While there are literally hundreds of different cyber-security protections you could apply to your business, there are a handful of key areas you should be investing your time and energy into. For the purposes of this article, we have identified 3 tools you can implement to prevent your business from falling victim to phishing attacks, social engineering, Ransomware, and more.
For a full list of the tools we believe ALL business should have in place, we recommend reading our Free Report: How Cyber Criminals Use The Dark Web To Steal Your Data And Access Your Network, And How You Can Stop Them. It should give you a better picture of the various threats, your vulnerability, and proactive ways you can fill in those gaps. To download, fill in the form on the right.
It’s important to note that many business owners erroneously think cybercrime is limited to hackers based in China or Russia. Unfortunately, there is overwhelming evidence to suggest that disgruntled (or distracted) employees, both at your company and your vendors, can cause significant losses due to their knowledge of your organization and access to your data systems.
Now I’m not saying that hackers and cyber criminals are NOT of concern. You need to ensure that you have systems in place to minimize the chances of someone outside your organization accessing your data and network. What I AM saying is that while you still need to consider these malicious actors, you also need to make sure solutions are in place to protect against the intentional, or accidental, actions of your team.
With that said, here are the 3 most critical tools you should implement to prevent your data from ending up on the Dark Web:
- Cybersecurity training: as I mentioned above, your employees are THE most common method that hackers use to get your information and access your data. In order to reduce your risks, invest in a solid cybersecurity training tool. It should have two components:
- Self-paced learning: your staff should be able to conduct training when it works for them, not as part of a once yearly “all-hands” meeting.
- Phishing simulation: in order to determine WHO actually needs additional training, the tool you select should include a phishing simulation that sends out emails made to look legitimate. By using this tool, you can figure out who is most likely to fall for an attack so you can get them the additional training they need.
- Dark Web Monitoring: Regardless of how careful or educated you are, or how much time you spend training your employees, it’s still possible that a hacker could gain access to important credentials and use those to breach your systems. And because so many people use the same passwords for pretty much everything (or a variation of the same password), if one of your accounts is breached, it’s very possible that a hacker can break into your other accounts as well. Credentials may float around for some time before they are purchased and used maliciously, so it’s important that you identify WHEN credentials are exposed so you can make the necessary changes to your passwords and personal information to protect yourself.
- Email Filtering: As I mentioned above, cybersecurity training is an important first step to protect against phishing attacks. That said, the more spam your team receives, the more likely it is that someone will make a mistake and click on the wrong thing. A good email filter should significantly reduce the amount of spam/phishing emails your team receives, which will go a long way toward protecting your organization against data breaches and Ransomware. One word of advice: while spam filters are a useful tool, they can’t catch every single spam email. If you are using an email filtering tool and are still receiving a lot of spam, the filters can be tuned, but this can sometimes result in legitimate emails being blocked. There is a fine balance between blocking as much spam as possible and blocking legitimate emails. Make sure you work with your IT provider to find that balance.
We hope you found this information educational, but if you’d like to learn more about The Dark Web and Cybersecurity, we recommend reading our Free Report: How Cyber Criminals Use The Dark Web To Steal Your Data And Access Your Network, And How You Can Stop Them. To download, fill in the form above.