How To Defend Your Business From Malware Attacks?

1. How To Defend Your Business From  Malware Attacks?    Thought malware was all grown up and had reached its peak? Not a chance; there is always a new  malware, or two, or thousand crawling onto the threat landscape, trying to steal our data and  invade our privacy. Just look at some of the statistics:     Data breaches exposed 4.1 billion records in the first half of 2019 and Reason Labs reports that it  detects over 24 million new threats per month. The financial damages caused by breaches? They  are predicted to reach $6 trillion annually by 2021​.    It’s as if defending our data and privacy has become a bad chapter in “The Neverending Story”.  And hackers see businesses, large and small, as particularly attractive targets because they hold  such valuable data.     Yes, small businesses too: 43% of breach victims were small businesses and smaller  organizations actually have the highest rate of targeted malicious emails. Even the smallest of  businesses have data that hackers want.     From passwords to gain access to other accounts to bank credentials to email accounts and  more, there’s plenty there for them to steal.    But don’t fret business owners! You can protect your business. You just need to be proactive.     

2.     How to take proactive measures to defend your business    Yes, proactive, that overly-used buzzword of the 80s and 90s is exactly what you need to be if you  want to protect your business from malware attacks.     Fortunately, there are effective, easy-to-implement, affordable, and proactive cybersecurity  measures you can take that will keep your business safe.     Here are seven top tips for defending your business from malware attacks.   

3.     1. Stay up to date on the latest cyber attacks​.     Staying up to date keeps you informed about the threats that are relevant to your particular  business, helps you better recognize scams, and improves your knowledge about the best  cybersecurity methods.     And if there is one thing we know about the Internet, it’s that it makes it simple to stay  informed. There are plenty of security professionals, as well as news websites and ​blogs  written by cybersecurity experts​, that you can follow.    At the end of the day, all of us have a duty to protect not just ourselves and our businesses,  but also our customers, and our communities.    

4. 2. Conduct employee training​. -     Educate your team about emails. Teach them about different types of malware and phishing  attacks and advise them not to open attachments or click on links from unknown senders.  Also, remind them to delete suspicious-looking email or content.    3. Install a ​security antivirus​ solution​.     Installing a powerful, managed ​anti-malware ​solution is one of the most important  measures you can take to protect your business from malware attacks. This cannot be  stressed enough.         A managed antivirus will protect all your systems, not just one of them, is continual, and  provides the same level of security for all your systems.     Look for a solution with a powerful ​malware scanner​ that can detect and prevent not just  known cyber threats, but also zero-day or new and emerging threats.    4. Keep software up-to-date​.  

5.   Always patch vulnerabilities as soon as possible and make sure your employees’ computers  have updated software and operating systems. If you have a managed anti-malware and  privacy protection​ solution for your business,         this will be done automatically for all devices from the dashboard, but if you have individual  antivirus solutions for each device, you will have to do this for each system every time there  is an update.     5. Require strong passwords​.     Make sure your employees understand and use the recommended best practices for  passwords. Passwords should be at least 10 characters long and they should include upper  and lower case letters, numbers, and non-alphanumeric characters.    

6.       Also, forbid employees from sharing passwords and using the same password for multiple  logins.     6. Delete unused or old accounts, and user profiles and credentials​.     Unused accounts or employee credentials or profiles can be abused by other employees,  ex-employees, or simply fall into the wrong hands. This can give unauthorized persons  access to company resources and expose valuable data, which can lead to data breaches.  Make sure all unused accounts are promptly deleted.    7. Don’t let your hardware get stolen​.     With all the focus on software vulnerabilities, it’s easy to forget that stolen hard drives and  thumb drives will leave you vulnerable to attack too. Make sure your devices are physically  secured and ​difficult to steal​.      

7.             Most desktop computer cases, for example, have a slot that you can attach a padlock to so  it can’t be opened without a key. There are also cable locks that can prevent laptop theft.  Also, if you replace an old drive with a new one,     before disposing of the old drive, make sure it is no longer readable by using disk driver  eraser software; simply deleting the data isn’t enough as most data-recovery software can  easily recover deleted data.    Conclusion   

8. As much as we’d like to think otherwise, it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that cybercrime is  never going to grow up, reach its peak, or get over itself. The motivation for hackers is just too  great.     Cybercrime will always be part of “The Neverending Story”. Therefore, businesses must also insert  their own chapter into the story and continuously make the effort to maintain the integrity of their  systems and protect their data.     Thankfully, doing so isn’t difficult and it’s a small price to pay to safeguard your business.