Dealing with cyber threats has becoming an increasingly frustrating challenge as hackers find new and innovative ways to breach online security, steal data and destroy your technology. If we can be certain of anything in 2016, it’s that the threat of web criminals is not going away any time soon. Here at Bits and PCs, we know that keeping on top of your IT security updates is crucial for keeping your webspace safe and that not being on the ball can do untold damage to your business. Here are our cyber security predictions for the coming year, so you and your IT support systems can plan ahead.
With cyber criminals on the rise and more and more automated attacks searching for tiny breaches in IT systems worldwide, it is more or less impossible to prevent a security breach altogether. Individuals and businesses need to make web and data security an integral part of their practice so that when the worst occurs, they are ready to respond.
Using a multitude of strategies will ensure you are best protected against a breach. Consider, for instance, using strong firewalls together with software that will carry out penetration testing, which looks for any malicious activity within your network. In addition, you should ensure your IT software is always up-to-date with the latest security updates. A common and very easy website exploitation is ‘SQL injection’, which is a concern if your website produces dynamic content from a database back-end as it allows hackers to fetch whatever results they want from your database. It is also easily prevented with some forethought and the right advice.
Ensure that the passwords you use are strong and that visitors to your website do the same. By forcing people to use a mixture of upper case and lower case letters, as well as numbers and special characters, you give yourself and your employees less chance of having your passwords compromised. Passwords and personal data should always be stored using hashing. By using ‘salting’ – adding a randomly generated value prior to hashing – you can strengthen your stored password hashes.
Website security breaches can devastate the way a business operates, compromise personal data and cause untold damage to its online standing. Information is, without doubt, your most important resource and by looking into and assessing cyber threats that may harm, you have a greater chance of mitigating their effects when they happen.
Our business IT support service in London has a wealth of experience in installing, implementing and upgrading backup and security protocols for businesses throughout the capital. We can ensure your IT systems are running smoothly and securely and give you peace of mind that, if your data security is breached, your company will be best placed to respond. For all your IT security needs, give us a call on 0207 22 11 355.
Crackers by elhombredenegro licensed under Creative commons 4