Free and Easy Network Security Tips for Every Office

Let’s be clear up front: every business is going to have to spend some money on network security. Not only do you need to put proper protections in place to ensure you’re not an easy target for hackers, but you also have to comply with federal and state laws pertaining to privacy. If a data breach compromises private data for employees, clients, and so on, you could find yourself in serious legal hot water.

However, once you have a firewall, antivirus/antispyware software, password protection software, and extras like VPN or FTPs in place to protect your network and your data, you’ll find that there are a number of free and easy ways to ensure that the protections you paid for continue to perform as intended. Here are just a few free and easy network security tips that will benefit every business.

Go Paperless

This might not sound like a network security tip, but if documents containing sensitive information like user names and passwords get into the wrong hands, a network breach could result. Even better, going paperless actually saves you money.

If you’re not able to go completely paperless, at least make sure to shred and recycle documents appropriately, taking every precaution to ensure that data isn’t readily available to industrious dumpster divers.

Perform Updates

Software and firmware need to be updated regularly if you want to protect your network from outside threats. Most of your hardware and software will have options in the settings to automatically check for and install updates, making the process easy for you, but if you have IT staff on hand, you may want to perform these updates manually or at least get notifications when new updates are available so you can decide if you want to allow them or not.

All of the hardware that supports your network, including computers, servers, modems, routers, and so on will need firmware and driver updates to continue functioning properly and communicating with other devices on your network. Relevant software updates can ensure that you’re protected against the latest threats. Both can help to keep you protected, but only if you check regularly and perform updates as needed.

Schedule Regular Scans

With proper updates your antivirus/anti-spyware software should protect your network from viruses and other malicious code. However, it’s a good idea to schedule regular system scans to ensure that nothing suspicious has slipped through the cracks and infiltrated your network.

Require Strong Passwords

Password protection is an excellent way to keep unwanted visitors out of your network, but only if the passwords used are strong enough that hackers can’t crack them. You should therefor require employees and online users to create strong passwords.

These days passwords should have a minimum of 8-12 characters, with combinations of capital and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols. In addition, users should make sure not to use personal information like pet names, birth dates, addresses, and so on.

One good option is to use an easy-to-remember acronym that looks like gibberish to anyone else. For example, the phrase “My 2 dogs-Fido and Spot-are 9 and 13” would become “M2d-FaS-a9a13”.

Change Passwords Frequently

It’s not enough to create strong passwords; you should also prompt users to change them on a regular basis. This will help to stop the potential threat arising from either employees that share passwords or hackers working on gaining entry to your system.

Policies and Training

All the protections in the world can’t keep you safe from ignorance and stupidity. You must therefore set clear policies for appropriate behavior when using the network and then train all employees accordingly.

These policies could include common sense activities like keeping passwords private (i.e. not sharing them with coworkers, supervisors, outsiders, or anyone else), as well as behaving in a safe and responsible manner when using company resources. Employees should be trained to avoid email from unknown senders, steer clear of dangerous websites, and avoid clicking suspicion links, just for example.

Having such policies in place and training employees to behave properly might seem like a waste of time, but it only takes one mistake and you might as well throw the doors wide open and invite hackers in. With proper hardware, software, policies, and training procedures in place, your business has the best chance of avoiding a data breach and the resulting fallout.