Cybersecurity
This is one of the first conversations we have with our clients. Are you digitally protected? Where are your security gaps? There is no longer a question of IF you need Cybersecurity, you do. We’ve seen companies with teams of 1 get hacked, so please know you aren’t too small to get hacked. We can help, at a very affordable price. Cybersecurity is an umbrella, under which are many important conversations to have. That’s why it’s these topics we cover most in our monthly blog posts.
Anti-Virus Software
We are a reseller of Trend Micro anti-virus software. If you purchase Trend anti-virus through us there are several benefits.
- The program has a small footprint, meaning the program itself doesn’t slow the computer down like many other antivirus programs do
- We setup all computers to run a full antivirus scan once a week
- We get weekly reports of any abnormal activity happening on your computers
- We get the emails when the licenses are due to renew and handle the entire renewal process.
- The weekly scans, reports, and annual license are all centrally managed by Murph Consulting. Absolutely nothing to do on your end here except pay for the annual licenses.
Password Managers
Long gone SHOULD be the days of having a password like “Password1” and/or using the same password for multiple websites, but many people still do it. We all have way more logins and passwords than we should be expected to remember, or that will fit on a post-it under your keyboard (yes, we know about that) and with a password manager we no longer need to. I personally have about 800 passwords saved in my vault, couldn’t tell you what any of those passwords are because they are intentionally complex and that is a VERY liberating feeling.
User Training
While putting as many levels of security in place as possible, without making your life technologically unbearable is super important, at the end of the day, it’s what our clients might click on that keeps us up at night. The more we can train our clients on what to look out for, the better position we’ll be in.
The service we recommend here will randomly send emails, once a month, to each employee that is a very real-looking fake email. Should the employee click on anything they shouldn’t, they are sent to a website that very respectfully explains what they clicked on and has them take a quick security test to better prepare them for the next fake email they will get.
Multi-factor authentication
While having complex passwords for all of your services is a good start, it isn’t enough. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) or 2-factor authentication, as the name implies, provides an extra layer of security to log in to an account. There are a few ways that works, but typically they will go through your phone in some fashion. The idea is you always have your phone on you, and the hacker doesn’t, even if they’ve just cracked your password.
Your email service of choice, your social media sites, and any reputable cloud-based services all use these multi-step authentication tools in order to verify your identity when you log into your account. Some people elect not to set up this authentication step because it can be a hassle- you have to enter a code from your phone in a short time period, but despite how many steps are involved, setting up MFA can be the difference between getting hacked and staying secure. Most of the major breaches you’ve heard about in the news involved MFA not being in place.
Think of it this way, the extra step you have to take to log in makes it MUCH harder for a hacker to log in to your accounts. It’s akin to leaving your front door unlocked and hoping nobody tries to open the door. If they DO try and find the door locked, they will probably go to the next house. Cybercriminals think in much the same way.