In 2021, the number of cyber attacks hit an all-time high — and cybersecurity experts believe that the number of attacks may be even higher this year.

Without enough investment in cybersecurity, your brand may be at risk.

Here’s how any brand can tell if they’re investing enough in cybersecurity, plus tips for protecting your business from cybercrime and hackers. The right technology can make defending your business a lot easier. Using modern cybersecurity tools like antivirus, a firewall, and reliable VPNs will reduce the risk that your network is infected by ransomware and malware. These tools help to cover some of the most important categories of cybersecurity, including network security, information security and app security.

The Most Important Cybersecurity Investments

Often, hackers prioritize targeting companies that don’t have basic cybersecurity defenses in place. If you can cover the basics, you’ll go a long way toward protecting your company from an attack.

It’s a good idea to quickly review your company’s current cybersecurity approach, and make sure that you invest in these tools and resources: If you’re missing one or more of these investments, it’s a sign that you may need to commit more resources towards cybersecurity.

1. Employee Training

Social engineering is a common tactic that hackers will use to break into company networks. By taking advantage of gaps in employee cybersecurity knowledge, they may be able to easily breach a business’s cyber defenses.

For example, a phishing attack uses emails that appear to be from a legitimate source to get employees to download malicious files, or divulge sensitive information like passwords or access credentials.

It’s usually easy to spot a phish if you know what you’re looking for. Training employees in identifying phishing emails can help protect a network from attacks as a result.

Additional training in cybersecurity basics will help your team defend themselves and the company against cyber criminals. It’s good practice to ensure that your team knows how to create strong passwords, spot potentially malicious files and recognize unusual network activity.

With these basics, your team should be able to avoid many common kinds of social engineering attacks.

2. Antivirus Software, Firewalls and Other Cybersecurity Tech

The right technology can make defending your business a lot easier. Using modern cybersecurity tools, like an antivirus and firewall, will reduce the risk that your network is infected by ransomware and malware. These tools help to cover some of the most important categories of cybersecurity, including network security, information security and app security.

The right technology can also help you defend your website from attack.

Regularly updating the security software that comes with your devices will be important, especially if your brand uses many smart or IoT devices. These devices receive security patches over their lifetime that help protect them from newly discovered exploits and vulnerabilities. A regular update schedule will help your team make sure these devices are also protected from attack.

Network monitoring software can help you get the most out of your antivirus and firewall software. Monitoring tools keep track of network activity and look out for unusual traffic that may suggest your network has been compromised. Using these tools will make it much easier to spot hacker activity in the event of a breach.

3. Regular Backups

No matter how well-defended a business is, it may still fall victim to a breach to a ransomware attack. These attacks may result in essential files and systems being deleted, corrupted or otherwise made inaccessible.

Effective cybersecurity means preparing your business to recover in the event that a hacker succeeds. Backups, for example, help protect important data and business files, ensuring that you can get back to work as quickly as possible after an attack.

A regular backup schedule will ensure that you always have recent backups of critical files, resources and apps on hand.

Most businesses create their backups with some kind of cloud backup system. These systems regularly backup important information to the cloud, where it will be easily accessible when needed.

Some businesses also create physical backups by copying important files to an external hard drive. This process can be automated, ensuring that physical backups are kept up-to-date.

Important Investments For Protecting Any Brand From Cyberattacks

Every brand should have some kind of cybersecurity strategy. Otherwise, the brand could be leaving itself exposed to cyber attacks.

Covering the basics of cybersecurity can provide your brand with a lot of protection from attacks.

Employee training, an antivirus, firewall and backups will all make it much easier to prevent attacks and recover in the event of a network breach.

Author

Eleanor Hecks is the editor of Designerly Magazine. Eleanor was the creative director and occasional blog writer at a prominent digital marketing agency before becoming her own boss in 2018. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and dog, Bear.