Fighting Cyber-Threats

As security threat levels rise and more viruses attack your systems, are you doing everything possible to protect your company?

According to McAfee Global Threat Intelligence, “malicious URLs, viruses, and malware have grown almost sixfold in the last two years, and last year saw more new viruses and malware than all prior years combined.”

In its latest report, Threat Predictions 2012, the global team of security experts at M86^® Labs states that, “targeted attacks will increase next year with a higher level of complexity, exploiting stolen digital certificates, using zero-day attacks [software vulnerability exploits for which security fixes from the vendor are not yet available] and multi-stage attacks.” 

Security is an increasing priority at organizations worldwide, and it’s no longer confined to the server room walls. Instead, managing security and privacy involves everyone at your organization. But as threat levels rise and more viruses attack your systems, are you doing everything possible to control security threats?

What Your Tech Team Can Do

Let’s begin with your tech team and one of the most vulnerable areas, email. When people at your organization communicate corporate information within an email, this data is often loosely secured. To attempt to secure these communications, you should employ systems either hosted outside or on-premise that offer a way to contain the project and communication channels. Examples include ApolloHQ, BaseCampHQ, FreedCamp, GoPlanApp, Central Desktop and Yammer.

Also, you should implement technologies that scan all mailboxes and transports for keywords that may seem like an intellectual property breach—and monitor the data carefully. For file exchanges, use an outside file repository with a logging component like Dropbox or Google Docs. That way, you can track current and historic access and use of each file accordingly. 

If you are not already doing so, encrypt connections with SSL/TLS Certifications whenever possible and implement a spam filtering and technology system to help protect from email viruses, spam and phishing attempts such as: SPAMfighter Pro, CloudMarkDesktopOne Pro, Barracuda and MailWasher Pro 2012.

To control the distribution and access to your intellectual property, consider using a Secure FTP service on premise. This encrypts commands and data so that private information is protected while being transmitted over the network.

At the same time, implement firewalls and load balancers in front of your Web farm to inspect packets and connections from Website visitors. By doing so, you can optimize resources and avoid overload, while blacklisting offending visitors who try to infiltrate your system.

These are just a few examples, and you should always be looking for new ways to increase security levels at your organization. But this is not enough. While you can take all of the precautions necessary using the latest technology advancements, none of this will do much good if you don’t communicate security concerns and procedures with your entire organization.