16 Security Procedures to Implement in 2020

As the technologies we use in our personal and work lives develop and evolve over time, so does our need to protect our data, our business-critical files and our online identities. We are constantly interacting with a multitude of devices, often accessing our cloud-stored data from a variety of locations and using all sort of different channels to pass and read data and information. The inherent risks associated with this are plenty, and this article covers some important network security procedures you should implement in 2020:

IT Security Policies

This is a list of procedures to be agreed by those responsible for your business’s network security policies:

Decide who should have access to approved USB drives and create an inventory of both
Keep abreast of the latest cyber security news and information online, specifically in your industry to be aware of all the latest threats
Identify what data is important and requires a regular backup
Create a robust password policy and ensure everyone is aware of it
Ensure that all staff have appropriate IT system access depending on their roles and responsibilities

Technical Security Procedures

Once your policy is in place, it’s vitally important that the following technical aspects of your security procedure are in place, communicated to relevant staff and regularly reviewed and audited, regardless of whether these tasks are undertaken in-house or to an outsourced team of experts:

Make sure you have an adequate firewall installed and switched on
Ensure you have an up-to-date anti-virus system installed and activated
Monitor access to physical ports so that they are not unnecessarily available unless required by designated staff
Restrict malicious content by installing a content filtering application in your firewall setup: Watchguard WebBlocker is a great example
Explore the use of password managers (audit the reputation as many are available) as staff might find this helpful for password management
Make sure your backups are regular, located remotely (in the cloud, for example) and to a physical drive, such as a portable hard drive, that can be stored off site (it’s also worth making multiple backup copies to be extra safe)
Set your backups to be automated based on the rate of change with your critical data
Ensure all devices are password protected and where relevant, ensure that device tracking applications are installed and activated for any devices used offsite.
Make sure you have enabled 2-factor authentication on all business critical channels such as email accounts
Apply procedures to prevent staff downloading any restricted or un-audited third-party software
Make sure all devices used by your team are regularly updated to ensure the latest security patches are in place (set to automatic updates to be on the safe side)

With these procedures in place, you should be able to mitigate most potential IT security threats to your network in 2020. Makes sure that you keep everything updated and that, once agreed, your policies are adhered to by the entire organization. Only by doing so can you ensure your network is safe, secure, and continues to work well into the new year.