Each October, Australian business owners are reminded of the need to be cyber wise and stay secure online thanks to Cybersecurity Awareness Month.
With cybercrime reports increasing, Cybersecurity Awareness Month is an initiative of the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) and The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) to educate individuals, businesses and organisations on the importance of cybersecurity and as a result, create a safer digital environment for all.
Be cyber wise – don’t compromise this Cyber Security Awareness Month
The theme for Cyber Security Awareness Month in 2023 is: be cyber wise – don’t compromise. Businesses that fail to follow cyber security protocols put themselves at greater risk of breaches and potential loss of their data.
To help guide businesses to become more cyber wise this Cyber Security Awareness month, the ASD and ACSC have provided five tips that can help boost your cyber security. Let’s look at each of these tips in detail and discuss how Adept IT Solutions can provide further assistance to assist you with this process.
Tip 1: update your devices regularly
Regularly updating devices is paramount for maintaining cybersecurity as cybercriminals often exploit software vulnerabilities to gain unauthorised access to systems.
As part of the ASD and ACSC’s Essential Eight mitigation strategies, businesses are recommended to complete regular patching applications to their software and operating systems to help prevent the increasing risk of cyberattacks.
Patch management, or patching, is the process of applying updates to software and systems to protect against any potential vulnerabilities. Both software vendors and operating system companies such as Microsoft, Apple macOS and Linux provide regular updates to their programs to fix performance bugs and add enhanced security features to help combat cybersecurity risks. Adept IT Solutions has a robust system in place to ensure patching updates to software and operating systems are completed for our clients.
Another way to protect devices is to ensure antivirus software is up to date. This enables your system to detect and combat new malware threats effectively. Employing an intrusion detection system (IDS) and intrusion prevention system (IPS) and updating their signatures regularly helps identify and thwart emerging threats. Adept IT Solutions ensure the latest virus definitions are completed for our clients.
Firewalls, too, require firmware updates to strengthen their security and protect against unauthorized access. By staying proactive with updates with the help of Adept IT Solutions, you fortify your devices against evolving cyber threats and enhance their overall resilience.
Tip 2: protect your accounts with Multi-Factor Authentication
Another Essential Eight mitigation strategy, Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) provides an additional security control for login credentials and passwords used to access software systems and programs.
By requiring users to provide multiple forms of verification such as passwords and additional pins sent to a smart phone or token, MFA reduces the risk of unauthorised access even if passwords become compromised.
Adept IT Solutions assist our clients with configuing MFA and hardware authentication tokens on a range of software packages including Microsoft 365, VPN access, remote server authentication requests and a range of accounting packages to name a few.
Tip 3: complete regular back ups
Completing daily backups of your data is one of the Essential Eight supporting strategies when it comes to protecting your business against cybersecurity.
Without regular and reliable backups, organisations put themself at risk of losing valuable information and recovery from cyber incidents can become significantly more challenging and costly. A regular backup helps business owners to ensure their critical data can be restored quickly, minimising data loss and operational disruptions.
Adept IT Solutions offers offsite backup facilities where our clients can ensure their data is kept safe. We also provide cloud-based solutions which have additional security measures in place designed to protect cloud-based infrastructure, applications and data.
Tip 4: use passphrases and password managers
Password managers are crucial for cybersecurity as they generate and store unique, strong passphrases for online accounts that are generally longer and more complex than traditional passwords, making them harder for hackers to crack them.
When users create their own passwords without a password manager, they often make the mistake of not using enough characters, upper and lower-case letters, numbers or symbols which can make passwords more easily accessible. Users also often re-use passwords or choose phrases which are obvious, including the use of the word “Password.” “ABC123” or names and dates familiar to them that might be easy to obtain.
Adept IT Solutions recommends Keeper enterprise password management to our clients.
According to Keeper, “81 per cent of breaches are due to a failure to secure passwords, credentials and secrets.”
Adept IT Solutions can set up and provide user support for our clients to use this enterprise password management software.
Tip 5: be a cyber wise business with the help of Adept IT Solutions
There are a variety of online resources alongside the Essential Eight mitigation strategies available to help businesses and government agencies improve their cybersecurity and become more cyber wise during Cyber Security Awareness month and beyond.
Adept IT Solutions assist our clients to implement these strategies and continue to provide education for business owners and their staff to become more cyber wise through comprehensive cyber security awareness training.
If you would like to learn more about our services or our cutting-edge cyber security awareness and training platform this Cyber Security Awareness Month, click here. Or feel free to contact Adept IT Solutions on 1300 4 23378 (ADEPT) or email us at info@adept-it.com.au.
