configure your settings to do this, you should also check the individual programs you are using as some of them will have this function available.

Don’t Allow Outside Equipment To Be Plugged Into Yours

Regardless of how secure your own systems are, allowing someone else to plug their laptop or USB into it can be fatal. If their device has any malware or other bugs they will be passed onto yours, so no matter how well you know someone, how long they have worked for you, or how important they are, never let an outsider plug anything into your system.

Whether you call them viruses, worms, Trojan Horses, spyware or any other of the many names given to things that come under the umbrella of malware, they can ruin your system security and everything should be done to prevent them entering your network.

Use As Much Security As You Can

There are other security measures you can put in place and the more you have, the better. Make sure all your data is encrypted, whether that is by a CASB or by your team, and you can run full penetration tests to double check that your data is secure.