These days, more and more businesses are wary of cyberattacks—and rightly so. Cyberattacks are increasingly common, and studies show that small businesses tend to be the primary targets. Being hit by a cyber-attack could lead to the loss of sensitive information, including customer payment information as well as employee records. Thankfully, there are steps business IT teams can take to keep their networks secure.
Here are five steps for doing just that: how to secure your network infrastructure and mitigate your risk of online attack.
Secure Network Infrastructure Best Practices
Conduct an Audit
The first thing you can do is conduct a simple network security audit. Working with your full IT team, do some digging into the company’s network security practice, and also analyze each asset to see what kind of precautions are being taken.
To really get the most out of your audit, you might even bring in a third-party team that specializes in network infrastructure services; they’ll know the best practices inside and out and can identify potential breaches that you might overlook.
Hold Training Sessions
This may come as a surprise to you, but the overwhelming majority of cyberattacks stem from employee behavior—e.g., employees opening suspicious emails, visiting mysterious links, installing unapproved software, etc.
What this means is that, simply by conducting some training sessions with your full team, you can help minimize the risk of getting attacked. Instruct employees on secure network infrastructure best practices and provide regular updates of new attacks and scams. Awareness is key! And again, you can bring in some outside network infrastructure services if you’d like added expertise.
Limit User Access Privileges
Another important step in keeping your network safe and secure? Limit user access privileges to what’s truly necessary for work.
This is what’s sometimes known as a ‘Policy of Least Privilege’, or POLP, and it basically means that your employees have access to the bare minimum—just the network resources required for them to get their job completed.
The reason this is so important? Some cyber crimes are inside jobs, and a POLP will help you protect your company against data theft by your own employees. This is a critical precaution to take.
(See also: Securing network infrastructure devices.)
Patch Your Software
Another thing you can do is make sure you are regularly patching your business software. Companies are constantly finding little bugs or loopholes in their software products, which can be exploited by hackers to gain access to your system. When you fail to keep up with the latest software security patches, you leave your business open to major threats and vulnerable to hacking.
Make sure you have an IT team that has the right resources to stay on top of these patches; managed IT services can help augment your existing team if it’s stretched too thin.
Review Your Tools
One final step is to ensure a secure network design infrastructure—specifically, reviewing the security tools at your disposal. Think in terms of antivirus software, remote backups, and firewalls.
No company can have all the available tools applied, but do make sure you’re using enough of the available resources to secure your network effectively.
Learn More About Secure Network Design Infrastructure
If you have any questions about how to build and maintain a secure network, we invite you to reach out to us at any time. Salient is a proud provider of secure network infrastructure services, and it’s our pleasure to work with small businesses throughout the country.
Contact us today to find out more about our technology and communication solutions, or to take a proactive step toward securing your network infrastructure.