Securing your device

This week we’ll be taking a step back from the technical talk. While there are a whole host of exploits, vulnerabilities, threat-actors, techniques and more, it is always most important to solidify your foundation before you start building.

Our article this week will focus on general IT health care, and how to ensure that your device, whether personal or business, is secured correctly. When you are reviewing your business infrastructure, tailor your deployment depending on how many devices you have. This is a high-level guideline of the most critical security implementations you should be applying:

Update your Operating System – ensure that your device is kept up to date, is automatically downloading updates and applying these at least every fortnight. Install anti-malware software, preferably with a built-in web shield and email protection, and set this to update and scan daily so you are able to block the latest security vulnerabilities.

Set standards for your passwords – create passwords at least 9 characters with a good mixture of uppercase, lowercase, special, and numeric characters. For example, “@L*ng_islanDer212” is significantly more secure when compared to “frank1970”.

Control your software – this is a critical part of your day-to-day working and it’s important to keep your applications updated. When applications lay dormant on your device, they accrue security vulnerabilities which, in a lot of cases, can be easily exploited when it is released to the public.

With a good foundation, protection against cyber-attacks is more proactive rather than reactive. Good security practices allow you to forget about what you need to install, but instead how to continue to develop existing infrastructure as a result of a penetration test, phishing campaign, vulnerability scan or other audit to provide continuous improvement.