How to Keep Your Business Safe amidst the Rising Smartphone Malware?

With the ever increasing world of technology, there isn’t a single place on this planet Earth where technology and the internet to be more precise haven’t reached. Every task you do, every step you take, every word you type, has all been touched with the internet. It might seem to you, with processes such as ‘encryption’ and ‘cyber security’ that you’re safe from any cyber threats, but with the increase in the amount of information you allow to go public, and with the permissions that you grant the internet to use, and with the ever-increasing usage of technology in your lives, it becomes exceptionally difficult to stay “cyber safe”! More so, these threats increase manifold if you’re a person running a business. Protecting your app business from cyber-attacks and/or threats is just as crucial and necessary as protecting your personal information on the internet. And with the increase in the cyber-attacks hitting the businesses of today, it becomes even more important to take the right steps to do just that. So, here’s presenting a few steps to help keep your businesses safe amidst all the rising malware.

1. Take regular back-ups

If you’ve read any manual that comes with any device that uses even an inch of technology, you’d have come across a charter that states: “Take regular back-ups”. The difference here is, you’re not taking back-ups for your photos and music, you’re backing up your business data. According to a statement released by the team at IBM during the recent ransomware attacks targeted at firms, the best way to help protect your business from an attack is to outwit the attacker. If your business isn’t vulnerable to any threats, and if your data and files are regularly backed up, there wouldn’t be any loss of any crucial information when or if a cyber-attack does occur! Carbonite, a cloud backup services company recently hinted at more than 5,000 customer calls and reach-outs to their firm in the past 12 months, to protect their businesses from such threats. As the famous saying goes, prevention is always better than the cure! Always keep this in mind!

2. Say no to phishing attacks

If you’re not from a background in technology, you might not be well aware of this term called ‘phishing’. In layman’s terms, phishing is generally referred to as a process of sending out spam emails to businesses or customers asking them to click on certain URLs or buttons, which then leads to malware entering your business systems. Another way your computing systems can be targeted is through ‘malvertsing’. This is a term used by attackers to send malware in the form of advertisements, infamous websites and mailed notifications. The best way to protect your systems and thus your businesses from such phishing attacks is through making sure that no one ever clicks on any link/code/button that seems untrustworthy. Otherwise, try using ‘ad-blockers’ in your systems. Ad-blockers allow the systems to be protected from any unnecessary, redundant advert pop-ups that might turn up whilst visiting a few websites.

3. Use the method called ‘blocking’

Mr. Stu, the CEO of KnowBe4, a cyber-security firm suggests that even with regular training and reminder mailers, employees still become easy targets for phishing attacks. Employees always seem to be willing to open any links/mailers that come their way, no matter what those links may say. The only two ways to protect your businesses from getting attacked due to such reasons are:

• Train the employees better.

An experiment conducted by KnowBe4 deduced that business losses due to malware and/or ransomware are dramatically lowered when there are proper cases of employees being trained properly about such attacks.

• Block such malware altogether

With innovation in technology taking another space, products, and companies that specifically deal in blocking websites/pages that seem malicious are emerging. A product termed as Product X has been launched in the world of technology that specializes in protecting the systems from all 100% attacks brought towards the systems.

4. Turn off the internet

This is probably one of the most important steps to undertake if your business seems to be in any kind of jeopardy. It is believed that during times when your system might have been inflicted with a certain cyber threat, the first and sometimes the only step to follow is to disconnect your system from the internet. This helps stop any and every further path that might be created with the device during the malware attacks. It reduces any additional external intrusions caused due to the connections to the servers/internet. This has also been mentioned as one of the best ways to reduce any risks.

Wrapping up

Thus, with these easy steps, we’re sure you’d look into taking more care of your business, by taking care of your technology. As they say in today’s world, “If your technology is safe, your business is.” The next time you come across any cyber threat, do consider the points we just discussed.