How to Protect Your Agency or Firm Against Cyber Attacks

How to Protect Your Agency or Firm Against Cyber Attacks

The losses resulting from cyber-attacks run into millions of dollars. What’s even more shocking is that nearly 60 percent of small businesses have to permanently close their doors after enduring a cyber-attack. In today’s world where businesses have a big online presence, it’s hard to escape cyber security threats. While threats of a very serious nature do exist, companies can take a few measures to block attacks and mitigate their risks.

Easy Ways to Protect Your Agency from Hackers:

Know Your Risks
As the frequency and scale of data breaches grow, you can’t go without having a plan of counterattack. You need to assess your risks, identify points of weakness in your system, and be aware of the latest cyber threats that are affecting businesses worldwide. It’s important to mitigate your risks and protect your networks by switching to encrypted e-mail providers and using full-disk encryption tools.

Keep Updating Your Software
Most business owners can’t fully control company computers. To curb threats, it’s important to download and update spyware and anti-virus software. Patch management is equally essential. It ensures that each and every computer remains updated with the latest patch releases from OS and application vendors.

Penetration Testing and Website Monitoring
Once you’ve completed all your preliminary measures, run vulnerability and penetration tests on your system to determine how strong they are. Vulnerability scanners protect your software throughout its lifecycle. They identify threats and help you prevent attacks.

Secure Your Hardware
Despite taking all necessary precautions, companies can still succumb to security threats when thieves walk away with electronic equipment. It’s important to secure server rooms and USB drives so your sensitive data doesn’t end up in the wrong hands. Go one step further and backup in the cloud. That way, even if your hardware is destroyed due to fires or other incidents, you’ll have the chance to access your data and resume operations without delay.

Be Prepared to Counter Attack
Make sure you have an incident management team ready to handle breaches. If you haven’t employed data breach specialists, consult a security firm to protect your company. Incident management teams are familiar with compromised systems. They know how to coordinate the recovery process and mitigate further risks.

Employee Training
Small mistakes often lead to big problems. To ensure there aren’t any loopholes in your online system, train your employees and encourage them to undertake preventive measures to block attacks. Employees must know how to handle sensitive data. They need to understand how they can easily become victims of fraud, phishing attacks, and ransomware. Make sure all employees attend security practices training at least once or twice a year.

Purchase Cyber Liability Insurance
Since data breaches have a crippling effect on most organizations, it pays to have a good cyber liability insurance policy in place. Make sure your policy is ideal for your particular company and its unique risks. Cyber liability insurance doesn’t stop malicious attacks, but it covers the hefty cost of breaches and data theft.

Now more than ever, data breaches have become a pressing issue. Without comprehensive cyber liability coverage in place, businesses risk losing everything. Cyber liability insurance covers the cost of forensics investigations, monetary losses experienced because of network downtimes, the cost of managing a crisis, legal expenses, and the cost of credit monitoring.
These are some of the most commonly reimbursed expenses. Policies can also be tailored to offer additional coverage.

Today, cyber security is a real threat to businesses of all sizes. Companies, therefore, need to invest in cybersecurity infrastructure to stay ahead of those that threaten organizations.