Protect Yourself and Your Business from Cyber Attacks

Last year, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) saw 880,418 registered complaints of cybercrime, with losses topping $12 billion. With stats like these—and data breaches and ransomware attacks constantly in the news—it can seem like there’s nothing we can do to thwart the ever-evolving tactics of cyber criminals.

But it doesn’t have to be that way! The overwhelming majority of cyber attacks are successful because of a few easily-corrected mistakes that people make. Here are three tips to help you protect your business from cybercrime.

Tip #1: Maintain Good Password Hygiene

Just like personal hygiene requires healthy habits—brushing your teeth, washing your hands, bathing—keeping your digital accounts safe takes good password practices like these:

• Make Passwords Longer and Complex. Longer and more complex = harder to crack. Another approach is to use a passphrase, a group of words that are easy for you to remember but hard for anyone else to guess.

• Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). MFA adds another layer to the login process, so if your password is compromised your account is still protected.

• Use a Unique Password for Every Account. If you use the same password for everything, and it gets stolen, then all your accounts—and your businesses’ and customers' sensitive data—are in danger. Have trouble remembering them all? A password manager app can help.

• Monitor Your Accounts. Keeping an eye out for suspicious activity helps you catch problems sooner, limiting the damage that can be done.

Tip #2: Stay Wary of Phishing Attacks

Phishing is a type of cyber attack that uses fake emails, social media messages, and more to steal your business’ sensitive data or get you to download malware. Cybercriminals use “bait” to try to lure you into completing an action, like clicking a link, or trick you into thinking the email is from a trusted source so you’ll share your personal data. 

Sounds scary? It can be. But you don’t have to fall for these tricks. Here’s how to protect your business from phishing scams:

• Slow down and stay suspicious. Phishing works because we don’t stop to think about what we’re doing. So, slow down and keep a healthy level of skepticism. If something seems too good to be true then it probably is.

• Confirm the sender’s identity. Phishers often use email addresses that look similar to legitimate ones but have slight misspellings or extra characters. For emails that claim to be from a trusted institution, hover your mouse over links to see the actual URL before clicking. Ensure it matches the legitimate website's address.

• Be careful about downloading attachments. Email attachments are a common way criminals get malware onto your computer. Always double-check that the email is legit before clicking on anything.

Tip #3: Manage Logins the Right Way

Your employees need access to your Alarm.com business account to do their jobs, but you also need to stay in control. Although you may be tempted to share your login credentials as a quick, easy solution, there’s a better, safer way.

Here are best practices and Alarm.com features, available via the customer website, that make good login management a breeze.

• Create Unique Logins for Every Employee. Sharing your password means surrendering control of your account, compromising security, and making it impossible to know who did what. Instead, create a unique login for every user. We make creating new logins from the Login Management section of the customer website fast and easy. Learn how here.

• Assign Custom Roles. Limit each user’s access to only what they need to do their job. This reduces the risk of accidental or even intentional misuse of the system. Once you’ve created unique logins and assigned custom roles, you can keep tabs on what your employees are doing via the Activity page on the customer website.

• Regularly Review Access. Keep an eye on who has access to what. When employees leave your organization, be sure to delete their logins. To help in this effort, we send you a User Access Summary Email every quarter. This summarizes who has access to your account and reminds you to delete unnecessary logins.

Cyber attacks are on the rise, but you don’t have to be a victim. Follow the tips above to protect yourself from online crime!

Ready to take action? Here are some things you can do right now.

Update Your Password
Enable Multi-Factor Authentication
Create Logins & Set Permissions