We all know by now that most companies rely on internet for their daily operations, but what would you do if you lost access to the internet for a day? How would your business’ digital identity be impacted by this unpredictable downtime? As a business owner, you need to be aware of the threat posed by digital identity theft—especially if you cannot access the internet. How exactly can you prevent digital identity theft from happening to your business? We’ll cover the bases below.
WHAT IS DIGITAL IDENTITY THEFT AND WHAT ARE THE RISKS?
Digital identity theft is essentially the same as regular identity theft; however, someone steals your digital identity, posing as you. Several risks come with digital identity theft. For example, someone may steal your information and use it to make purchases in your name. Or, they may use your personal information to reveal confidential information, damage your reputation, and potentially harm your company. Because there are so many risks that come with digital identity theft, you need to protect yourself accordingly.
HOW TO PROTECT YOUR DIGITAL IDENTITY
While it’s a constant job to protect your digital identity from harm, there are several ways you can prevent someone from stealing your digital identity. These include:
- Use a Virtual Private Network (VPN): Using a VPN will help protect your information. This is a way for you to encrypt all of your online activity, making it difficult for someone to steal your confidential information.
- Education and Training: You also need to educate and train your employees on the importance of cybersecurity. Make sure they understand what a potential hack looks like, and train them to protect their login credentials.
- Software and Hardware Updates: When it is time to update your software or hardware, make sure you do so in a timely manner. These updates take place because the companies are patching vulnerabilities in the program. Take advantage of these patches to protect yourself as soon as possible.
THE IMPORTANCE OF PASSWORD SECURITY
Let’s not forget about password security. A strong password has lowercase letters, uppercase letters, numbers, and symbols. The longer the password is, the harder it will be to guess. You should also make sure you change your password regularly. That way, if your password has been exposed, you can change it and deal with the threat. Make sure to educate your employees and partners on the importance of good password hygiene.
For an extra layer of protection, we suggest setting up multi-factor authentication for all of your accounts. Multi-factor authentication is a major part of securing important information systems from potential threats, and is often stronger than using passwords alone. Essentially, it provides a secondary layer of credentials that need to be provided in order to access sensitive data.
By using multi-factor authentication, you’re making it twice as difficult for cybercriminals to access your data, which mitigates much of the risk. When you take advantage of multi-factor authentication tactics, you can limit your data’s exposure to threats and maximize security.
WAYS TO AVOID PHISHING SCAMS
Phishing scams are a severe threat in the current environment. A phishing attack occurs when someone poses as someone else, trying to get someone to surrender things like their username and password virtually. The best way to deal with phishing attacks is to prevent them from happening in the first place. Ensure your employees are trained to spot these attacks and encourage them to notify security immediately so the threat can be dealt with before a ransomware attack takes place.
HOW TO RECOVER FROM A DATA BREACH OR HACKING INCIDENT
If a hacking incident does take place, you need to reach out to professionals as quickly as possible. Make sure you identify which files have been corrupted and which files have not been corrupted. If you have a backup data set, you can use this to continue your operations, but you need to ensure your backup information has not been compromised. IT professionals like those at Exact IT Consulting can walk you through this process, minimizing the damage.
TRUST THE PROFESSIONALS FOR HELP
If you want to protect your digital identity from harm, you need to rely on cyber security consulting firms to help you. There are IT consulting companies in Indiana that provide you with access to professional IT consulting and training. Education is the backbone of preventing digital identity theft, so rely on our professional IT consulting team for the best practices to protect your identity from harm.
Exact IT Consulting offers a comprehensive suite of proactive and innovative technology solutions that can help you make strategic, long-term IT decisions that will positively impact your organization.
