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Modern technology seems like it may be heralding the arrival of the sci-fi future everyone’s been patiently waiting for. While new tech developments can transform the lives and businesses for the better, it can be incomprehensible to the average person. Businesses these days therefore depend heavily on IT and cybersecurity professionals in order to keep things running smoothly. Here’s what you need to know.
Network Security
One of the most prominent roles of both IT and cybersecurity professionals is to maintain the structural integrity and the security of a business’s network. This starts on the basic level of encryption. Data encryption is the process of rendering data indiscernible so that bad actors that intercept it can’t do anything with it. This vital function of online and networking security isn’t a given, however, and the operators of a network will be responsible for purchasing TLS certification. What is TLS? TLS stands for Transport Layer Security, and it’s the difference between a secure network and an unsecure one. TLS and SSL are cryptographic protocols that protect internet and network users from having their personal or business data from falling into the wrong hands, and the presence of TLS is indicated online by HTTPS instead of just HTTP in a website’s URL. While this feature isn’t inherent to a network, it’s all but necessary for protecting yourself, as well as for marketing, as modern search engines prioritize secure websites in their results as a means of encouraging more security on the part of businesses.
Security Best Practices
Cyber security is largely the domain of hardware and software, but it also depends heavily on individual users conducting themselves appropriately. This can be difficult to coordinate in the context of a business with many employees, making sufficient training a necessity. Knowing what to look for in order to avoid malware is an essential skill that every employee needs to know, for example. Passwords are also a point of contention, because it’s a natural human impulse to create a password that holds some kind of meaning to you in order to make it easier to remember. However, this also makes the password less secure, because it is subject to simple guesswork on the part of potential hackers. Multi factor authentication can also prevent security breaches by demanding not only a password, but also another form of verification, often a cell phone app. This means that a hacker would need both the password and the phone in order to infiltrate the network.
Cybersecurity Software
For all of the best practices you put into place, user error accounts for 90% of security breaches, and that means you need a comprehensive safety net to protect you when something goes wrong. Cybersecurity software comes in many forms, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. No single piece of software can protect you from everything, so it truly takes a village to protect you from the full arsenal that hackers have at their disposal. Antimalware software can protect your network from infection by malware in its many forms by first scanning for harmful files and then quarantining them in order to remove them if possible. Network traffic monitoring software gives you an overview of vital network statistics, allowing you to observe the behavior of users and extrapolate suspicious behavior into potential breaches of security. Intrusion detection and prevention systems provide a one two punch of detecting breaches and responding to them. Putting all of these pieces together, and then some, you can create an intricate web of safeguards that seek to address the flaws inherent in the system in order to keep those weaknesses from being exploited by attackers.
Protecting and maintaining your network is a multifaceted endeavor requiring a wide range of knowledge and skills, and that means that trusting experts is essential for the best possible infrastructure. These tips will give you a place to start, but putting these tips into practice will require additional research or trained professionals.