How Good Are You at Cybersecurity? How to Self-Assess

Businesses are increasingly using digital platforms and a variety of technological solutions to improve their day-to-day operations. Whether this is to sell their products, to allow for more flexible working conditions for their employees, or any other reason, every business working online exposes itself to the risk of cyber attacks.

Businesses in Indiana should frequently assess their cybersecurity policies and consider how they can improve their systems to ensure their assets and data remain protected. These few easy steps to follow will allow you to assess how safe your company is and what you can do to improve your security moving forward. 

Give Employee Cybersecurity Training

Cybersecurity is everyone’s responsibility within the business; therefore, every employee must be aware of how to keep data safe. Taking time to deliver cybersecurity awareness training will ensure that your employees know the current threats and the protective measures you expect them to take. A couple of examples would be regularly updating passwords or not sharing business emails via social media. 

Maintain Off-site Backups

Off-site backups allow you to secure your data by storing them in a different location than your primary server. An off-site backup ensures against infiltration from an unwelcome party or a crash of your entire digital system. Your data, such as client lists or media files, would not be lost forever because they would be stored separately from your primary operating system. 

The best way to think of an off-site backup is like keeping a spare key under a rock in your garden. If you lose the key in your pocket, you can still get into your house. Similarly, if you lose your data on your primary server, you can still access it with the off-site backup working as your business’s spare key. 

Keep Communications Secure

Businesses can communicate in more ways than ever before with group messaging software, video conference calls, telephones, emails, just to name just a few. It is essential to ask your communications provider about what security measures they have put in place to protect against eavesdropping and infiltration messages. 

When communicating with those external to your organization, do employees have systems to confirm the identity of the person they are speaking to? If employees use personal devices for work, do they have appropriate protection like multi-factor authentication on their devices? 

Think Like A Hacker 

Although it might sound a little unorthodox, it would benefit you and your company’s cybersecurity to think like a hacker. If you were trying to steal information from your own business, how would you do it? If there are obvious weak spots that you or your team can identify, what can you do to strengthen them? Remember, if you can spot the weakness, so can others.If you want a trustworthy third party to test the strength of your cyber defenses, contact a company that provides managed IT services. They can conduct a thorough network assessment for your company, and they can propose effective, cost-conscious solutions to solve whatever problem they may find.