5 Ways to Eliminate Cyber Criminals

Cybercrime, for many businesses, is one of the greatest threats you’ll have to face. Hackers want to sneak in and steal your data, and if your system is unprotected, you’re offering them an open door that they can walk straight through. Don’t let your business be a victim! If you want to eliminate cyber crime for your business, these five tactics will help protect your system.

1. Secure Your Computer

Make sure that you have the latest up-to-date Internet security software. As you’re browsing the Internet, there are plenty of opportunities for malware to slip its way into your system. It can be from emails or links that originated from a source you shouldn’t have trusted. By maintaining the latest security software and ensuring that you update it regularly, you’ll find that it’s much easier to protect your computer from the most recent malware.

2. Use Strong Passwords

Many users become frustrated with the need to use complex passwords and change them regularly. Your passwords, however, are the difference between a secure, protected account and one that is open to invasion. For business passwords, there are several rules of thumb that should be followed.

• The longer, the better: a password that is only a few characters long is much easier to figure out than one that is substantial in length.
• Use a variety of characters: lower case letters, upper case letters, numbers, and special symbols should all be used whenever possible. Password generators are available online and can easily create secure passwords using a random mixture of letters, numbers, and symbols.
• Don’t use dictionary words or names as a password.
• Use different passwords for different systems instead of trying to use the same password for everything.
• Change your passwords on a regular basis.

3. Set Your Social Media Profiles to Private

Your social media profiles are a fount of information about you: the important people in your life, the things that you’re interested in, and the places and times that you’re traveling. Not only that, an unsecured profile includes a ton of personal information. Your account can have your email address, phone number, and even physical address – all information that you don’t want strangers to know. Take the time to set your profiles to private and make sure that the information you share publicly is data that you don’t mind the world knowing about you.

4. Secure Your Mobile Devices

Many people are now using mobile devices more often than they use desktop computers and other traditional methods of browsing the Internet. The more time you spend on your mobile device, the more information can be pulled from it if you’re a victim of cyber crime. Keeping your mobile device secure involves:

• Setting a password for your lock screen, preferably one that is difficult to guess. 0000 might be easy to remember, but it will allow a criminal to quickly bypass your lock screen!
• Making sure that you have the latest operating system update installed.
• Downloading antivirus apps for your phone, regardless of whether you use Android or Apple products.
• Paying attention to where you set your phone down whenever you’re in public.

5. Protect Your Data

Your data is the backbone of both your business and professional life. Many people prefer digital records to physical ones, which cuts down on both paper waste and clutter around the house and office. Unfortunately, that means that if something happens to your data, you’re going to be in trouble! Protect your vital data by:

• Ensuring that you have backups: Google Drive and Dropbox are both great ways to store information that you want to be able to access from any device.
• Encrypting sensitive data so that it will be more difficult for others to access.
• Store backups away from your physical site, not just on a drive tucked in your desk drawer.

Cyber crime is everywhere. By protecting yourself both at home and at work, you’ll help prevent yourself from becoming a victim. Eliminating cyber crime starts with you!