Cyber Security - The Cyber Security Puzzle

Staying safe online and keeping your business secure takes a combination of technology, education and awareness efforts. 

As with your home, you protect it with insurance, door locks and alarm systems, it is the same approach for cybersecurity. There are many doors cybercriminals can try to gain unwanted access to your systems that require different measures of protection. 

As an IT Support provider who specialises in cyber security and remote IT Support, it is important to us that the Australian community remains informed with the best advice and knowledge of today's cyber threats. We do our best to education our team and our clients on all the cybersecurity measures that are relevant to them so we can all be safe online. 

There are many pieces of the cyber security puzzle, here are a few to get started: 

What is Phishing

Phishing, is a way cybercriminals attempt to gain unwanted access to your systems through sending malicious emails. Spear phishing, is a targeted email campaign. The cybercriminal will often know intimate details of your business and can make their emails look convincing. They may send an email containing an attachment, which could have a virus embedded, or they may send an invoice that looks real, in order to steal money, or it might be a link to a website that automatically downloads malicious software to your computer. 

How to Protect Yourself from a Phishing Attack

There are many IT tools available that can help protect you from a phishing attack, those combined with education on how to spot a harmful email are you best defenses against phishing. If you use Microsoft Office 365, you can use this free email threat scanner to see if there is anything untoward lurking in your mailbox.

What is Malware

The term malware refers to software that damages devices, steals data and in general, causes chaos. Malware is an abbreviation of "malicious software," is a type of computer program whose purpose is to infect a computer. Targets often do not realise they are downloading something malicious as often, it will appear to be legitimate. 

Malware today is almost entirely designed by criminals as a means of personal gain. Cyber criminals use a long list of ever growing tactics to evade detection while acquiring stolen, digital property. 

How to Protect Yourself from Malware

Malware makes its way onto computers through many different doors, so protection from Malware takes a variety of tools. Anti-virus, containerisation, email and web filtering and a business grade firewall, combined with education are all great starting points. Knowing how to spot malicious websites and emails, and knowing what to do if you have been breached, will go a long way to keeping you and your business safe. 

How to Protect your Remote Workforce

Now, more than ever it is important that we are providing our teams, who are working away from the office, with all the tools they need to stay safe online. Providing remote IT support, and an IT checklist for home users is a great way to get started. 

How to Protect your Remote Workforce 

Provide your team with detail on how they can protect their home wifi setup, enable two factor authentication across your applications, conduct regular phishing tests, implement email security and work towards creating a cyber security culture. 

What is Encryption

Encryption is a form of protecting your data. Once your data is encrypted, unless you have the key or password to unlock it, your data will be jumbled up and almost useless to any unintended viewer. 

How to setup encryption

For most computers, the ability to encrypt is built in and free, check out our article to learn how to set it up. There are tools available for sending encrypted emails and also for keeping your business data encrypted. These vary depending on the type of IT setup you have, we can help you choose which encryption method is right for you. 

Our Invitation To You

To understand how to fit all the pieces of the cyber security puzzle, Powernet and Barracuda invite you to attend our Cyber Security webinar. Attendees get access to exclusive discount pricing from Barracuda.