These days, people conduct the majority of their business communications online. Unfortunately, a virus, malware or ransomware can strike users when they least expect it.
Even major cities such as Atlanta, Baltimore and Denver as well as the world’s largest aerospace company, Boeing, experienced significant cyberattacks over the last year. While protection from all hackers cannot be guaranteed, you can help secure your company’s data by implementing these measures:
1. Do NOT open unknown, unexpected or suspicious attachments. Several legitimate-looking emails can trick users into clicking through, simply by changing a letter or two in the company name, email address or logo. An easy way to catch these scams is to check the From address for anything that would look suspicious such as a random string of numbers and letters instead of a name or department before the “@” symbol or a misspelled or unrelated URL.
2. Do NOT go past the warning screen about a potentially bad website in your browser.
3. Do NOT allow your system to run unknown software, macros or updates that pop up out of the blue.
4. Do NOT use the same password for every login and do not give your passwords to anyone. If you must provide access to a site (i.e. a GoDaddy account), have the provider create their own username and password and make them a delegate on your account.
5. Do NOT simply rely on Microsoft and Google to keep up with your emails. Use an external email client such as Outlook and create local copies and archives as often as possible.
Here are three extra steps for administrators:
1. Prevent users without a need from executing Word and Excel Macros via group policy.
2. Prevent users from having full administrative access to workstations and files. Isolating network shared files to only the files each user specifically needs.
3. Use read-only access for files needing to be viewed, i.e. reports and marketing materials.
If you have any further questions, please email Wendy Bozzelli at wbozzelli@aegisfoundry.com.
