BLOG

Cybersecurity 2022: Best IT Security Support Tips and Trends for Businesses

Nowadays, cybercriminals are more capable and adept at covering their tracks, hiding in the cloud, and manipulating internal system infrastructures to exploit some often hard-to-spot vulnerabilities. Indeed, Onsite Helper is a firm believer that no business is too small to prioritise IT security solutions and support.

This blog summarises the Cybersecurity best practices 2022: IT Security Support that every business should know.

Consequently, we highly recommend that businesses of any size apply these IT security support and maintenance practises to their mindset coming into 2022.

Cybercrime in 2022

Studies suggest that by 2022, there will be about 28.5 billion networked devices around the world. This number increased significantly from 2017’s 18 billion networked devices. What does this mean for businesses around the world?

Businesses left, right, and centre will continue to face old and new threats on a regular basis. Two of the most common ones that businesses face are phishing scams and ransomware. Despite being old, cybercriminals still find a way to trick people who aren’t fully aware of the scam and how to best deal with it. The aforementioned threats can be threatening to companies with untrained personnel. Due to this, Onsite Helper has prepared this simple checklist of the best IT security solutions tips and trends. This will hopefully serve as a guideline for your business to better deal with the threats that cybercriminals have to offer in 2022.

Back in 2020, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, most businesses transitioned to a work-from-home model. This is true not only in Australia but all over the world. As a response, cybercriminals also moved to remote operations. As a matter of fact, a report suggests that about 20% of the cybersecurity incidents from that year occurred during the height of the pandemic.

Such high numbers should serve as a wake-up call for businesses. It’s about time that organisations understand cyber threats and risks. Moreover, they should learn to do everything in their power to prevent data leaks and breaches.

Best IT security solutions and tips for businesses in 2022

Layered Cyber Security

Small and medium-sized businesses are highly vulnerable to cyber attacks as they often only have 1 or 2 layers of IT security in place, this would be like leaving your house and only locking the door. It would be very easy for a criminal to break in, so to stay protected, you would want:

Safe – any hackers or cybercriminals shouldn’t be able to guess or research your answer.
Memorable – your answer should be something that is easy for you to remember.
Consistent – your answer should be something that doesn’t change over time.
Has a lot of options or answers – your answer should have a lot of different possible answers so any cybercriminal would have a hard time guessing it.

Backup your data

A data backup IT security solution is one of the best ways to protect your precious data from a ransomware attack. Ransomware is a form of malicious software. All it takes to set it off is an accidental clicking of a malicious link. This link targets any unsuspecting employee. Once deployed, all of your data is now taken hostage.

Regularly keeping an updated backup of your data protects you from ransomware attacks. In an event where your system falls victim to a ransomware attack, you can easily restore back your data thanks to your backup.

Conduct IT security training

As mentioned earlier, no business is too small to prioritize IT security solutions and maintenance. It’s a good practice for businesses to conduct IT security training and cybersecurity awareness workshops. This will better train and educate employees to navigate the internet and your system with more care. This practice will greatly reduce cyberattacks caused by human error and employee negligence. Overall, this will result in a significant improvement in your organization’s IT security.

How to improve your IT security solutions today!

IT Security Audit Services

Onsite Helper is a business IT support provider based in Australia that specialises in Managed IT systems, IT maintenance, security solutions, ransomware prevention, everything Google Workspace, and so much more.

We have developed a FREE and comprehensive IT Security Audit that will immediately show you any vulnerabilities in your system and how to properly address them. This FREE IT security audit service has helped businesses in Melbourne and all across Australia.

Get your free IT security audit here and don’t hesitate to contact Onsite Helper for any concerns!

Application Authorization – this means only selected applications can be used and no software or settings can be installed by staff. Additionally, this prevents Ransomware and other malicious software from infecting devices.
Managed Antivirus solution – great for alerting IT if there are any issues.
Patch Management -insures all operating system patches and 3rd party applications stay up to date and secure.
Web Protection – will prevent malicious or inappropriate website access for staff.
Mail Protection – stops SPAM and virus emails from being delivered to staff inbox’s.
Monitoring & Alerts – to alert IT if there are any issues with the computers hardware, software or security.
Multi-factor Authentication – will protect the cloud applications being used as it requires a code sent to a mobile phone for access. Far more secure than password only access.
Password Management allows for shared company passwords to remain secret. It prevents you having to change all your passwords when staff leave, which often doesn’t happen and is a huge security risk.
Backups – its important to backup your shared data as well as cloud applications like emails & docs in Google Workspace or Office 365.

Outsource your IT to the experts: Managed Services

Onsite Helper’s Managed Services focuses on IT security, business continuity and business process improvements. We have 3 package offerings, all of which have the essential IT security requirements managed by us.

Call Onsite Helper today for more information.

Create a strong password policy in your organisation

Protect your organisation’s network and reduce the odds of someone infiltrating your system by establishing a strong password policy within your company. Also, ensure your password hasn’t been leaked online.

What’s the best guideline to follow for a strong password policy?

Create longer passwords – for a safe and strong password, the minimum length of your password should be at least 15 characters. Similarly, the more characters you can add, the safer your password will be.
Mix different kinds of characters – your password should be a combination of uppercase and lowercase alphanumeric characters and different symbols.
Prohibit dictionary words – Don’t use simple dictionary words in your password, especially ones that can be easily linked to you like “computer” or “lavender”.
Regularly change passwords – have your employees change their passwords at regular intervals. Do this monthly, quarterly, or as often as you would like. Just make sure that your employees remember their passwords or know how to access them.
Use a password manager – oftentimes, when regular password changes are done, your employees might not easily remember their new passwords or they might lose that sheet of paper where they wrote down their new password. For this reason, it’s great to have a password manager like LastPass. Password managers can auto-generate complex passwords and they can safely store and encrypt your passwords for you. You can access your passwords through a master password.
Don’t use memorable keyboard paths – passwords such as ‘qwerty’, ‘1234567890’, or “!@#$%^&*()” are memorable keyboard paths. These are very common and easy to infiltrate.

Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA)

Multi-factor authentication is a powerful IT security feature that prevents unauthorised users from accessing sensitive company data. Multi-factor authentication may be in the form of two-factor authentication or two-step verification. Two-factor authentication and two-step verification have a lot of benefits. It can greatly enhance your overall IT security.

Multi-factor authentication simply means that you’re requiring users to use a combination of different biometric elements to access an account. This ensures that the one accessing the account is actually the owner of the account or someone that is authorised to access it. The common forms of authentication are via SMS, emails, security questions, or security codes.

Set tougher security questions

Security questions add another layer of IT security by forcing users to answer questions that only the authorised person would know. This method highly prevents imposters from accessing sensitive data.

The best and most secure security questions are the ones that will make it easy for authorised users to authenticate themselves. What should these security questions be like?

Safe – any hackers or cybercriminals shouldn’t be able to guess or research your answer.
Memorable – your answer should be something that is easy for you to remember.
Consistent – your answer should be something that doesn’t change over time.
Has a lot of options or answers – your answer should have a lot of different possible answers so any cybercriminal would have a hard time guessing it.