Cybersecurity Awareness Month

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and there is no better time than now to learn all the ways you can improve your online security and protect your business from potential threats. When it comes to website and data security, you can never be too careful.

This year’s Cybersecurity Awareness theme, “See Yourself in Cyber,” was selected by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in an effort to illustrate how you are the center of cybersecurity and have the ability to take action against cyber threats.

The Importance of Website Maintenance

A key factor in reducing your website’s vulnerability and stolen information is keeping up with website maintenance on a routine basis. While this maintenance is something that most people tend to put on the back burner, others are simply unaware that website updates go well beyond changing the visuals and page copy from time to time. So, what all does website maintenance entail?

Website maintenance and updates include but are not limited to:

• Ongoing backups to ensure your website can be restored to its latest version in the event that a cyberattacker gains access to your site

• Upgrading software to current versions for increased security and speed

• Malware, hack detection and cleanup to prevent malicious attacks from exploiting your system

• Ongoing website updates of elements such as core, themes and plugins

• Website performance, page speed, and uptime monitoring

• Google Analytics reporting to identify any suspicious activity on your website and locate where it is coming from

If you do not continually maintain and update your website, you run the risk of weak security. This can result in the loss of valuable information and your site becoming seized by cyberattackers, likely damaging your business beyond repair. Although these attacks can be prevented, it happens often due to a lack of knowledge regarding cybersecurity best practices.

Tips to Safeguard Your Website and Data

• Work with a business partner to maintain and support your website. At Amplimark, we offer flexible website maintenance and support plans for small and medium-sized businesses that don’t have in-house IT on staff to make needed updates to their websites.

  Our experienced web developers are happy to work with you even if your website is designed by another web design agency. We have in-house expertise and resources to do the job while staying within budget and meeting your deadlines.

• Be mindful of what you click on. If a link looks suspicious or is received from an unknown sender, it may be a tactic to install malware onto your device or steal confidential information. Before clicking, always verify the email address from which an unexpected link came from.

• Use strong passwords. Although using the same password for every account is easy to remember, it is extremely dangerous and puts your business at risk of any or all accounts being hacked. If a hacker gains access to your password, you can guarantee they will pursue other accounts you own with that password. Create different passwords for each account using a mixture of upper and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols.

• To go a step further, enable multi-factor authentication on your accounts. Although you may think this is a hassle and unnecessary step to log in, it sure beats the alternative of getting hacked.

If you are looking for website support, contact us today to learn about the maintenance plans we offer for our small and medium-sized business customers.