How To Keep Your Business and Your Data Safe

In today's digital age, protecting your business and its invaluable data is paramount. With the rise of cyber threats and sophisticated hacking techniques, strengthening your business's cyber security posture has become critical.

In this blog article, we delve into the world of cybersecurity, to provide essential insights and strategies to help you bolster your defences to ensure the safety of your business and sensitive information.

Understanding the threat landscape

Security threats can come from anywhere - inside or outside your business environment. They can be intentional or just a simple employee mistake, making it difficult to stop them from happening. The increase in remote working has drastically expanded the attack surface for most organisations, and cyber-attacks are on the rise.

The Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2023^[1] from the UK Government found:

32% of businesses have suffered a breach or an attack in the last 12 months.

Only 21% of businesses and 16% of charities have a formal incident response plan.

£4,960 is the average cost of a breach for a medium or large business in the last 12 months.

Cyber criminals are always coming up with new and devious ways to carry out cyber-attacks. From phishing to malware and ransomware, attackers are more adept at breaching traditional security measures. Therefore, cybersecurity needs to be at the core of your business by creating a culture of security to help protect your business, data and people. Here is a checklist of defence elements you can start deploying right away.

Strengthen your defences checklist

Use strong passwords: Passwords with at least 16 characters that contain a mix of lower- and upper-case letters, numbers and symbols are the strongest. Also, remember to use a unique password for each account.
Turn on multifactor authentication (MFA): Add an extra layer to your cybersecurity with MFA. It provides a secondary method of confirming your identity, making it harder for attackers to breach.
Train your staff and raise awareness of cyber security: Educating your staff is an important step to strengthening your security posture. Our KnowBe4 Security Awareness and Training helps raise awareness of phishing attempts and ensures people know how to report them.
Keep your software up to date: Keeping software up to date is an easy way to improve your digital security. Outdated software can often create an open door for attackers to easily enter and disrupt your business.
Tighten access controls: Restrict access to sensitive systems and data based on roles. Tightening access to data can help keep it safe and mitigates the risk of internal errors that could lead to an attack.
Enhance network security: Use firewalls and configure them to block unauthorised access. Use Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) for secure data transmission and regularly monitor network traffic for any unusual activities.
Data protection controls: Encrypt sensitive data and regularly back up critical data and store it in secure, offsite locations. Ideally, immutable backups are best as they cannot be altered once created, meaning you have clean data to restore should you be compromised.
Strengthen device security: Encourage employees to use passcodes, encryption, and remote wipe features on their mobile devices.