2025 is now in full swing, but it’s never too late to start setting new goals to take your business to the next level. From streamlining workflows to investing in your team, the resolutions you make can pave the way for significant growth and success in the coming year.
Your business resolutions wouldn’t be complete if you didn’t include these five key cybersecurity habits to improve your company’s security posture. Aimed at fortifying your defenses, these habits will help you mitigate risks and protect your business from cyberthreats.
Regularly back up your data
Regular backups are essential for protecting against data loss from hardware failures, cyberattacks such as ransomware, or even human error. They’re like a safety net for your valuable information, ensuring that even if the unexpected happens, you can quickly recover and get back to business as usual.
Make sure to back up critical data to both on-site and off-site locations (e.g., cloud storage). This approach provides an added layer of security. If one location is compromised, the other serves as a reliable fallback, enabling you to recover data swiftly and minimizing operational disruption.
Employ more effective password strategies
Strong passwords are a fundamental safeguard against cyberthreats, so it’s crucial to adopt better password habits this year. This means moving beyond simple, easily guessed passwords and embracing complex combinations of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols.
It’s also a good idea to use a unique password for each of your accounts to limit the damage from a potential breach. Consider using a password manager to generate and securely store these complex passwords, simplifying the process while significantly enhancing your security.
Additionally, you should enable multifactor authentication (MFA) wherever possible. MFA provides enhanced security by requiring multiple verification factors, making it much harder for hackers to access your accounts.
Update your OS and software
Keeping your business’s OS (operating system) and software up to date is one of the easiest yet most effective ways to boost your digital security. These updates often include critical security patches that protect your devices from the latest cyberthreats and vulnerabilities. Think of it like getting a regular check-up for your computer, helping keep everything secure and running smoothly and securely.
And so you don’t miss an update that could expose your data and compromise your entire system, take advantage of automatic updates. Automatic updates ensure continuous protection against emerging threats and optimized system performance.
Deploy cybersecurity tools
If you haven’t already, now is the time to implement robust cybersecurity solutions to protect your business from data breaches and other threats. While cybersecurity tools might seem like an added expense, they cost far less than recovering from a cyber incident, making it a smart investment for any business. Protecting your data and systems today can save you time, money, and headaches down the road.
Among the key cybersecurity tools you should implement are:
- Firewall – monitors and controls both incoming and outgoing network traffic, blocking unauthorized access and protecting your network from external threats
- Antivirus and anti-malware – detect, prevent, and remove malicious software such as viruses, worms, Trojans, spyware, and ransomware from computer systems and devices
- Endpoint detection and response (EDR) – constantly watches over endpoints such as laptops, desktops, phones, and servers to spot any suspicious activity that might indicate a cyberattack
- Mobile device management (MDM) – streamlines enforcement of security policies, including restricting access to certain apps or websites, and enables your IT team to erase data from a lost or stolen device to protect company information
Provide ongoing employee training
Your employees are your first line of defense against cyberthreats, which is why cybersecurity training is so important. Educating them on how to spot and respond to suspicious activity can greatly reduce your business’s risk of falling victim to cyberattacks, and it’s also an important step to boosting your cybersecurity posture.
Conduct training at least every six months to reinforce best practices and keep cybersecurity top of mind. In addition, when a cybersecurity event occurs or a new threat emerges, update your training program and security protocols, and educate your employees about the specific threat and how to avoid falling victim to similar attacks.
Prepare for 2025’s cybersecurity challenges with guidance from the experts at TEKZYS. Contact us today, and we’ll help you adopt essential cybersecurity habits and solutions to protect your business now and in the years to come.