Online security tips for businesses: Our top 5

There are certain vital online security tips for businesses to be aware of and which offer a good starting point to staying safe on the internet.

Internet protection is crucial and its importance continues to increase as the number of cyber attacks grows – according to CNN, close to one million new malware threats are released every day.

You may think it will never happen to you, but 38% of companies are believed to have suffered from cyber attacks, according to statista.

Staying safe online requires a comprehensive strategy as well as help from the right expert providers.

There are a wide range of issues to plan for, but to get the ball rolling, here are our top 5 online security tips for businesses:

1. Only use strong passwords

Hackers have a variety of sophisticated tools to quickly discover passwords, so it’s important to make your code hard to crack.

Use a short phrase and include a mix of lowercase and uppercase characters, numbers, punctuation marks and symbols.

Don’t base your passwords on personal details, common dictionary words, or sequences and repeated characters, such as abcdefg or 123456.

2. Be wary of public networks

Remote working is increasingly commonplace, meaning that from time to time, you’ll need to take advantage of a hotel or café’s wifi network.

In most circumstances, this should be safe enough, but try not to conduct financial transactions over public wifi – if the network contains a virus, it will be hard to fight it.

Also, make sure that you are definitely on the ‘official’ public network, as cyber criminals have been known to set up fake free internet access networks in hotels, creating the illusion that they are part of the overall service.

3. Carry out background checks on online services

Some online shops and services are not as genuine as they may first appear.

A quick check can help you separate trustworthy providers from the fraudsters.

Companies House’s database is one option, or else you could also look for the registration details on www.whois.net.

4. Only visit safe websites

Sometimes, even visiting the homepage of a website can be unsafe.

Search engines do not always filter out these dangerous sites, but there are ways of detecting which websites are safe before clicking on the link.

There are several browser plug-ins which will do this for you and this is something we can advise you about if you are interested to know more.

5. Check the firewall logs

Keeping an eye on firewall logs is a good, quick way to find out if there is a virus on your network.

Certain patterns offer telltale signs of this – for example, an IP address pinging the network or a port generating unusually high amounts of traffic.

Again, if you would like some advice on reading firewall logs, just let us know.

Online security tips for businesses: in summary

There are many important online security tips for businesses to be aware of and these simple measures can form the bedrock of your overall IT security strategy.

However failing to take care of the basics, such as steering clear of malicious websites and setting strong passwords, can undermine the whole plan.

For more information about any of the topics covered in this blog or any IT support queries, please contact us and we can answer any queries you may have.