5 Things Every IT Manager Should Do to Protect Their Company Servers Against Hackers
In our technologically-reliant world, information is everything. Computer hackers are always on the lookout for vulnerabilities in business servers so they can wreak havoc and steal valuable information. Without vigilant efforts and cybersecurity best-practices, you could open your servers up to attacks. As an IT manager, it’s your job to ensure your company’s servers are well-protected, keeping your sensitive information safe and sound.
Whether you’re new to the tech game or looking to up your current security antics, read on for five ways to protect your companies servers.
Partner with a Third-party IT Company
Outsourcing your information technology and cybersecurity necessities to a reputable third-party IT company is an excellent way of increasing protection for your company’s servers. Starting with a solid foundation like SUSE Linux on POWER servers, you can equip your system with the necessary tools to protect your company’s information.
Third-party IT companies dedicate efforts to keeping technologies and tools up to date to protect your servers with top-of-the-line software. For your own IT team, outsourcing also means having extra support. Rather than trying to troubleshoot internal company tech problems while also monitoring security, IT team members can focus on day-to-day tech problems that arise.
Use Virtualization
In today’s consumer-based world, whenever you visit a website, you’re bound to be bombarded with ads. If you’re not careful, one stray click can send you to a sketchy website or download a dangerous file. With virtualization, your company’s employees can run their browsers in a virtual environment separate from their operating system, isolating any security breaches to that virtual machine.
In addition to increasing your servers’ security, virtualization can also help you save on IT costs. Virtual machines reduce the number of physical servers necessary and also decrease energy consumption with fewer physical servers.
Hide Your Software Version Information
Every new software update comes with a version number indicating the release date of the software’s build. While development teams implement software updates to fix bugs, they often come with their own sets of vulnerabilities. If you don’t hide your software version information, hackers can quickly look up your version to find known weak points they can exploit.
It’s crucial to remove version information from virtually everything your company uses, including web servers, email servers, and file servers. By scrubbing equipment clean, you can keep your company safe by hiding vital information, which is as easy as deleting it from HTTP headers.
Use Certificate or Key Authentication
Passwords are a standard login method, but modern hackers can easily crack them through repeated attempts to access your servers. Modernized computers can also use algorithms to automate guessing passwords, allowing hackers to break into servers with minimal effort.
Instead of traditional passwords, consider switching to SSH key authentication for logging into your company servers. SSH keys are much longer than passwords and include special characters, exponentially increasing possible authentication combinations, slowing down automated guessing.
Educate Your Company’s Employees
Encouraging employees to be a part of your system’s defensive line is one of the best routes to secure operations. While not everyone at your company is as tech-savvy as your IT team, the average employee can still increase company security with simple measures.
You can establish company workers’ guidelines about what internet activities are work-appropriate and what actions are prohibited. Encourage habits like ignoring spam emails and avoiding downloading attachments that don’t have relevance to work. By cultivating a company culture around cybersecurity, employees can do their part to protect valuable information, making your job easier.
The Bottom Line
Your company’s information is valuable and deserves top-notch security to keep it from falling into hackers’ hands. While you won’t necessarily experience digital threats day-to-day, prioritizing cybersecurity can save your company from future hacking catastrophes. By employing a few simple defenses, you can ensure your company’s servers are well-protected from malicious attacks.
This article has been scheduled in accordance with Socialnomics’ disclosure policy.
