October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, which is as good a reason as any for Fort Myers businesses to take a few minutes and make sure the basics are covered. You don’t need to be a security expert, just a handful of smart habits can keep you out of trouble.
Here are five things you can do this week that’ll make a real difference:
- Use actual strong passwords, Skip the pet names and birthdays. If you can remember your password easily, it’s probably not great. A password manager like Bitwarden or 1Password takes the hassle out of using long, random passwords for everything.
- Turn on multi-factor authentication, That extra step where you confirm a login with your phone? It blocks the vast majority of unauthorized logins. It takes two minutes to set up and it’s one of the most effective things you can do.
- Actually install those software updates, I know, the “restart to update” notifications are annoying. But those updates patch security holes that hackers actively exploit. Putting them off is basically leaving a window open.
- Be skeptical of email, If something feels even a little off, weird sender, unexpected attachment, a link that doesn’t match where it says it goes, don’t click it. Phishing emails are good enough now to fool experienced tech people.
- Back up your data, If ransomware hits tomorrow, do you have a clean copy of everything that matters? If the answer is “I think so” or “probably,” that’s not good enough. Set up automated backups and test them.
None of this is complicated, and all of it can prevent a really bad day.
If you want help getting any of this set up for your office, password managers, MFA, backup systems, whatever, HenkTek can handle it. Give us a call at (239) 234-2334. We work with small businesses across Fort Myers, Cape Coral, and Southwest Florida.