Keep your business safe from cyberattacks amid the COVID-19 outbreak

While companies are closely monitoring the pandemic and implementing their business continuity plans, hackers with malicious intent are also taking advantage of the situation. 

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According to Eastern Communications, industries that are the busiest during the lockdown are the most vulnerable ones to cyberattacks, which include healthcare, banking and finance, government, and media.

“The COVID-19 crisis shows no signs of disappearing anytime soon. We have to make tough decisions rapidly as cyber criminals will also continue trying to exploit the situation and create more attacks. It’s important to stay as vigilant as possible to safeguard your business from getting hit,” said Eastern Communications Product and Innovation Head Edsel Paglinawan.

Resources and workforce may be stretched at this time, but it also pays for companies to become proactive to secure their businesses. Eastern Communications, one of the country’s premier telecommunications companies, shares ways how to secure businesses from potential cyberthreats. 

Educating employees on online security practices 
Educated employees on online security practices can put your business at an advantage. It is best for employers to remind employees to be wary of and avoid opening suspicious e-mails to prevent malicious malware from threatening their software or data. Companies should also provide employees with organized business e-mail addresses and make sure that they refrain from using designated business e-mails to subscribe to unnecessary mailing lists.  

Securing online accounts with strong passwords
We all know that in the cyberspace passwords are the first line of defense, they are the key to all our data and information. It is important to have a strong password that uses alpha-numeric characters and special characters. It is best to avoid using passwords that contain personal information like birthdays or anniversaries as it can be easily hacked. It is also important to avoid using the same passwords for different online accounts or websites and to change passwords regularly. 

Keeping operating system and security software up to date
Choosing a reliable anti-virus and anti-malware software is also important when you have an online business. Keeping regular maintenance on updates on the software you use and checking for vulnerabilities can help prevent any threats in your computer that you use in accessing your business website. 

Distributed Denial of Service or DDoS attacks are one of the fastest growing threats in the cyber-attack landscape. A DDoS attack aims to make online services unavailable through overwhelming traffic from multiple sources. Eastern Communications’ CyberDefense protects businesses from basic to the most sophisticated attacks. It also provides Web Application Firewall (WAF) that blocks any Layer 7 threat like cross-site forgery, cross-site scripting, among others; while Content Delivery Network (CDN) generates faster loading of a website, which saves companies money yet enhances website performance at the same time.  

“As businesses continue to aim for mobile workforce, they should also consider to cloudify infrastructure and complex applications and defend investments against sophisticated cyber threats. It also helps to have a trusted expert at your side. Beyond connectivity, we provide end-to-end solutions, from access to the market leaders in cybersecurity to managing business security through unwavering customer support,” Paglinawan explained.

Back up your data
As your business stores important data about sales, customer information and more, it is important to secure all of your data and effectively back it up to avoid any loss or corruption of data. Setting up firewalls are necessary to control incoming and outgoing traffic. It secures internal networks from threats and will be helpful in keeping your critical data safe. 

Have a reliable and secure web hosting 
Make sure that you choose a reliable web hosting service for all your websites and all your e-commerce platforms to secure all your data and transactions. Should anything go wrong, and the company website is disrupted by cyberattacks, a reliable web hosting will properly support the business through it. 

Although the pandemic has already affected many businesses at this challenging time, maintaining the resilience of companies with awareness and technology against cyberattacks can aid in limiting the impact of COVID-19.