How Can Businesses Combat Cybercrime?

Cybercrime is a very real threat that all business owners need to be concerned about. The last thing you want is a catastrophic loss of data or a serious breach that exposes all your customers to potential identity theft. There are steps you can take to prevent this from happening. You must understand how your business can combat cybercrime.

Use Multiple Authentication Techniques

The first step is to start using multiple authentication techniques for your information technology infrastructure. This means requiring more than a simple password to access your systems and servers. There are many different options available from hardware authentication and biometrics to unique keys you can assign to each employee on thumb drives. This makes it harder for cybercriminals to penetrate your network.
 

Perform Regular Security Audits

You are going to want to perform comprehensive security audits on a regular basis. These audits involve testing the vulnerabilities of your entire infrastructure. Audits also look at the behaviors of the people using your networks. A good audit can reveal surprising vulnerabilities early enough so that you can fix them before cybercriminals exploit the security gaps.
 

Hire the Right Staff

You need to have the right staff to actively monitor and defend your servers from attack. This means hiring an experienced information security manager who can stop cybercriminals effectively. This is a person with a formal degree such as an online master degree in information assurance. The right staff members can be more effective at stopping cybercrime than the best encryption and firewalls.
 

Encrypt Everything

The next step is to encrypt everything. Encryption can protect all of your data. You want to encrypt your storage drives and backups. Encrypt any wireless signals you use. Encrypt your network traffic using something like a virtual private network with tunneling protocols. Encryption can stop attacks and make anything the hackers do steal inaccessible.
 

Protect Physical Assets

Cybercriminals can use physical assets from your business to get into your servers and network. You must protect all your information technology systems. Shred any drives or storage disks that are thrown away. Use strict access control for server rooms. Physically lock down computers and peripherals. Protecting your physical assets is critical for preventing cybercrime.
 
You need to be constantly vigilant when it comes to your information technology systems. A single weakness can be exploited by a hacker to wreak havoc on your business. Hiring the right experts, hardening your systems against attack and performing regular audits will all help your business to combat cybercrime.