Protecting Your Company From Cyber-Attacks

The threat of a major cyber-attack that targets or affects your business is looming. Even the big technology players are paying attention – Twitter has recently released cautionary statements to their users warning them about accounts being targeted as a point of entry to obtain sensitive information.   While the motive, method, and result of a cyber-attack may vary, one thing is clear: if your business or organization stores sensitive information, it likely has a bullseye on its back.

What Types of Attacks Are Common?

2015 saw some very high-profile attacks mainly related to distributed denial of service (DDoS). These attacks are among the most dangerous types of cyber threats, as they are extremely difficult to prevent, and are becoming increasingly common. Hackers frequently exploit unguarded backdoors to your system and use these attacks as smokescreens in order to launch more invasive attacks and steal sensitive data. The sources, methods and DDoS attacks are constantly being adjusted, so finding an IT company California business owners can trust is essential to making sure your network security is being proactively monitored and protected.

Today, one-third of all internet traffic is encrypted, and it’s expected that soon it will leap to two-thirds when big names like Netflix are transitioning to SSL. Soon, encrypted traffic will become the favorite method of executing cyber-attacks and distributing malware – whether linking malware to an instant message or email or sharing a malicious file on a social networking platform, cloaking the attacks in SSL will be the norm.

Defend Your Business

Keeping your business secure is a continual process and if you don’t have an in-house IT department, you’ll need to outsource your security to the type of IT company California businesses can trust to stay on guard and keep hackers out. In addition to implementing multi-factor authentication, your networked enterprise needs to have professional help patching vulnerabilities, using data loss prevention tools and deploying intrusion prevention systems to block cyber-attacks. To keep threats of attack at bay, IT companies in California will provide security by:

Decrypting and inspecting SSLtraffic – Skilled hackers can conceal their attack in SSL traffic in order to prevent detection. Your intrusion prevention systems, next-gen firewalls and other network security solutions need to scrutinize all of your company’s traffic - not just plain text data.

Fortifying web applications against attack – Hackers often find web application data to be an attractive, and they will exploit any application’s vulnerabilities in order to steal records from your database or gain access to your web servers.

Setting up virtual private networks (VPNs) to secure data – Any communication you make over public networks is at risk of being intercepted in some way. Encrypting sensitive data with IPsec encryption before being sent through the internet will help keep your data safer.

Monitoring and auditing access to sensitive data: If your company stores sensitive data in files or databases, tracking all activity, including changes and access to determine unapproved activity, and prevent unauthorized access can limit the impact of an intrusion incident.

Comparing IT companies In California

The internet world isn’t the safe place it used to be. Rather than worrying about a lone hacker, many businesses face threats from entire groups with professional teams of dedicated infiltrators just waiting to get access to your sensitive information and data. When comparing IT companies in California, a one-size-fits-all approach rarely fits every business. By working with an IT company that customizes their service to your specific needs, you can ensure you have no SSL blindspots that allow hackers to gain access to company networks and steal your private data. It is essential that your company is prepared – the question isn’t if a cyber-attack will come, but when and how. Make sure that your IT company knowledgeable about your industry’s specific security vulnerabilities.

Apex is one of the most trusted IT companies in California. You can rely on Apex to stay ahead of the latest information technology.