How to defend against cyberthreats in your industry

Cybersecurity is an essential part of doing business these days. If you run a business, no matter the size, you have to ensure your network can withstand cyberthreats.

"Cybersecurity attacks have grown in numbers, and they've become more and more lucrative due to the amount of money that is stolen from companies," said Mike Taylor, vice president of business development at Cii Technology Solutions.

Your business is only as safe as your most vulnerable employee when a cybercriminal "takes advantage of an unsuspecting user and manipulates them into providing either access, credentials and/or money or gift cards," said Taylor.

As such, it's important to identify your company's weak points based on your industry, and make a plan to strengthen them.

Cybercriminals may target these industries to gain access to sensitive information about patients and intellectual property.

"How do you stop this? Good security and awareness training for the staff and utilizing multi-factor authentication, which is two-factor identification," said Taylor. "Basically, a second identification mechanism to thwart somebody getting your credentials and accessing systems that are for your eyes only."

Multi-factor authentication can not only thwart cyberthreats but provide a warning to account holders that someone was trying to gain access to their information.

If you're part of the finance industry, you can be hit with different types of threats, but they come from the same angle, Taylor said.

Attackers may place ransomware on your data and then demand a ransom to release it back to you. Unfortunately, when your business pays, it creates a vicious cycle in which ransomware developers use prior attacks to fund future ones.

Another common threat comes from keyloggers. This technology tracks a user's keystrokes to figure out how to sign into a financial institution and access private information.

Multi-factor authentication could be part of the security solution to these issues.

Architects and engineers tend to work with heavy computational and graphic intensive applications.

"Because of this, the majority of the time companies are using local machines that have very large graphic processing units," said Taylor. "Because they're kind of scattered and individual, it's more effort on the management side to take care of these."

If the company is not on the cloud, it may have multiple points cybercriminals can use to access information, instead of one point of access that is easier to manage and protect, Taylor said.

"If you have one location on the cloud, then you're managing one place," he said.

The information your property management company collects from potential renters, such as birth dates and Social Security numbers, is everything a hacker needs to steal identities. Unfortunately, that information may be easily accessible if it's stored on a computer in your office.

"These machines are susceptible to being physically stolen," said Taylor. "These machines typically don't have the greatest security on them, but they are logging and saving personal identifying information."

If your company instead lets applicants share information on the cloud, it not only offers greater security, it is also more convenient.

"These property management companies can better secure their clients by allowing them to remote into a cloud platform," said Taylor.

If you're in the manufacturing industry, you likely deal with a lot of intellectual property. Unfortunately, certain countries are known for stealing that information, Taylor said.

"They can reproduce products that are U.S.-owned intellectual property," he said.

They then can sell the products at a lower price, potentially putting your company out of business.

Adding layers of security could neutralize these threats.

No matter your industry, defending against cyberthreats is essential to protecting your and your customers' private information and staying in business. So, what can you do?

"The biggest thing is the layered approach," Taylor said.

These layers of security could include educating employees about common threats and how to defend against them, implementing multi-factor authentication, and taking advantage of the security features in the cloud.