Lockdown Lessons 2: Shoring Up Your Network

Ultimately, every business wants to do what they can to best serve their clients and customers. They also want to grow successfully, increase profits, and create lasting relationships for long-term recurring revenue. But in today’s cyber- climate, if you don’t have a good security setup, the chances you’ll get breached get higher every day. That means all the customers who trust you will have their confidence shaken—no matter how good your products or services are.

Whether you’re a small- to medium- sized business or a managed service provider (MSP) who serves other organizations, strong security needs to be at the core of your business. Here a few simple security policies that will help you close security gaps and, ultimately, secure customer trust.

Enforce Strict Password Policies

Password reuse is pretty common, but it’s a major security risk. For example, if a cybercriminal happens to obtain an end user’s Amazon password in a phishing attack, they may attempt to use that password to access the user’s other accounts. Now, what if the end user—let’s call him John—also used that same password for one of the corporate systems he accesses regularly for work? In this case, the cybercriminal could gain access to John’s employer’s network.

It’s important for system administrators to makes sure that proper rules are in place to help keep the business secure; that’s where password policies come in. Password policies are a set of requirements that ensure users create strong passwords, change them regularly, and store and utilize them properly.