5 Tips Employees Should Consider During Cybersecurity Awareness Month

It’s officially Cybersecurity Awareness Month, which means it’s time to reflect on the top ways to keep your business safe from cybercriminals. It’s best to share these best practices among your employees so everyone is aware of the role they can take in cybersecurity.

1. A STRONG PASSWORD GOES A LONG WAY

The importance of a strong password is often known, but not everyone acts upon it. It’s important to remind employees of the following ways they can create and maintain a strong password:

2. USE SLAM TO PREVENT PHISHING ATTACKS

Phishing attacks, which are often in the form of emails, will target employees in various ways. However, there is a simple method you can teach your workers so they can recognize these untrustworthy emails and ignore them.

Sender: Check the email address for validity. Phishing scams normally mimic known people to the recipient. Teach employees to hover their mouse over the sender name and compare it to the known email address of that person or company.
Links: Phishing emails will often encourage their victims to click on links, which will then give the hacker access to login details or even the network. Employees should again hover over any links to see the link address. Are there misspellings? Is the link the same page that the email says you will go to? These are both signs that the email isn’t legitimate.
Attachments: For the same purpose as above, untrustworthy emails will also ask the recipients to download attachments. Employees should never open attachments from unsolicited emails. It’s important to encourage employees to ask the individual who the email is posing as to confirm if the email is genuine before opening any attachments.
Message: Phishing emails often contain generic greetings, misspellings and grammatical errors. If the email message doesn’t sound like the person who they are trying to mimic, that is a red flag.

4. UTILIZE A VPN WHEN REMOTE

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) provide a great way for employees to securely access the work network when working from home. The idea is even if the employee brings their work device to a public location, like a coffee shop, they can still securely connect to the VPN to avoid revealing important details of what they are working on.

5. KEEP UP WITH CONSISTENT TRAININGS

Practice makes perfect. Provide employees with security training sessions on a routine basis so these best practices are always fresh in their mind. Cybersecurity is constantly evolving and it’s best to keep up to date with the newest recommended defense mechanisms.

Nutmeg Technologies is an IT managed service provider based out of Enfield, CT and here to provide more information on technology as needed. We are happy to assist companies who are looking to have in-office or remote workforce through secure technology. Contact us to today to find a product that best suits your company’s needs.