It is Cybersecurity Awareness Month and here at Kansas City Managed IT we want to make sure you have the basics implemented at your offices.
Anti-virus
A program that scans your computer and monitors it for nefarious activity. Unfortunately, not all anti-virus programs are created equal. To truly get the protection you need, you will need to put a more robust anti-virus in place. Here at Kansas City Managed IT, our IT specialists tend to utilize Webroot Anti-virus.
SIEM For Logging and Alerting
Security Information and Event Management systems (SIEMs) monitor computer/server traffic to identify malicious activity and alerts you to the issue. This is important, and different than traditional anti-virus due to its real-time alerting and activity monitoring. Usually with a SIEM, there is also a SOC. A SOC, or Security Operations Center, has security specialists analyzing logs to identify abnormalities and make you aware of them immediately.
Implementing SIEM software is integral in creating a strong cyber defense, preventing ransomware and malicious intrusions.
Security Awareness Training
As the technical landscape continues to change, so does importance of employee awareness. Security Awareness training provides continuous training for employees in a company to provides the tools and information to prevent the possible threats from effecting your company. A complete security awareness training plan should include fake phishing attacks, regular training, security quizzes and newsletters. These will keep security at the forefront of employees’ minds.
DNS Protection
DNS prevents you from going to malicious sites that have been previously been identified as malicious. This lessens the chance of you or your employees visiting a site that could be infected with ransomeware.
Firewall With Geo-location and Content Filtering
Firewall gives the ability to create rules to monitor/allow certain traffic in and out of your network. Geo-location allows you to prevent traffic from going in or out from certain geographic locations. Some locations are more prone to malicious activity than others, so it just blocks them. Content filtering blocks based on categories such as social media, shopping, weapons.
Mobile VPN
Mobile VPN is an additional layer of protection for you mobile devices. Most of us are doing some form of work on our phones such as checking emails and logging into programs that are important for day-to-day operations. By having a mobile VPN, you are adding another layer of protection against hackers and viruses on your phone.
Properly Configured Backup Encrypted and Disconnected From Servers
Backups are one of the most important technical pieces a company can have in place. Unfortunately, like anti-virus, not all backups are created equal. It is important to have a backup that is properly configured, encrypted and disconnected from servers to prevent ransomware from affecting backups.