It is important to have a decent spam filter, to filter out unwanted emails before they arrive in your Inbox. We use online spam filters that filter out any emails with viruses, or emails with unsolicited links. You can’t always rely on your staff not clicking on those links.
We run an IT Business and my staff is well educated, however, I still have all our incoming emails scanned by our spam filter.
Every machine on your network, every server on your network, needs to be protected by a reliable antivirus program. We like to use centrally managed antivirus programs, that allow us to go through a central console and very quickly identify any problems. We can also push out scans across the entire network if in the event we suspect a potential breach.
This saves a few hours when trying to identify a problem. If you need help getting an antivirus program installed on your network please contact us.
We believe that educating your staff on a regular basis whether it be in a meeting or by sending out an email once a month. Reminding staff not to click on any unsolicited links, also educating staff on identifying dangerous links and emails, are very important.
There are many ways to identify dodgy links. If you hover your mouse over a particular link, it will show you where that link leads to. There are also things to be aware of when looking at links and making sure they are not dodgy.
If you need help in this particular area or you need a cheat sheet that you can forward to all your staff, please get in contact with our office. The scams are getting smarter every day, as a result, we and our staff need to be on our guard.
It’s important to have an IT Policy that your staff must sign, restricting them from opening up private emails or visiting unsolicited websites. The reason why you need to stop staff from opening private emails is that their emails are not sitting behind your company’s spam filter.
Their emails might not even get scanned when opened on their PC, so it’s important to just put a strict policy in place. That is, “No private emails are allowed to be opened on our network. If you need to look at your private emails, please do so on your private device.”
It is good policy to have regular password changes on your network and have complex passwords in place. There is a lot of hacking taking place when users are using weak passwords. Particularly when these users also have remote access capability.
Even if you have remote access capability on your network, and a user with a weak password doesn’t use remote access, your company is still at risk. Those machines that are open up for remote access, could be used with that staff member’s login along with their weak password, and voila, the hacker can get in!
So, it’s important to have complex passwords for all your staff. We also like to use Two Factor Authentication when we use remote access.
This goes without saying, that every network needs to have a secure firewall in place to stop hackers from entering your network on random ports. A network without a secure firewall in place is like leaving your front door open to your house. Everyone can come in whenever they please.
It is important not to let your staff use their private devices on your network. If they are using their private devices on your network then you will need to install your company’s antivirus program onto their private devices.
Likewise, when using their private devices on your network, they cannot use their private email, as it will not be protected. It’s better for users with private devices to be part of a guest wireless network and not on your actual wireless network.
There are ways to set up your wireless to have both a companywide wireless signal as well as a guest signal for those staff members wanting to use their private devices. They need to be on the guest signal so that they won’t ‘cross contaminate’ your network.
If and when you believe you have all these security items attended to, you should still have regular security audits conducted on your network. We suggest once a quarter, where you get one of our office staff to take a close look at everything on your network making sure there are no security loopholes.
There are lots of other security loopholes that I have not mentioned in this list and you need someone with an expert eye. You really need an expert when identifying security issues on your network.
It is important to keep your Microsoft Windows operating systems, programs from your computers, and all of your servers up to date. Software vendors are continually patching their software to close out security loopholes and potential hacking. Therefore, it is important to have a regular update and patching schedule.
We offer this as part of our maintenance agreement with our clients. This is the most cost-effective way to keep your workstations and servers patched and up to date.
It is important to have a good web browsing policy as part of your IT Policy that you get your staff to sign. This web browsing policy should include that no adult sites ever get visited and no pornography emails get forwarded around the office. It’s also a good idea to keep staff off gaming sites and betting sites. A lot of these adult sites come with viruses.
If you need help securing your network or any further advice please reach out to us. We provide IT Support Brisbane and IT Support Sunshine Coast as well as Medical IT Support.
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