Today’s brands enjoy the convenience and power of technology. With these innovations, however, come new threats and challenges. One of the biggest concerns faced by modern businesses is cyber security.
Statistics show that every minute, almost $3 billion is lost globally to cybercrime. To make matters worse, only 5% of companies have proper protection. Malicious attacks, hackers, and brand abuse can bring distress to any brand.
Thankfully, there are methods to protect yourself from fraud, takeovers, and general attacks.
Decrypt Your Traffic Regularly
One of the best defences you can take is incoming connections. Any malicious attacker must use a way to get into your account or network, so it’s essentially like catching a thief with a flashlight. Even if you have your defences up, there are still skilled attackers that can get through the cracks. Sometimes, it can be a simple exploit or an accident.
There is much talk in employing encryption to protect outsiders from your activity, that same principle can protect a hacker from being detected. This is why it’s best to do a general sweep of your traffic to check for suspicious activity. Go through firewalls, unrecognized traffic, vulnerabilities, and database queries.
The hard part is when the malicious attack is already within the network. In this case, decryption can help you trail the source using the data as forensic evidence. Even if you don’t necessarily trace back the exact source, this will at least help prevent future attacks.
Enable SSL/TLS Encryption Throughout the Network
Essentially, everything you transmit over a network can be accessed using the right ports. How do you secure this data from prying eyes? Encryption.
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) should remain enabled for any online transactions. It basically creates a secure line between one point to the next. For files, it binds the data to a specific key that only approved administrators can access.
The more advanced successor to SSL is Transport Layer Security (TLS). It pretty much works in the same way but improves the process significantly. They’re used pretty interchangeably because of their very similar functions, but consider TLS—the beefier version. It encrypts data (like passwords, bank details, and other sensitive information) so unauthorized people are unable to read any of it.
By using a secure authentication process, your account and any related materials to your brand can only be accessed by you.
Encrypt Your System’s Active Directory
You may have a secure network, but your device can be your downfall if you neglect to encrypt that. You’ll commonly see the Active Directory (AD) in networks using a Windows environment, which make up over 77% of all desktop and laptop computers in the world.
Encrypt the data and activity you have from there so that only authenticated users can use the system. Anytime your device is online, other users could be lurking and watching your movement if you aren’t encrypted.
Digital brand protection is a must these days. These methods are very specific parts of what should be a fully-developed security environment for your business. Investing in such tools and practices will end up being better as you prevent massive data loss and ransomware.
Protect your brand and keep a reliable eye out for advanced threats and cyber attacks with FraudWatch. Contact us now to have premier digital brand protection from phishing, malware, impersonation, and more.