We must all take our hats off to Microsoft as over the past year they have protected many of us from cyber threats. Microsoft’s Cyber Signals cybersecurity report reveals that in 2021 Microsoft Defender for Office 365 blocked more than 35.7 billion malicious emails. On top of that Microsoft Azure AD detected and blocked more than 25.6 billion brute force attacks, where a hacker attempts to guess login credentials to gain access to your data. And it doesn’t stop there. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint blocked more than 9.6 billion malware threats.
So… Thankyou Microsoft.
Additional security measures for your business
This is great to hear for those of us that use Microsoft’s applications within our businesses. For those that don’t, we recommend it.
But more is needed to keep our data and our passwords safe. Sadly many businesses continue to mismanage credentials and leave the door open to their data. They use the same passwords across accounts or easy to guess passwords that takes an attacker moments to work out. Hackers have no need to change their approach all the whilst businesses continue to be lax in this area.
Are you guilty?
Please do more to protect your business. Cyber crime is only on the increase. One of the easiest things to introduce is multi-factor authentication (MFA). The Cyber Signals report states that ‘The need to enforce MFA… cannot be overstated’. They say it is ‘a powerful deterrent to attacks’.
MFA works by requiring, along with your password, an additional verification factor. Often this is in the form of a one-time password (OTP) sent to you via email or SMS or perhaps a mobile app. Once used the OTP becomes useless. A new OTP is required each time you login.
Along with this simple security measure there is more to implement to make a hackers life hard.
- Use a password manager – which will create strong passwords for all your accounts, store them and encrypt them. No more ‘password123’ for everything!
- Biometric logins – You are probably familiar with this from using Face ID or fingerprint readers on your phone. But have you activated this for your applications?
Are there areas in which you can improve your business cyber security? It’s in your best interests to answer honestly and take steps to improve. And if there are, we can help. Just get in touch today.
