Thanks to the marvels of the Internet, running a business has been significantly simplified these days. Whether it’s communication, the handling of resources or anything else, the advent of information technology has made us much more efficient at it, and at the same time has drastically reduced the amount of effort we have to put in. However, there’s a certain downside to running an online business and depending on the Internet as much as we do now, and it manifests itself in an aspect called Internet security. These days, most serious crimes are committed without the criminal even being physically present; they’re committed online, from a safe distance, and the consequences can be just as severe if not more so.
In order to protect yourself and your business from Internet-based threats, you’re going to need to set yourself up with a few security tools. With these tools, you can drastically reduce the chances of your business being targeted by a cyber attack or security breach of any kind, and thus keep your funds and sensitive information safe from malicious third parties.
Online Business
1. CloudFlare
Some of the greatest threats to you as an owner of an online business are DDoS attacks and SQL injections, conducted by malicious hackers to disrupt your website or any online service you might possess. Cloudflare is one of the most popular means of protecting against such a threat. The free version basically acts as a wall against any harmful cyber attacks carried out in this manner, as the software will automatically detect them and block them from accessing your website. Not only that, but CloudFlare will actually evaluate each visiting IP individually, and attempt to analyze their legitimacy and deducting whether they’re a threat or not. If CloudFlare decides that there’s some suspicious activity, you can choose to block the IP address causing it in order to protect your website. CloudFlare is being used more and more on a wide variety of websites and is an extremely effective method against DDoS attacks, so I highly recommend that you check it out.
2. Lookout Mobile Security
A lot of our online business is being conducted via mobile devices these days, which means that a lot of potentially sensitive data is sometimes kept on our smartphones or tablets. In order to protect this data, you need to have some sort of mobile security tool installed, and I personally recommend that you check out Lookout Mobile Security. This fantastic little app can shield your business from all kinds of mobile threats, and even warn you of potentially suspicious and dangerous online activity that you should try to avoid. Additionally, Lookout Mobile Security gives you the ability to monitor other devices and manage potential risks on each of them individually, which is always a plus.
3. Qualys
If you run an online business, you most likely use some kind of online Cloud storage service such as Dropbox or Google Drive. Cloud servers have known to be subject to successful data breaches in the past, which can be quite a nasty thing for the people that happened to keep sensitive, confidential information on one of these servers. That’s where this software comes in. Qualys is essentially a cloud-based firewall that’s there to ensure that all your web apps and devices are kept secure while accessing your Cloud server of choice. If you happen to get infected by malware via the Cloud, Qualys will immediately detect the threat, contain it and inform you of the problem.
4. VPN
Virtual private networks are a very popular method of securing your Internet connection and making it more private. When you browse through a VPN, all the data you transmit via your Internet connection is securely encrypted and split into packets of information, making it significantly harder for a malicious third party to access it. If you’re looking for a provider with a free trial NordVPN is a great choice to get the hang of how VPNs work, and how they can serve in protecting your online data.
5. Okta
Okta is a network-monitoring program that you can use to get information about who’s currently connected to your network and for what reason. This is an easy way of fishing out hackers and blocking their access to your network before they do any actual damage, while allowing your trusted peers to continue their business at ease.
Thomas Milva has been in the business of information security for four years, and strongly believes that he picked the best timing for his profession, which he often underlines in his articulate articles for wefollowtech.com. Most of the time, he works from home, and whenever he’s free, he organizes hikes for his dog, his girlfriend and himself. Tom’s home, for the time being is Baton Rouge.
Article by Thomas Milva
