10 Cyber Security Measures That Every Small Business Must Take

Basic info on protecting yourself or your organization from online dangers.  If nothing else a good review & re-enforcement of cybersecurity basics.  From Tech Cocktail:

10 Cyber Security Measures That Every Small Business Must Take

Let me expand on some of the tips listed in the article.

1. Anti-virus software - Don't go with the off the shelf boxes you can get at any computer/office supply store.  Look into several vendors and contact them directly.  Often you will get a better per user price.  Most will also offer some type of management platform from which your IT Staff can monitor and remediate any issues found.  THIS IS NOT AN ENDORSEMENT - McAfee ePO and Symantec Endpoint Protection are easy to set up, use and deploy.

2. More on complex passwords here and here.

3. As with #1 do not go with a cheap firewall you can purchase from a computer/office supply store.  These are ok for home use but not if you are trying to protect your SOHO or SMB.  This is one area where you want to consider allocating financial resources to.  THIS IS NOT AN ENDORSEMENT - most major manufacturers; Cisco, Juniper, CheckPoint, Palto Alto, McAfee ... offer cost effective SOHO/SMB products that are more suitable to an organizations needs.  Sophos offers a free UTM device that many SOHO/SMB's will find meets their needs - see here.

4. Utilize full disk encryption (FDE) on any laptops that are used outside the office.  Consider encrypting file shares or other sensitive data.

5. Beware of phishing attacks.  An effective user awareness program will help reduce this risk as will good anti-virus software and perimeter defenses like firewalls or hardware spam filters like thos offered from THIS IS NOT AN ENDORSEMENT Cisco IronPort. McAfee Email & Web Security and Barracuda.

6. Employ the principle of least privilege, only give users enough access rights to perform their jobs.  Perform regular audits of any file shares on your network and remove any users who have left the company or no longer require access to the information contained on that share.

7.  There's no excuse for not having a backup to restore lost data from.  Hard drives are cheap so disk-to-disk backup is an inexpensive option.  THIS IS NOT AN ENDORSEMENT - Services like Carbonite, iDrive and Mozy also offer excellent cloud based backup services.

8. This should be a no brainer.  Use WPA-2 at a minimum.  If your access points don't support this then its time to upgrade.  MAC address filtering is also a good option.  However it can require a bit of time & resources to manage if you have a larger SMB or a high turnover rate.

9. Develop & enforce a policy for protecting laptops & smartphones used for company business.  As discussed above FDE & strong passwords are a good start.  If you have a large number of these devices seriously consider implementing a remote wiping solution.

10. This is probably the most important aspect of cybersecurity for you SOHO/SMB.  Owners, principals & partners must all come together and develop policies and guidelines for cybersecurity.  Let your IT staff write the procedures for getting things done.  A good cybersecurity program only works of it is implemented from the top down.