A successful phishing attack can cost your business thousands and even set it back a few years. Not just that, you will lose the trust of your customers and possibly become a pariah in the industry. It is therefore very important that you take measures to protect your business from phishing attacks and any other form of cyber threat.
Here’s how you can go about it.
Train your employees – Your employees are your first and possibly your best defense against a phishing attack. Email remains one of the first ways your business can be compromised; this is why one of your core responsibilities is to make sure that your employees are trained on how to identify phishing emails. In fact, they should know to treat all emails as suspicious until proven otherwise. Encourage your employees to always follow their gut instinct.
Have a reliable protection in place – It goes without saying that a business without reliable cyber protection is essentially inviting an attack. If you don’t have a security protection in place, pause with reading this article and set one up immediately. An antivirus and spam filter works to protect your emails from spam and your network from authorized intrusion and this should be an integral part of your overall infrastructure. A business without the proper protection can lead to vulnerability from all angles, this can include such things as fraud which will affect a business greatly if not dealt with. Researching and looking into a useful site such as castle.io can help with sorting this out and protecting the system with specifically placed software, helping to mitigate any other malicious activity.
Implement security guidelines – In order to minimize your company’s exposure to risk, it is a good idea to have some form of security guidelines in place. Of course you have educated your workers on how to identify and avoid phishing emails, but there should also be a list of rules that guide how information is used and passed in your organization. For example, what kind of information can be sent via email and what should be sent over the phone. The proper control of sensitive information will play a huge role in the overall security of your business.
Consider two factor authentication – After training your employees and installing a reliable security protection system, there is still the very slight possibility that a phishing attack can fall in through an unseen crack. A two factor authentication or 2FA will provide an extra layer of security which will effectively discourage an attacker from taking over a target account even if they happen to get through your security. A typical 2FA involves connecting an account to a mobile device and receiving a confirmation code on the device in order to login. Because an attacker will most likely not have your mobile device, they will not be able to gain access into your account.
Stay on top of developments – Hackers are constantly looking for new methods to compromise people’s accounts, but luckily security professionals are also bringing out new ways to contain them, and even though a lot of businesses are looking to clouds infrastructure for the much needed security, it also has its own risks. It is therefore in your best interest to always have an ear to the ground so that you can be aware of new threats and new security updates.
With constant training and updates security policies, you will always be in a good place to protect your business from cyber harm.
