The Problem
According to the National Federation of Small Businesses, small firms across the UK suffer a whopping 10,000 cyber-attacks per day. Yet, companies are not as prepared as they think. Alternatively, they are inaccurately assessing their readiness.
The average cyber-attack costs small firms more than £1,300. Despite this scary figure, 35% of small firms say they have not installed any security software for the last two years. Furthermore, 40% do not regularly update software.
Increasingly, systems contain a larger volume of sensitive or commercially valuable data. Furthermore, the increase in sophistication, breadth and frequency of threats has made this data more vulnerable. Moreover, the rise of home working has also increased the vulnerability of data as computers leave the safety of a closed workplace network. As a result, this means that it is more important than ever to stay on top of security.
What steps should you be taking to prevent cyber-attacks?
- Make sure you have antivirus software on everything. In addition, it needs to be automatically updated and monitored to work effectively.
- All systems need to be automatically updated. Hackers use vulnerabilities in software to attack. You can fix these vulnerabilities with regular updates from Microsoft and others.
- Configure your firewall correctly. A firewall is a software or device that makes your computer or little group of computers safe from the dangers of the internet.
- Monitoring of security is vital. If you do not closely watch your systems things can go wrong.
- Have a backup that you can quickly and easily restore from if everything else fails. Test it to make sure you know how to recover the things most critical to you and how long it will take. A common mistake is to copy data onto a backup which also gets infected with a cryptovirus. There are ways to prevent this, but it takes careful thought and configuration.
How can Northstar help?
If you need a little help with any of the above points or don’t even know where to start Northstar can help. For just £3/ month/ computer, Northstar can monitor your network security, while keeping you in control of your systems. Get in touch today to find out more.
