In today’s world of remote work, your users and data are typically not protected by office firewalls, making them especially vulnerable to cybersecurity threats. As a result, experts are seeing a dramatic increase in attacks (and successful attacks) on remote workers.
Based on our experience working with hundreds of startups and high-growth companies, the basic vulnerabilities are pretty static, but the vast majority of small companies don’t have them covered.
Our advice? Don’t buy into the cycle of worrying about the latest security threat and its expensive solutions; focus on making sure you have the basics covered with cost-effective (and sometimes free) tools and policies and you’ll be in better shape than most of your peers.
Where does your company stand? Take this 10-question quiz:
Do you have an information security policy in place that covers how users should protect the company’s information and what to do in case of potential security incidents?
Do you offer a basic security education program for new hires and/or recurring training for all employees supported by testing and reporting?
Can you be sure your employees aren’t using the same weak password to log into all their apps and services?
Do you have a centralized system that ensures each workstation has a strong password, the latest OS updates and security patches, and disk encryption?
Can you remotely wipe or lock workstations and mobile devices if they’re lost or stolen?
Do you have modern and up-to-date antivirus and DNS filtering software on each workstation to block malicious applications and websites?
Are you sure none of your workstations or servers are running an old OS that’s no longer supported (making it extremely vulnerable to security attacks)?
Are your critical cloud services (e.g., email, file share, anything with confidential info) protected by multi-factor authentication (where you log in both with a password and an app or code on your phone)?
Do you have your critical data backed up using a system separate from your primary system so even if one gets encrypted with ransomware, you can restore from the other source?
Do you have security monitoring on servers and/or cloud fileshare platforms to alert you to unauthorized or suspicious activity?
How many questions did you answer “Yes” to?
8 – 10: Congratulations! Your organization is like a house with deadbolts on each door and a security system in place. It’s protected from all but the most skilled burglars
5 – 7: Good job covering some basics! Your organization is like an average house with a typical lock on each door. It can stop amateur criminals, but a skilled one won’t have much trouble getting in.
0 – 4: You’re very vulnerable! Your doors are unlocked and you’re mostly relying on luck or a low profile to keep out of trouble.
Want to get your score up? At Kinetix, this stuff is our bread and butter, and we have lots of options from “baby steps for the least amount of money” to “ace the quiz with the best of the best” and everything in between. Sign up for a free security assessment or reach out to us at moreinfo@kinetix.com to let us know how we can help.
