Cybersecurity or Information technology security is the practice of ensuring that your computers, networks, data and even mobile devices are protected against online malicious attacks.
The need to rely solely on the internet for a wide range of activities including commercial finance among others has increased the risk of hacks and scams from hackers who largely target organizations, corporations, and the personal data of ordinary people.
Conducting business transactions has never been easier than it is today. If you want to purchase an item from whichever part of the world, you can easily be able to not only see it, but also pay for it through an online portal, and this is one of the reasons why most people are greatly exposed to risks posed with bad cybersecurity.
Professional hackers have also been able to log on to a company's website and gain access to their internal data management systems, where they are able to steal valuable information, which they can then use to blackmail the said company into getting it back.
The use of simple and outdated security protocols is no longer working, and therefore cybersecurity is now more important than ever because of the following reasons:
Hackers are smarter than they were before:
With new security procedures comes new levels of breaking them. The mean cybercriminals have changed their tactics to accommodate your new security measures, and everyone should be rushing to try and beat hackers at their own game.
Companies are therefore advised to update their security systems frequently, and if necessary, they should consider employing white-hat hackers who will keep them ahead of the game.
The internet is rapidly expanding.
A few years ago, the only use the internet had for most people was for checking emails. Nowadays, there's a whole lot of tasks you can do online. In addition, you do not necessarily require a computer to use it.
Many different gadgets such as mobile phones, iPods, music streaming devices and watches can all be connected to the internet and this increases the risk exposure.
You must secure all of your devices because hackers are even able to gain access to them using simple methods such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
Hacking tools have become more sophisticated:
There are now many more dangerous tools that can be used by hackers to gain access to your most sensitive information. It is, therefore, crucial to be alert in order to detect and counter the new threats so as to ensure you are safe at all times.
A lot more personal information is being shared online:
A huge majority of the population in the world has access to the internet, and they sometimes share extremely personal information which puts them at risk.
For hackers, this is a goldmine. If they are seeking a way to get to you, especially celebrities and other powerful people, they can simply log into your personal account and extract the highly sensitive and private information, which they are then able to use against you.
Storage systems such as iCloud can also expose you to some serious security issues, and therefore, you must always ensure that you keep your personal information to a minimum.
How can you protect your company?
Many industry experts say that breach of security is not a matter of "if," but rather "when." This is because many businesses rely heavily on technology and as a result, they expose themselves to the risks associated with the internet.
It is quite worrying that some companies are still not taking cybersecurity seriously, and as such, they leave themselves vulnerable to an attack.
For a small business organization, a data breach will not only be damaging because of the information they are likely to lose but, the average cost of a data breach is very high and most companies have to spend on average £38,000 to address the problem.
This is because you will have to spend money on tools needed to rectify the situation, and even employ professionals to come and protect you against future attacks.
Here are a few things you can do to protect yourself:
Improve on your password protection:
You should endeavour to use very strong passwords on every piece of data in your organization. You can also make use of prompt passwords regularly for extra protection.
Limit access:
Not every employee should have access to the organization's most sensitive and private data. In fact, you should ensure that those that have this access, need more than one password from different people in order to access the information.
This also involves adding multiple levels of access which includes encryption and retinal scans.
Undertake intensive training of employees:
Ensure that all your employees are adequately trained on how to set up passwords and how to protect themselves from attacks.
Hack the system yourself:
if you are not sure about where your company is most vulnerable, you can try hacking the system by yourself so you know where problems are, and rectify them before external hackers have had a chance to steal your information.
Conclusion:
A lot can be said about information security, but one thing you must always ensure to do is not to store sensitive information where you know it could be vulnerable and exposed to hackers. You must always be on the lookout because a hack can happen anytime when you least expect it.
As a corporation that deals with commercial finance, ensure that you have an entire department whose main function is to monitor the systems and give a report regularly on how secure everything is.
