Preventing attacks on your company's data has been elevated to the status of Whack-A-Mole. Just as you patch one vulnerability, hackers find new ways to exploit weaknesses in your cybersecurity practices. From now into the near future, it will be a rare company that doesn't experience a data loss or service interruption.

Firewalls and virus protection are no longer enough to shield your valuable data from unauthorized access and attack. You need to address backup and disaster recovery, password policies, user/entity behaviors, privileged access behaviors, and roles and permissions.

The modern cybersecurity checklist

This simple plan should form the basis for preventing intrusions into your organization's data. The types of cyber threat you might encounter these days include phishing scams, app vulnerabilities, and insider threats. Your essential three-step approach should be:

• Conduct an internal audit:  analyze and identify critical areas, and determine to what extent your staff is informed on proper data security practice. It may be malware that directly wreaks havoc on your systems, but it's often a hapless, or even malicious, employee who leaves the gate open. Yikes! The caller is inside the house! Once you've completed your audit, share the results with the rest of your team to motivate them to take an active role in preventing breaches while being able to detect and report then they do occur.
• Train and monitor your workers: train them when they start the job and periodically throughout their employment. The training doesn't stop when they leave, either. At their exit interview, make sure they know the penalties for misuse of company data, and change their passwords and other security permissions immediately. After all, if you hire a contractor to paint your house, you don't let him keep the key to the front door when he's finished the job. The same principle applies when you're guarding that secret recipe or your marketing contacts list.
• Plan ahead for cyber attacks: Include cyber threats as part and parcel of your business disaster and continuity planning. In the same way that chief information security officers (CISO's) have to devise recovery plans for flooding, fires, and other natural disasters, companies need to mitigate against attacks by malicious actors.

Training your employees

It's also not enough to hire a single IT professional to manage all your company's cyber security requirements. You need to train your staff.

This need became apparent to Tina, a database architect in the healthcare industry, where companies swallow each other up for breakfast on a regular basis, and merging legacy systems becomes a daily nightmare. "Yes, we train people on security. In this business, it's the first thing that is considered."

In an article published on Forbes in March 2019, David Lefever points out that your inside people can be victims of social engineering attacks or unwittingly introduce cybersecurity risk into your organization. Fortunately, training these valuable assets is the most effective way to reduce risk from this source, and it is getting easier all the time. It's all about "making it easy for users to do the right thing."

Where do you start?

CompTIA is a non-profit is a nonprofit trade association that offers training and certification for professionals in the IT industry. One of the top trade associations, CompTIA operates in 120 countries where it issues vendor-neutral qualifications. More than two million individuals have acquired certifications since the organization established itself in January 1982.

The CompTIA A+ is good place to start. Get this certification for your staff, and they will not only thank you for taking an interest in their development and career progression, they will also be ready and able to conduct installation, preventative maintenance, troubleshooting, basic networking, and communication with skill and professionalism.

Where can you obtain CompTIA A+ training?

Established in 1988, Infotec Training has acquired a world-class reputation for leadership and IT training. At their clients' disposal are quality instructors, cutting-edge facilities, and flexible training techniques. It offers the CompTIA A+ certification along with other CompTIA courses, including Cybersecurity Analyst+, PenTest+, Advanced Security Practitioner, Network+, and Linux+, among others.

Contact Infotec today to learn more about how we can help you train your staff to their maximum potential, offering you increased value for your investment while retaining well-trained staff, who will reward you with years of dedicated service.