By Jeff Schroeder, Vice President, Microsoft Services
Is it any wonder that Black Friday nearly coincides with National Computer Security Day? As the holidays approach and we continue to shop online, it is a fitting time of year to think about protecting your data and devices.
National Computer Security Day (November 30) is meant to promote awareness of data protection. This is an especially demanding burden for in-house IT teams, whose responsibilities increased tremendously when the workforce transitioned to remote environments. As we are all working longer hours and the lines between work and leisure are blurred, there is bound to be more personal information stored on company devices.
As hackers prepare to pounce on Black Friday, IT folks are wise to review our cyber-safety checklist.
- Proactively ensure that anti-virus, application, and operating system software is up-to-date
- Monitor the latest phishing scams and send warning alerts to employees
- Encourage employees to utilize multi-factor authentication whenever possible
- Deploy mobile device management policies that allow IT to enforce security baselines for devices taken out of the office
- Recommend a trusted password manager for employees to securely store and organize account credentials
- Consider hosting a virtual device “clinic” to remotely conduct virus scans and vulnerability checks
- Share images of fake sites and spoof emails to prepare your people to identify scams
- Make sure that users know how to create a strong, unique password for each of their accounts
- Implement a security protocol for password recovery calls or other remote accesses to sensitive data
- Establish social media guidelines to encourage a disciplined approach to sharing personal information
