Do you feel confident in the level of cyber protection your business has in place?
It’s hard to know for sure without a thorough audit from a cyber security specialist, so we’ve devised this 5-question quiz for you to evaluate your business to see where you stand.
Does your cyber protection pass the test?
Q1. Does your business provide cyber security awareness training for all staff?
Your staff members are your biggest asset, but they are also your largest cyber protection vulnerability.
Phishing attacks are a prominent technique used by cyber criminals and target anyone sat in front of a PC in your organisation. The most common sign of a phishing attack is an email with a call for you to take action. This can happen on websites too.
50% of phishing links are clicked on within the first hour of being sent.
Regular cyber security training should be made available to all your staff along with periodic simulated phishing attacks drills.
Q2. Does your business have strong password requirements?
Each member of your team will log into tens if not hundreds of unique accounts. They each require a password and memorising them all becomes challenging.
Employees may be tempted to recycle the same passwords over and over, or they may make things easier by using significant names and dates that are already committed to memory. Those re-used passwords create a scenario where an email password is the same as (or a slight variation of) the password used to sign-up for a free smartphone app. If a hacker gets in, they have a master-key to every application and file the employee has been accessing with that password.
The National Cyber Security Centre were able to compile a list of 100,000 passwords that had been involved in data breaches.
In this case, no amount of device security will stop a breach. Your employee just opened the door and invited the hacker in for lunch. By encouraging your employees to use complex or autogenerated passwords using a password manager application such as www.correcthorsebatterystaple.net, you could stop a major cyber attack on your business.
Q3. Do you protect your business with updated software?
Your cyber protection is only as secure as your least protected device: Your security patches may be up-to-date on 19 machines, but the one that you forgot will be the weakest link.
One way to track updates is to use a device checklist. This way, you’ll have a record of all devices, who is using them, what permissions the users have, and when updates are due and completed.
Your employees may have lost patience with the “update now” prompt and disabled it, or they may simply ignore it; either way, hackers will have an unmissable opportunity to take advantage of devices that aren’t updated.
If you have an internal IT department, make sure updates and patch management are high on their priority list. Alternatively, you could partner with a Managed Service Provider (MSP) who will continually maintain patches and updates for you.
Q4. Does your business use multifactor authentication?
Using multifactor authentication tools can significantly tighten cyber protection and make it much harder for cyber criminals to compromise your accounts and information. A combination of a device login pushes, texts and passwords are a great first step to using multifactor.
Q5. Do you have multi-layered cyber protection?
Having anti-virus and malware protection is good: Having a firewall is good: Having web filtering is good: Having email filtering is good. However, each one of these on its own is not enough to fully protect your business as each platform has vulnerabilities making it subject to exploits and hacks.
The best anti-virus platform combines multiple overlapping forms of cyber protection that can authenticate the identity of the correct user. Out-of-the-box anti-virus isn’t for the majority of businesses. Instead, you may benefit from having an IT partner that manages, updates, evaluates and makes changes strategically and proactively.
Did you pass the cyber protection test?
If you were able to check these questions with a firm “yes,” you are well on your way to having a secure network. If you couldn’t, then your business would benefit an IT audit to help you understand where the vulnerabilities lie and how to bridge the gaps in your IT strategy.
Take the proactive approach with Jupiter IT
At Jupiter IT, we have a proactive approach to cyber protection. We monitor your systems daily and include regular cyber security audits as standard with all our contracts. These audits are based on the 5 key controls laid out by the Government-back Cyber Essentials initiative.
Learn more about Cyber Essentials.
If you want to find out more, drop us a line – we’re waiting to share our expertise with you.
