What are the 5 simple things that you need in order secure your computers?
Here’s the checklist, with some explanation for each item.
- Business-class firewall. Small cheap home-user grade routers don’t count. This is your main “wall” between the Internet and your business. This needs to be commercial grade.
- Malware protection software on every workstation. All servers, all PCs, all Macs, all “temporary” workstations. Basically, this means you need a business class antivirus program on every computer in the company. No exceptions.
- A web filtering solution. This could be a cloud-solution, or an in-house web filter. Something that prevents staff members from clicking on bad links and getting infected. Most malware comes in through the web browser now, so a web filtering solution is required protection.
- Limited permissions on shared folders. That means that in your shared company documents, not everyone has access to everything. Most files that the employees need to get to can be read-only. By segmenting the rights, an infected PC in the shipping department cannot alter the files in the accounting department. Even if you allowed everyone in every department to see all the other files, you must not allow everyone to alter files in every department. This is simple for an IT firm to set up, but you need to know about it first.
- Backups. Trusted, verified, scheduled, redundant, on-site and off-site backups.
Stay tuned for my list of recommended solutions for each category.