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How not to get hacked in 2022

If you’re a digitally transformed enterprise, you’ll store and access sensitive corporate and customer data every day--and you have to protect it.

While  digital transformation helps boost productivity, optimize operations, and enhance customer experiences, if you’re not careful, you can also increase your risk exposure.

Threat actors, for example, regularly attempt to breach enterprises through various methods, including phishing campaigns. This makes it vital to ensure that your staff are regularly trained and alert to social engineering attacks.

However, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. According to Cisco Data, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are projected to grow to $15.4 million by 2023. Then we have ransomware attacks, SQL injections, third-party breaches, misconfigurations, and a whole lot more to deal with.

How do you protect yourself?

The good news is you can protect yourself from potential cyberattacks. However, it requires a multi-pronged approach and a team effort.

Train staff regularly

As human error continues to be the weakest link in the security chain, it’s crucial to keep staff aware and alert to social engineering attacks. By regularly engaging in cybersecurity awareness workshops, you can also build a security culture within the organization.

Update immediately

It’s vital to update and patch all software whenever it’s available. However, small businesses often don’t have the capacity to stay on top of regular updates and patch releases. Whenever this is the case, it’s best to move your operation up to the cloud, where it’ll happen automatically.

By keeping your software patched and up to date, there won’t be any potential vulnerabilities for threat actors to exploit.

Always use strong and unique passwords

When it comes to cyberattacks, it’s not a question of “if” but “when.” As such, it’s vital to always use strong and unique passwords. It’s also important not to use the same password twice to limit your risk exposure.

Always use MFA

While strong and unique passwords help protect businesses, it’s important to add another security layer through multi-factor authentication (MFA). This approach makes it much harder for threat actors to breach enterprise systems.

Encrypt sensitive data

In the unfortunate event of a data breach, encryption works as your last line of defense. This is because encrypted data will be rendered meaningless without a corresponding decryption key. This makes it critical to always encrypt your data and keep it off dark web marketplaces.

Engage ethical hackers

The best way to protect yourself against hackers is to think like one. That’s why it’s important to hire an ethical hacking service to identify and resolve potential vulnerabilities missed by your in-house IT team.

Enforce restricted access

To mitigate the risk of human error and insider threats, employees should only have access to what they need to get the job done. This approach will help stop lateral movement within your environment in the event of a breach.

Practice good cybersecurity hygiene

In the current threat landscape, we can’t afford to slip up even for a second. After all, it only takes one small mistake to make the headlines. So, it’s important to always follow cybersecurity best practices.

If everyone in the organization follows established (and continuously updated) security standards and best practices, it will be a massive challenge to breach enterprise infrastructure.

As you can see from the above, it’s going to take some effort to avoid getting hacked in the new year. As we are all a live target, it’s worth the effort to prevent a data breach and potential compliance violations.

How secure is your IT infrastructure? Reach out for a comprehensive security audit.



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