We constantly hear the news of data breaches and cybersecurity hacks, where hackers take advantage of loopholes in your cybersecurity infrastructure to fulfill their malicious designs. Have you ever thought about why do so many attacks succeed? Because businesses don’t take their security seriously and don’t implement a layered cybersecurity system.
With hackers targeting from different angles, businesses will have to protect against all cybersecurity threats. You can not just relax after installing anti-virus and anti-malware protection in your system. They can target you through social engineering attacks, email scams or try to steal your passwords and access your accounts and data.
In this article, you will learn about seven layers of cybersecurity that your business should know about.
1. Physical Security
Most businesses think that their building and technology is safe, so they don’t have to worry much about physical security. They pay little to no attention to physical security and end up making mistakes that cost them heavily such as leaving the computer exposed and failure to properly dispose of hard drives.
The best way to enhance your physical security is to encrypt your drives, backup your data in the cloud and protect ports that are exposed to the public. In case of data theft, you can use a theft recovery software such as Prey Project to recover your data. Take a backup of all your data stored on the best dedicated server so you can easily restore it if an unforeseen situation occurs. If taking a backup of all your data seems quite challenging, you can automate it or take the backup of your critical data.
2. Social Engineering
With businesses implementing state of the art cybersecurity solutions, hackers are not targeting people, who are the weakest link in the cybersecurity chain. They launch social engineering attacks to trick employees into sharing their sensitive information. Hackers start the process by collecting the information about the individual they are planning to target from the internet and social media.
Create and implement security processes by involving your employees and test them rigorously before implementing them.
By establishing a mechanism to identify the callers and email sender, you can minimize the risk. Force employees never to disclose sensitive information such as passwords, bank account details or credit card details. Organize training sessions and increase awareness amongst your employees so they can easily identify social engineering attacks and don’t fall victim to it.
3. Wireless Security
Wireless networks are vulnerable to cybersecurity attacks because the packets and data are sent through the air, which means that it can easily be intercepted and modified by cybercriminals and use it to fulfill their malicious intentions. This poses a huge question mark on the integrity of data. Another reason behind easy to hack wireless networks is the use of weak security protocols. Despite clear flaws, many wireless networks still use weak protocols, which puts not only the user but also the business at risk.
Businesses should avoid WEP and WPA and use safer protocols such as WPA2. More importantly, you should be extra cautious when using public Wi-Fi in cafes and hotels. Even if you must use public Wi-Fi networks on business travel, make sure to use VPN. A VPN keeps your browsing sessions private and helps you browse the web anonymously.
4. Passwords
We all know hackers can use advanced techniques and guess or steal your passwords. This means that passwords are not the safest option. Even if you have to use passwords, make sure that you follow the password best practices. Never use dictionary words or easy to guess words as your passwords. Use a combination of alphanumeric characters and symbols in your passwords. Most employees write down their passwords on a piece of paper and share it with their colleagues or use simple passwords so they can remember them easily. This makes it easy for cybercriminals to guess or steal your passwords and break into your account.
5. Multi factor Authentication
As mentioned before, you should ditch passwords and opt for more secure ways for user authentication and authorization. Use biometric authentication such as iris scanners, face unlock or fingerprint scanners. If you are still using passwords, you should implement multi factor authentication to add an extra layer of security. This means that even if the hackers succeed in stealing or guessing your passwords, they won’t be able to get access to your accounts.
6. Anti-Virus Software
Most businesses already have anti-malware, anti-virus or other similar programs installed. Unfortunately, they don’t update them regularly, which is why their virus definition is older. An anti-virus software is as effective as its virus definition. If the virus definition is outdated, it can not identify and protect against the latest cybersecurity threats. It is important to keep your antivirus software up to date so they can prevent modern attacks from impacting your business.
7. Email Security
With a majority of businesses still using email as their primary mode of internal communication, email has grabbed the attention of hackers. They send spam emails, emails containing malicious attachment or links and trick email recipients into downloading the attachment or clicking on the malicious links. Hackers can also launch phishing attacks through emails by tricking employees in sharing their sensitive business information with them. It is important for businesses to invest in email security solutions, which can filter out spam and malicious attachments and links. There are lots of chances that hackers may steal information during email transmission so it is good for business if they will secure their email with SSL solutions like Comodo SSL which helps to secure email transmission over the internet and save data to breach.
Conclusion
If your business is following a flat cybersecurity architecture, hackers can easily break into your system, access your accounts and steal your sensitive business data. Instead, you should implement a layered security architecture that prevents hackers from getting access to your critical digital assets. Even if the hacker succeeds in penetrating one or more layers, they won’t be able to get access to your data. Use a combination of these layers to create a security architecture that is foolproof.
Which cybersecurity layers are the most important in your opinion? Which layers of security do you implement in your organization? Let us know in the comments section below.
