Three Key Strategies to Protect Your Company from Cybercrime: In the last decade, there has been a growing recognition that acts of cybercrime represent one of the major threats to business. Regardless of the size of your firm or what sector of business it operates in, it’s still a target for cybercriminals. The successful hacks of massive tech corporations such as Sony in recent years have demonstrated to the world that no company can ever feel that they’re completely protected from the acts of these online criminals.
Every business owner should be fully aware of the threats that are posed to business continuity by cybercrime and must take a range of steps to ensure that their organization is protected at the highest level. In this article, three unique strategies will be discussed in detail that can help your company to protect itself from acts of cybercrime. They are suitable for a wide range of businesses operating in many different sectors.
- Protect your APIs
In the last five years, millions of companies have made the migration from locally based servers and business applications, moving them to online locations in the cloud. This is proven to be a more efficient way of running business platforms and can help to effectively support a remote workforce.
However, as more applications are run in the cloud, there’s a greater need for application programming interfaces (APIs) to control communication between applications and ensure the smooth running of online systems. Hackers can often exploit APIs to gain entry to online corporate platforms. This is especially true if the API gateway is poorly protected and provides an easy entrance point.
IT teams must ensure that they adhere to api security best practices to minimize this threat. Commonly, this includes monitoring API traffic and logging activity in these systems. Hackers may repeatedly “probe” APIs to look for weak points, so real-time monitoring can be exceptionally valuable in combating this risk.
- Staff education
The importance of staff education in regard to IT security can’t be underestimated. Simply put, an educated workforce is a vigilant one when it comes to IT security. By receiving IT security training, all staff members will understand the key concepts of staying safe when using company systems and working online. They’ll learn how to identify acts of phishing and what types of malware are commonly used by cyber criminals.
It’s important that new starters receive this training as part of their onboarding process. Ideally the training will be refreshed on an annual basis so staff can improve their knowledge of the latest cybersecurity threats and the evolving methods that are used by cybercriminals.
- VPN usage when working from public locations
As a final point, many staff members now work remotely or travel to other sites during their working day. At times, employees may find that they’re working in public locations where they have access to free Wi-Fi connections. However, in these circumstances, it’s vitally important that staff have access to a secure and reliable virtual private network (VPN) when using company tech equipment or sending corporate information.
VPNs work by hiding your computer, tablet, or smartphone’s IP address when you’re working online. In addition, a VPN will use encryption techniques to ensure that any company data would be illegible if it were to be intercepted. In short, when working from public Wi-Fi locations, a VPN should be considered essential.
