The cyber-criminals are getting smarter and smarter with each passing day. This means that we are constantly pressured to level the playing field and come up with defenses to their malicious attempts. Wherever you’ve decided to store your data, you must not let them get their hands on it, or dire consequences could follow as a result. Leaked company secrets, stolen documents, deleted data that is crucial to your business… and the list goes on. As anxiety-inducing as this sounds, there is something that can be done, and it begins with the cyber security measures we’re about to present:
Encryption will protect your data even if it’s stolen
Here’s the thing about encryption; it allows you to access your data while the unauthorized individuals cannot. By encrypting it prior to actually transferring them to the server, you will ensure its safety even if it gets intercepted somewhere along the way, because no one will be able to see the actual content of the file (at least not without knowing the password to unlock it). While there are professional solutions available, any archiving tool like ZIP will do the job just fine.
Good passwords are the bread and butter of cyber security
Treat your passwords like it’s a matter of life and death. Easily-guessable words or phrases are no good, because they are so easy to break that even the most amateur-grade hackers out there could pave their way through them. If you must use the kind of words that can be found in a dictionary, at least append some random numbers and symbols to them (but make sure to always keep them in the back of your mind). If you want to know more about how to pick a good password as well as a safe place to store your files, you can contact iConnect or read up on other resources dealing with the subject matter that are scattered online.
Backup regularly, so your data is easily recoverable
Let’s imagine a scenario where a hacker gets into your hosting account and deletes all your files, just for the sake of causing mischief. Even if you’ve taken all the other cyber security measures discussed above, you’d essentially be rendered helpless and unable to restore them… unless you were smart enough to have thought of the scenario before and had made some backups preemptively. Then, all that remains is to restore them, and voilà! You’re back in business.
Be serious about access rights
If you have some employees working on your project, there is absolutely no reason to grant them more access rights than they need in order to do their job. This will ensure that any in-house security breaches are much harder to pull through (and these happen more commonly than you’d think). For example, if you have someone who’s responsible for a steady flow of content to your website, grant them access to the content part only, so the database and your other files are safely out of harm’s way if something shady were to happen.
Conclusion
These cyber security essentials will make it much harder for you to get victimized by hackers and people with ill intent who are looking for ways to harm your business. Of course, to achieve the best effect, these all need to be accompanied by properly managing who is granted physical access to the servers, along with all the other applicable security principles.
