Having An Industrial Firm IT Support Company To Keep You Secure
The need for strong cybersecurity in the business world has never been more pressing. It’s estimated that the global cybercrime industry will cause up to $6 trillion in damages in just a few years. It remains such a lucrative business because targets keep failing to learn how cybercriminals operate, and how to protect against it.
The best way to do so is with help from an industrial firm IT support company – are you currently working with one? If you are, are they protecting you from the most dangerous cybercrime threats?
What Should Your Industrial Firm IT Support Company Protect You From?
- Small Business Cybercrime
In almost half of all the cyber breaches that have occurred, a small business was the target. Consider these stats reported in Verizon’s Data Breach Report and Forbes:- 58% of all breaches in 2019 involved small businesses.
- 43% of all breaches involved small businesses in 2019.
- Ransomware attacks are still going strong, accounting for 24% of the malware incidents analyzed and is the #2 most-used malware type.
- Phishing
The average phishing attack costs businesses $1.6 million – can you afford to pay that price because one of your staff members can’t recognize a phishing email? - Ransomware
More than any other cybercrime threat, ransomware caused extensive damage to businesses around the globe last year. After all, 39% of malware-based data breaches worldwide were caused by ransomware in 2019.
What Should Your Industrial Firm IT Support Company Do For You?
In addition to monitoring your IT environment around the clock, your industrial firm IT Support company should deliver a range of cybersecurity solutions and implement proven best practices:
- Two-Factor Authentication
Two-Factor Authentication is a great way to add an extra layer of protection to the existing system and account logins. By requiring a second piece of information, you’re better able to make sure that the person using your logging in is actually who they say they are. Biometrics like fingerprints, voice, or even iris scans are also options, as are physical objects like keycards. - Encryption
In layman’s terms, encrypted data is formatted in a secret code that would be meaningless if intercepted. It is one of the most efficient ways to secure a database given that decryption can only occur through a key, which is essentially a “secret password”. - Data Backups
If you want your desktop files backed up, it’s your responsibility to make sure your cloud is doing so automatically. You must have a backup copy of your data if it’s stolen or accidentally deleted.Develop a Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery policy that specifies…- What data is backed up
- How often it’s backed up
- Where it’s stored
- Who has access to the backups
Backup to both an external drive in your office and a remote, secure, online data center. Set backups to occur automatically. And make sure your backup systems are encrypted.
Cybersecurity Best Practices For Industrial Design Firms
- Double Check Before You Click
No matter who the email is from or what it’s about, always exercise caution when it comes to clicking on a link or downloading an attachment:- Be wary of malicious attachments in email messages. They may contain malware that can infect your computer.
- Check to see who the real sender of the message is. The company name in the “From” field should match the address. Also, watch for addresses that contain typographical errors like jsmith@wellsfarg0.com.
- Hover over the URL in the email to view the full address. If you don’t recognize it, or if all the URLs in the email are the same, this is probably a phishing threat. Also, make sure that you and your employees know that all reputable URLs now start with https rather than http.
- Use an email client that scans attachments for malware, and never autorun an .exe file you’re unsure about.
- Update Software Continuously.
You can’t afford to ignore software update notifications – but depending on your workload, you may have to. That’s where an IT company and managed services can help.Software updates are not only meant to improve the functionality of the software; they also serve as a patch for recently identified vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers. Your industrial firm IT support company can handle the management of these updates to make sure that not a single one is ever skipped or delayed. - Monitor Your Systems.
Also known as host-intrusion protection (HIP), this type of monitoring software will detect and report specially-developed malware that would otherwise make it past conventional antivirus and antimalware software. Your firm’s cybersecurity should include a monitoring solution to keep an eye on your systems.
This is a lot to handle on your own right? You’ve got your own work, after all, so you likely don’t have the time to see to all this, and it’s not necessarily something you should trust to an employee that doesn’t have any experience with cybersecurity.
That’s why you can get an industrial firm IT support company like Essential Solutions to do it for you. We’ll take care of it, so you can know you’re secure and focus on your work.
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