Network Security for Small Companies: Tips and Tricks
No matter how small or large your company is, it is extremely important to ensure that you invest in some form of network security for your company. Not only will it save you money in the long term but you will also have the peace of mind to know that your data and the personal information of your clients will not be stolen from under your nose.
You certainly don't want to be the person who has to explain why you or your clients had vital data stolen because your security system is not up to snuff.
What is the minimum I need?
One of the most basic things that you can do to make sure your network is properly protected is to make sure that you have a firewall and to make sure to protect that firewall with a password rather than just putting the firewall in place and hoping for the best. As basic as this may sound, it is also something that can easily result in significant challenges to your network security if you do not have one.
The Importance of Firewalls
While some firewall programs do a better job than others, the most important thing is to just have some kind of firewall program. You can always upgrade your firewall and antivirus programs later to be more effective and be able to keep out more types of threats but the most important thing for you to remember at the start is just to have a firewall.
If your firewall doesn't do everything you want it to then you can always upgrade it later but having one will give you significant peace of mind as you'll know that your network will be protected from basic security threats by the mere presence of your firewall program.
Network Control
Beyond that, it is an excellent idea to keep tight control over your computers and provide each individual employee with their own user account for network access. This method of control is extremely helpful because it allows you to keep tight control over who can access your network and remove someone's access more easily if necessary. For example, if their account is compromised.
Having this kind of control can be extremely helpful under a wide variety of circumstances and can be a great help with security as if you have tight control over your system and who can access it, then it will be that much easier for you to make sure that nobody will be able to unexpectedly access parts of your system that they shouldn't be able to get into.
Benefits of Network Control
More importantly, having tight layers of system control will make it easier to know what to expect on a day to day basis since you will already be aware of who can access what so it will be that much more obvious when something goes wrong in your security system.
It is also very important to make sure that your internet connection itself is as secure as you can make it. Make sure that your network is set up so that the name is hidden from the public and access to the router is password protected just as a starting point.
Backing up your Data
Finally, it is absolutely essential that you have backup copies of your important data. There is inevitably going to be a situation that has the potential to cost you all your data and regularly backing up your important data is vital to ensure that you can recover from something like this.
It is almost inevitable that something will go wrong for you at some point and if you don't have any form of backup then that will mean countless weeks or months or years of data and work are down the drain when a problem does occur.
Even worse, this will mean that you have no realistic way to recover the data you have lost since you failed to back it up anywhere as you did not anticipate any kind of data-related problem.
For additional tips and suggestions regarding network security for small companies or just for general tips, tricks and suggestions about data backup and security advice, please contact us today!