Johannesburg, 11 May 2021
It’s not a secret to anyone that maleficent software is very prevalent across the Internet these days, and navigating with your guard down is cyber suicide. Although there may not be such a thing as 100% protection, there are plenty of useful measures you can take to reduce the risk of getting your computer hacked.
The ransomware attack is one of the most dangerous viruses, as it can completely forbid access to your own computer until you pay an amount of money (usually in Bitcoin). Ransomware infected over 230 000 computers from more than 150 countries. Here are our top tips to avoid such unpleasant scenarios, as well as those caused by other viruses:
1. Get yourself a VPN
A VPN (virtual private network) encrypts traffic while you’re online, and it’s recommended to always use it while you’re on your WiFi. A secure network is always better than a public WiFi network.
Free VPNs (virtual private networks) aren’t trustworthy, as you know what they say – quality stuff will always cost you money. But for a few bucks per month, we believe it’s totally worth it to install a VPN such as IPVanish, NordVPN, ExpressVPN, HotSpot Shield, CyberGhost and many more.
2. Beware of spam e-mails
Everyone from your organisation has to be fully aware of any suspicious activity. If a doubtful e-mail arrives, for instance, it’s best not to eagerly click on any attachments it brings. If you don’t recognise the address, it’s better to first hover over the links before clicking.
3. Insist on training
An educated workforce capable of applying best practices when it comes to cyber threats represents a critical aspect. Cyber security essentials represent a vast domain, whether we’re talking about knowing how to handle a VPN or how to treat possibly dangerous e-mails. Go ahead and make your team undergo a serious training programme for cyber security.
4. Use strong passwords
It’s indeed much more comfortable not to use a complicated password. You’ll remember a lot better the name of your pet or favourite video game, for instance, than a random array of digits, letters and symbols. But that doesn’t mean that the first option is also the best one.
It’s a lot easier to hack a simple password, which is why you should always use complicated passwords on any account. Most browsers nowadays, such as Chrome and Firefox, offer the possibility of generating and storing hard-to-guess passwords, so you won’t have to remember them or write them character by character from a piece of paper.
5. Use two-step authorisation
Employees who have access to sensitive company data, such as contracts, invoices or client info, should always have the double authorisation feature at their disposal. For this cyber security method, you can use a fingerprint, an ID badge, a password and so on.
6. Choose a firewall solution
A suitable firewall solution can grant protection for your entire network. Before you make your choice of what firewall you need, you must ask yourself the following questions about your current business firewall:
- How efficient is your firewall monitoring the network’s traffic?
- Does the bandwidth get properly managed so the network can operate at the best performance?
- How well does the firewall prevent maleficent software?
Turning off the Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) from the router admin at 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1 is a basic setting you can do to protect your system. If the answers to these questions don’t satisfy you, it’s time to move on to another firewall option.
If you need another tip, you should also always consider installing Linux on your computers if they’re running on Windows. Of course, we’re talking about very different operating systems, but Linux, Unix and other Unix-like operating systems for computers are usually regarded as very well protected against viruses.
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