Directive Blogs

Considering what today’s cyberthreat environment looks like, more and more rigorous cybersecurity is strictly needed. One means that businesses have to accomplish this is a cybersecurity practice known as a zero-trust model.

Let’s go over what zero-trust entails, and how to put it in place.

Anyone who has a mailbox or an email knows all about junk mail. We all receive Publisher’s Clearing House entries, calls about your car’s extended warranty, promotions for items and events that you swore that you discontinued by typing “STOP”, and just needless spam that you waste your time going through and deleting. We receive unsolicited messages every single day.

Mobile devices demand a special type of attention in order to ensure security. You want to ensure that your devices are protected as well as possible, but you also need to ensure that this does not come at the expense of your employees’ productivity or efficiency. We’ve put together a list of common security issues you might encounter when securing your mobile devices, as well as a couple of practices you can implement to work toward an adequate level of cybersecurity for your mobile infrastructure.

Businesses today have to deal with more potential problems than in any time in history. They are dealing with cost increases at every turn, personnel shortages, and a regulatory landscape that is always evolving. One of the biggest issues that can have a negative effect on a business is not having the processes and resources in place and working to secure its data and network. Today, we will look at five suggestions that can work to help your business keep its network and data more secure. 

We talk a lot about preventing threats from seeping into your company, and hoo boy, there are a lot of them. From ransomware to zero-day exploits to targeted social media attacks, there are a lot of threats out there that business owners need to be aware of. We’re not going to talk about any of those today.

Why? Because you, as the business owner, are likely a threat to your own business.

Here at Directive, we’re big fans of the Keeper password management tool—so much so, that we’re sharing how you can use it to manage and clean up your personal passwords. We’ll start by telling you how to set it up and get started.

Security is an incredibly important part of running a business, but it’s extremely easy for busy employees to fall short of the security expectations you might place on them. This is why it is so important to train your employees on the many facets of cybersecurity. By training them, you are preparing them to tackle the plethora of challenges they will encounter throughout the workday.

We understand that cybersecurity can be difficult to think about at times because of the terminology thrown around by industry professionals, but we want to do our part to help clear up some of the confusion. Today, we’re going to discuss the difference between vulnerabilities and exploits, as well as how your organization can do everything it can to ensure that both are minimized on your company network.

Despite hearing about a constant stream of cyberattacks over the past few years—most of which cause millions of dollars of damage to businesses—it might still be difficult for you to justify spending a lot of money on your business’ cybersecurity plans. There is a finite amount of capital to go around and many times CIOs and network administrators will be rebuffed by management when asking for money to spend on cybersecurity. Today, we thought we’d discuss three ways that you can spend on cybersecurity initiatives and not feel like you are throwing your money down the drain. 

A quality surveillance system can help you keep an eye on your business when you aren’t there—a critical responsibility that warrants some serious deliberation if it is to be approached. With so many considerations to make, it is important to make sure that you are balancing your needs with the systems available to you. 

How many security solutions does your organization have implemented at any given time? Traditionally, businesses have implemented what we call “point solutions,” which are software tools designed to address a specific part of your security infrastructure. While this approach is certainly better than not having security at all, it presents several problems that must also be addressed in order to most effectively protect your organization.

Unfortunately, cybersecurity is a lot easier to reinforce in the office than it is when your team members are working remotely—and even then, it can be a serious challenge to maintain. However, let’s focus on the remote worker’s situation for a few moments and review a few best practices that can help a remote worker stay secure.

Phishing attacks can be scary to deal with, especially since it is not unheard of for staff members to not even know they are looking at one. To make sure your staff can identify and respond to phishing attacks in an appropriate way, we’ve put together this short guide to help you along the way.

With many people continuing to work remotely to some extent, it would be irresponsible not to acknowledge that remote work can introduce a level of risk to an organization’s cybersecurity. This makes it all the more important that this security is locked down. Let’s discuss the concept behind zero-trust security, and why it is becoming the benchmark that organizations of all sizes should meet.

While we—for reasons that should be obvious—tend to focus our attention on preventing and avoiding cybersecurity breaches, it is important that we address how your business responds to a successful breach attempt. Let’s go over how to create a data breach response plan.

Your company’s email is one of its most important pieces of technology, and since that is true for nearly every business, it is unfortunately one of the most utilized attack vectors used by cybercriminals. Most businesses don’t understand just how vulnerable they are if their email isn’t properly secured and do their best to keep their employees trained on how to spot potential scams. 

When it comes to network security, businesses need all the advantages they can get, especially since cybersecurity as an industry is one which is rapidly adjusting and responding to an enormous amount of ever-changing threats. One way in which security researchers have attempted to subvert this security rat race is through artificial intelligence measures, a trend that promises to change the way businesses protect themselves more effectively.

While protecting the credit card data you collect from your customers and clients is obviously important, you likely also have a line of credit for your business’ use that you need to think about as well. Let’s turn our focus to that card for a moment and discuss some tips and best practices to keep this company resource safe.

For every level of business, cybersecurity is a big deal. For the enterprise, they deal with a lot of would-be attacks and need their staff to know how to respond if they are targeted. For the midsize business, the convergence of underwhelming IT support and a growing workforce can be the perfect storm. For the small business, a significant cyberattack could be the beginning of the end for their business. This is why, no matter what size your business is, you need to have a cybersecurity strategy in place that includes tools, monitoring, and protocol. This month, we have put together a list of considerations your business should note to keep your network and data safe.

With many businesses’ increased reliance on their information systems and other IT, they need to do everything they can to keep those systems up and running and secure. This not only includes rolling out security systems that support that goal, it also demands they take the action necessary to keep these systems secure. Let’s look at four things you need to do to keep your business’ IT as secure as possible.