How secure is your business?
Date posted: July 02, 2009
When running your own business you usually don’t have time to make yourself a cup of coffee, let alone deal with computer viruses or wade through unsolicited e-mails. Making sure your business is protected against viruses and spam should be something every business thinks about.
The online community is an exciting place full of exciting opportunities for businesses with sites like Loopthing and Twitter. The rewards that can come as a direct result of having your business online is extraordinary. However, it’s does unfortunately contain a small number of individuals looking to do harm with viruses, spam and phishing. Many are in it for the financial gain while others are looking to simply deface your website/profile. It’s important that you be aware of existing threat in order to know how to protect your business from this potential harm.
Don’t panic, there are many tools that can help to protect your business.
Virus protection
This is an absolute. If you don’t have anti-virus software installed on your PC/MAC you are leaving yourself wide open to attack. Viruses, worms and Trojans can access your computer with no problem whatsoever. They may simply cause you some problems in terms of your computers speed or more worryingly steal information from you. Many people think that anti-virus software is only needed on computers with an internet connection. Wrong! Transferable media such as USB sticks, cd’s, DVD’s and external hard drives can contain viruses that can transfer themselves from these devices.
You can download the popular AVG software for free. It comes with a firewall that will also help protect your computer.
Other software is also out there such as Norton and McAfee. These are also great tools. They do cost more than AVG but it certainly won’t break the bank.
Password protection
Whether it’s a few PCs or hundreds, there’s one thing that can prevent your computer from being compromised: a great password. Hackers are out there trying to access computers all the time using software that tries to guess passwords. It starts with trying every character, then tries two-character combinations and so on. For your security, the longer the password the better as it becomes more difficult to guess. On Loopthing we were extremely conscious of your protection. That’s why we require a certain number of characters to be used for password. A password that is eight characters in length and utilizes lower and upper case letters, numbers and keyboard characters won’t be cracked for two years according to experts. Choose wisely!
Never give out your password to anyone outside the business. Who knows what they may do with it. It’s also important that you change your password frequently. It doesn’t have to be every week but should be done at least 3 times a year. Imagine if someone leaves the business. If you don’t change your password they can still have access to all your information. Simply changing this password is all it takes to secure your data.
You should have a few different passwords. And I know it can be difficult to remember them all so that’s why I recommend you use a password tool like KeePass. KeePass it a program that allows you to store all your passwords in a secure database on your computer. You can add multiple entries for all your information that has passwords so you can create an entry for your Loopthing account details, your Twitter account, your blog etc. The database is protected by master password that only you’re going to know so nobody is going to be able to access your passwords. A great tool!
To do
There are a number or additional things you should be wary of in order to keep things secure. Here’s a check list that you should know of,
- Keep your computer up to date with the latest Security Updates. These can be found on the manufacturer’s website.
- Ignore junk mail. Never respond to it, just delete it.
- If you use the ‘remember me’ feature on some websites be sure you know who’s accessing your computer.
- When banking and completing online transactions make sure the website is secure. If the address has an ’s’ at the end of http it’s secure. https://www.aib.ie/banking for example. A padlock should also show up in your browser
- Be wary of things you download. Always scan items using an anti-virus. It’s only takes seconds.
The internet is a large and wonderfull place that can offer your business so much in tems of reseace, adverting, marketing and more. A business engaging with the web on sites like Loopthing can grow exponentially if you engage with it correctly. Be safe and aware of what’s out there, while enjoying the wonderfull beneifits to be found.
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