Are you familiar with baseline cybersecurity? It’s a common concept used to protect businesses from cyber attacks. Baseline cybersecurity is essentially the minimum safeguards needed to protect a business’s information technology (IT) infrastructure from threats. You can always use additional safeguards, but establishing a strong baseline will minimize your business’s risk of sustaining a cyber attack.
#1) Encrypt Data
You should make data encryption part of your business’s baseline cybersecurity. Encryption won’t prevent hackers from accessing your data. Rather, it will prevent them from reading it. When encrypted, data is converted into nondescript strings of characters. Customers’ billing information, for example, will be turned into random characters. Unless a hacker decrypts it — which is nearly impossible without a decrypt key — he or she won’t see the customers’ billing information.
#2) Limit Login Attempts
Limiting login attempts can protect your business from cyber attacks. Sensitive data is typically restricted to authorized users with the appropriate level of privileges. In other words, an admin or similar high-level user must log in to access the sensitive data. If you don’t limit login attempts, hackers may be able to breach the database by performing a brute force password spam attack.
#3) Use a Firewall
Another baseline cybersecurity tip is to use a firewall. A firewall will protect your business’s network from malicious traffic. Although there are several types, all firewalls work by scanning traffic. They’ll scan traffic coming into your business’s network and going out of your business’s network. If the firewall finds a potential threat, it will block the traffic. A firewall isn’t a substitution for anti-virus software. Instead, you should use it to supplement anti-virus software for a stronger baseline of protection against cyber attacks.
#4) Secure All Devices
Baseline cybersecurity should involve all of your business’s devices. In today’s world, many businesses use several types of internet-connected devices, including desktops, laptops, smartphones, tablets and even printers. While desktops and laptops are the most common target for cyber attacks, other internet-connected devices can be targeted as well. Therefore, you should secure all of your business’s devices.
#5) Train Employees
Don’t underestimate the importance of training your business’s employees on potential cyber attacks and their respective signs. Whether your business has two employees or 200 employees, you should train them. If an employee doesn’t know the proper procedures for viewing and responding to emails, for instance, he or she may follow a phishing email that compromises your business’s network and its data.