Brands big and small alike continuously invest in refining their digital presence and their remote work environments to provide a superior service and experience for all the parties involved. Customers, above all else, want to know that they can safely visit your website without worrying about their most sensitive information being hijacked or misused. Then again, employees need to feel secure and knowledgeable enough to utilize their online communication channels to work on sensitive business data.
At the center of it all is your very own cybersecurity strategy, responsible for the reputation of your business, and your ability to grow over time. Without that foundation of security for every interaction and every transaction, there can be no growth. Here, we’ve compiled a few of the most fundamental cybersecurity best practices companies of all sizes need in their repertoire. Use them when you educate your employees, when you choose your providers and business partners, and your brand will stand a chance in this competitive world of ours.
Security as the Backbone of Onboarding
Your HR department needs to treat cybersecurity as a relevant portion of the onboarding process, and a key aspect of employee training for all of your teams. For starters, when you’re hiring a new candidate, make sure they understand their role in the security of your business and that they know how to implement basic principles such as password management and spotting email scams and phishing.
Then, introduce continuously improved cybersecurity courses and tests for your teams, so that every individual can share the responsibility of retaining data integrity, safe collaboration on the cloud, and use your software tools in the smartest, safest possible ways.
Building a Secure IT Infrastructure
The basis of all of your security practices is your IT infrastructure, holding all of your communication applications, storing all of your data, and holding access to all of your accounts, internal as well as external. Instead of traditional systems, more businesses are turning to robust HCI integrated solutions that combine advanced hardware with secure cloud systems for advanced cybersecurity, data storage, and secure collaboration.
HCI, which stands for hyper-converged infrastructure enables the usage of local hardware with smart software solutions safely stored on the cloud, thus ensuring a hybrid solution that outperforms legacy hardware systems and their many limitations. The built-in cybersecurity and data protection features such as regular data backups and a disaster recovery solution all enable companies to maximize their security through their well-established IT infrastructure.
Ongoing Education and Training
Cybersecurity, like so many other business necessities, is not a one-time investment. Even with the finest IT experts on your team handling your security, with advanced AI algorithms forecasting risk and threats, and the most expensive digital tools protecting your data – your employees are the greatest security asset, or risk, depending on their behavior.
Those IT experts need to have access to the latest relevant revelations in cybersecurity to implement smarter solutions for your business. They should be able to receive regular certification and training and to master the latest cybersecurity methods that apply to your industry.
Testing for Vulnerabilities
Your company already relies on advanced technology to empower business-wide growth, be it in your marketing department through automation, or sales with smarter lead generation. However, your cybersecurity is yet another department relying on technology. That tech, however, doesn’t have to be flawless.
That said, your security experts should know how to challenge your internal systems and operations on a regular basis, and perform regular, scheduled tests to ensure that your security is indeed impenetrable. They should try to mimic the strategies a hacker would normally use, in order to spot gaps in your system and mend them as soon as possible, be it with an update or by educating your staff on smarter security practices.
Updates and Upgrades are a Must
You have a range of different applications used every day to communicate with your employees, such as your project management tools, your payment solutions, your chat platforms, and your security software. As you’ve noticed thus far, these apps and other software solutions will invariably offer regular updates – never delay or skip them if you want to preserve your business security and your data.
As your IT team already knows, regular software updates exist to provide security patches and resolve software issues and bugs that are common for any digital tool. Plus, the software in question needs to be regularly updated on every device your employees use, which is why a dedicated security strategy should include these sweeps and updates, to ensure that everyone is using only the latest applications and the most relevant versions of their favorite tools.
Final Thoughts
Technology advances extremely quickly, but so do hackers with their more refined methods to penetrate security systems and steal data from businesses and individuals alike. Knowing the risks, you should take your cybersecurity measures seriously enough to continuously invest in more advanced methods that promise greater safety and more effective solutions that are optimal for your brand. Take this as your starting point for all future cybersecurity plans, and a foundation for safe interactions in the future.
Featured image credit: RawPixel.com
My name is Raul, editor in chief at Technivorz blog. I have a lot to say about innovations in all aspects of digital technology and online marketing. You can reach me out on Twitter.
