Cyber Security: Reduce The Risk (Part 1)

October is Cyber Security Awareness Month, so the team at zzoota have collated some of the strategies we use to remain secure online.

Today, cyber-attacks are commonplace and automated. In fact, despite zzoota still being a scale up, we’ve been under automated attack for the last few months. This is expected for every data company, and so we’ve implemented cyber security measures to prevent a breach or impact to our services. Because of these measures, we have remained secure. If your company is ever breached from a successful attack, it is important you contact the authorities and your clients in a timely manner.

This series of cyber security articles intends to help your business identify and address some common cyber vulnerabilities.

Use the newest software versions

Software applications are constantly being updated with security fixes. Once these fixes are released, the vulnerabilities for previous releases become public. To remain safe, always keep your operating system and applications up to date on all your devices.

Change default passwords

If you have purchased a product or service that still has the same password it came with, you should change it. This includes the randomly generated Wi-Fi password. Quite often, default passwords are not secure and can be easily guessed. Ensure the new passwords are still secure (see require long passwords below).

Also, if any of your username-password combinations include ‘root’, ‘admin’ or ‘default’ as the username or password, change these immediately – they are the first credentials that hackers try.

Disable WPS on your router

The default configuration of most Wi-Fi settings is insecure. After changing the default password (both the Wi-Fi passwords and the router password), we recommend disabling WPS. Whilst the WPS button can be helpful, it poses a security vulnerability. To change all three settings, log into your router.

Use a password manager

A password manager auto generates the strongest passwords and remembers them securely for you. Using a password manager is one of the best things you can do to increase your cyber security.

Require long passwords

The only indication of a strong password is character length. While complexity (like special characters) does make a difference, password length is the defining factor for password security.

Whilst a password manager is recommended, sometimes it is not viable. In these cases, a single requirement of at least 12 characters is very effective. Using a passphrase (3-5 random words) makes it easy to satisfy this requirement. Also, don’t require users to change their password regularly. Doing so encourages them to use variations on a weak password.