90% of Passwords Are Vulnerable to Hacking

Cyber security tools and applications are often costly and require a dedicated IT staff to implement and operate. Few small businesses have such a staff, and for it don’t consider the large, sophisticated cybersecurity tools like SIEMs realistic. That doesn’t reduce the demand for security, it simply makes creating a healthy cybersecurity profile a more creative solution. There are many basic, low cost methods that can be implemented to improve your organization’s security posture.

Three core methods for obtaining a healthier security posture without expending large amounts of resources are basic anti-virus, strong passwords and educating your users on cyber threats:

Anti-virus

Anti-virus is the most fundamental security tool and should be installed and regularly updated on every business computer. Even if the computer is not used to access sensitive information if it is on the network it needs to have anti-virus. If your company has a BYOB policy and those computers connect to your network they too need anti-virus. Even mobile devices and tablets are vulnerable to threat vectors that can be used to compromise your entire network should one infected device get on board. There are many free anti-virus programs available and most modern computers have basic security tools built in. Between the critical demand and the regular availability of the tools at any price point it is negligent to ignore anti-virus for your business.

User Awareness

Basic cybersecurity awareness is another free fundamental that must be observed. There are behaviors that every employee can utilize to better your security as a whole. Many successful cyber-attacks gained entry into a network by leveraging the ignorance or gullibility of a well-meaning employee. Attackers will propagate vast amounts of cleverly disguised, automatically customized emails that are embedded with virulent links. Alternatively a dedicated hacker will leave an infected USB thumb drive in the parking lot, and wait for an employee to unwittingly install the malware by putting the USB stick on their computer to see what’s on it or who it belongs to. We all click on links in our email, especially if they appear to come from someone we know. We all use USB drives, and would likely be eager to learn the contents of a mysterious lost thumb stick.

Getting a grasp of common vectors for a cyber-attack and how human behavior can be used to leverage them is key to a healthy security profile for your business. Sharing this understanding with your employees and keeping them up-to-date on threat methods can remove the human element from the equation.

Passwords

Passwords are one of the stickiest fundamentals to utilize properly. Passwords have been used since the dawn of computing, and for it we’ve had time to develop many bad habits and preconceptions about them. Some big problems with passwords are: