A data breach caused by an unsecured and unsafe IT infrastructure can be costly for your business. Apart from the financial losses, a breach can erode the confidence customers have in you to keep their data safe, and this can spell disaster for your company. When you have an unsecured IT infrastructure, you open up your business to different types of threats including account hijacking, data loss, denial of service attacks, and malware. That is why software such as Kubernetes is used to automatically manage workloads at different levels. But, how do you ensure your IT infrastructure is safe and secure? Keep reading to find out!
Update Your Password Protocols
Many successful cyber-attacks are due to weak passwords that can easily be guessed or brute forced. Access to any part of your IT infrastructure should be protected by a strong password and the password should only be given to those authorized to access specific parts of your infrastructure.
Implement Safer Designs
Businesses can reduce their exposure by implementing safer designs that have very few points of failure and vulnerability. This includes eliminating unnecessary hardware and software as well as restricting physical access to your IT infrastructure hub.
To further reduce risk, you could have your IT specialists create unique email addresses and logins as well as run different servers with unique domain names for all users, departments, and work groups.
Update Your Firewall
Your firewall is a set of programs and rules that protect your network from unauthorized access by users on other networks. A firewall sifts through all traffic and data coming in to see if it should be directed to its destination or not, and blocks unauthorized access to sensitive data.
The level of firewall you get from modern firewall implementations is far superior to what you would have gotten a few years ago and this is why it is so important to hire a cybersecurity specialist to implement next-generation firewalls on your networks. These new firewall implementations detect malware faster and have modern intrusion detection to keep all your data safe.
Update Everything Regularly
Malware poses a serious risk for your infrastructure. Some malware is now sophisticated enough to bypass the security measures you put in place. The best way to remove these vulnerabilities is to ensure your anti-virus software is always up to date.
Additionally, you should update your software and hardware regularly. This is because each piece of software and hardware you use has vulnerabilities that become known quickly. Patching security vulnerabilities, installing the latest updates, and ensuring your hardware is always up to date are all ways to help protect your infrastructure from hardware and software vulnerabilities.
Teach Employees About Email Vulnerabilities
There are two main threats that come with using email; the risk of infections and phishing scams. You and your employees should never click on email attachments whose source you are not sure about. These attachments may contain a payload of trojans, malware, worms, or viruses that can infect your whole network.
Phishing scams use email addresses and designs that may be familiar to you to try to trick you into clicking on a link. The end-point of these links might require you to provide sensitive information to solve an issue or something similar. If you receive such an email, delete the email and then visit the direct URL of the company or organization that seemingly needs this information to see if there is something you should know about.
Protecting your IT infrastructure is usually about knowing what threats exist and how to avoid them. Also, putting protective measures in place will save you a lot of grief in the future.
Infographic created by Donnelley Financial Solutions, an SEC filing software company
