6/28/22
Prepare Business Technology for Long Holiday Weekends
Long holiday weekends are wonderful, time off with family and friends, in addition to some much needed downtime. They key to business owners enjoying these great moments stress free is to ensure business technology is best prepared to thwart cyber security issues.
The 4th of July is coming this weekend. Traditionally this is a time that “bad actors” choose to do “bad things”. They take advantage of the holiday. They make a plan to execute something on your network\computers late Friday night, knowing you won’t be at work until Tuesday so they have a long period of time to do “bad things”.
The reality is that cyber criminals tend to strike when targets are not as focused and there are multiple days off to really cement their attack.
It is important to enjoy time off with family and friends, here are the steps businesses can take to be safe and utilize best practices against malware.
Watch out for phishing attacks – phishing attacks are the greatest lead to cyber security issues. Bad actors are creative at making an email look legitimate, creating alarm, and causing team members to click. Please take a moment and provide a reminder to team members to read through and not click if it looks suspicious. (Please see Do Not Click for in-depth information)
Vishing – Bad actors create scenarios of businesses owing money for an unpaid bill or a large purchase that needs to be confirmed and so on. They utilize this reason to call a company and inquire about business details and contact names – or to potentially get a credit card number to process a payment. Please remind your team members to record call back info, and not provide any names or details.
Antivirus – Please ensure that antivirus is current with updates, upgrades, and patches. Malware penetrates old out-of-date hardware and software. Please also be aware that the product should be paid enterprise grade, so that it is dependable, and businesses can trust the product to provide best anti-virus, protection, and security.
Back up – Please test backups by doing a restore and making sure the recovery time and data is accurate. It is far better to know and confirm backups are working, than to regret not testing. In case of attack, backups may be the ONLY way for a business to recover.
Avoid Public WIFI – Public WIFI is obviously not private and exposes team members to potential bad actors using or monitoring the same WIFI. Personal or business data can be exposed as these networks are unprotected and leave team members vulnerable to malware, spyware, and other malicious activity.
Virtual Personal Network (VPN) – Please make it a rule that remote team members utilize a VPN. The VPN masks IP address, location, and search history, to avoid being tracked by websites, internet browsers, and bad actors. The VPN also protects business data in transit or being sent or received by devices.
Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) – Please review and update your business (DRP). This plan will contain strategies for managing IT disruptions to networks, servers, and computers. In case of cyberattack, the Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) will be immediately executed to dramatically reduce the response time and mitigate the attack. Options rapidly deteriorate as time passes following a breach. The longer an attack goes on, the more damage that is done.
Improve your peace of mind BEFORE long holiday weekends to ensure business technology is ready, then enjoy confidently knowing your business has done everything to avoid and stay ahead of cyber security threats.
Please call us if you have questions or we can provide additional information.
