Top 10 Tips to Secure Your Office Network

Protecting your office network is very important because you need to protect both your personal information and customer information.

It is important that your office network is secure. In an office that is open to hackers or changes from unknown sources, confidential customer information or corporate secrets can be put in the hands of the unknown. In other words, to avoid damage to reputation or loss of revenue, you need to protect your corporate network from offsite or offsite attacks. Listed below are our best and checked tips on how to secure your office network! 🙂

1. Physically safe devices and connections

Ensure that all network devices (routers, switches, access points, etc.) are hidden and secure to the public or visitors. For example, if they are available, an intruder can easily reset your wireless router or access point to remove the encryption, making it easy to connect to your network over Wi-Fi.

Also, make sure that no Ethernet wall outlet is accessible to the public or visitors. An intruder can simply log in and finally access your network. Wall ports should only be placed behind offices or in areas that are inaccessible to visitors. All unused or open ports should be disconnected or deleted from the network.

2. Restrict access to shared folders

All resources shared on the network, such as shared folders on Windows, must be protected by setting file and / or sharing permissions and specifying who has which type of access. For example, the accountant may be managing the company’s books, but a secretary must look for information to print the paychecks.

You can give the accountant read and edit access and give the secretary only read access so that no one can edit the files, only you can control and edit files or share permissions.

3. Internal Network Strategy

Implement Backup and Disaster Recovery Procedures: Core business data is the lifeblood of any business. Implementing a multi-level backup procedure; image, file and folder, and offsite, is a simple way to protect critical data. Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) appliances take this a step further by helping you quicken server recovery in case of failure. Testing your backups periodically is an important component of any backup strategy.

4. Employee education and strategy

Provide safety training to all employees, including managers to understand the basic security practices and the protection of confidential business information. Establish policies and rules, including sanctions for violations, protection of sensitive data, and regular organization of training. Topics covered should include:

• if and when the web should be used for personal use on desktops,
• instant messaging, social networking sites, music and music streaming,
• if and how the company monitors the use of the web,
• prohibited activities,
• tips for safe navigation,
• common techniques used by hackers to prevent them from becoming prey.

5. Secure the perimeter

By connecting your network to the Internet, you and your employees can access valuable data and stay productive throughout the day. At the same time, your network is exposed to intrusion attacks.

Most small businesses use public routers or firewalls to protect the edge of their network, although the functionality of these devices has evolved, they are not suited to a company’s security needs.

With professional routers/ firewalls / UTM appliances, you get a powerful hardware platform that lets you filter out malicious traffic and spam from outside. Regular security updates, providing secure remote access, implementing intrusion detection and prevention services can help prevent the infectious code from running from vulnerable sites.

6. Stay informed and alert

There are many industrial and government sites dedicated to network security. Stay up to date as data and practices evolve. UTM’s professional appliances can be remotely monitored by security operations centers and sent reports and alerts that deserve attention.

7. Wireless encryption

To protect your office network from hackers, you need to set up a personal WEP or WPA key (WPA-PSK). WEP is simple 64-bit or 128-bit encryption, but has limited security and is relatively easy to crack.

WPA-PSK in the form of WPA-TKIP, which offers better security and is backward compatible with older routers and USB drives, and WPA2-AES, which offers the best security and better wireless performance, but is not compatible with all the old materials. You can configure your encryption key when configuring your wireless router. How to do that, you should also explain in your manual.

In addition to an encryption key, you need to install a few other things or shorter to remember 4As:

1. A firewall
2. Antivirus software
3. Anti-spyware software
4. Anti-phishing software

You must also make sure that all programs you have installed are always up to date. Hackers are constantly updating their methods and developing new viruses. Make sure you regularly run live updates over the Internet to make sure your version of Windows and your antivirus software are up-to-date.

8. Name your Wi-Fi

Naming your Wi-Fi or service ID (SSID) is a simple method of identification and can be specified at the time of installation. In this way, you can also improve your security settings using wireless isolation.

9. Wireless isolation

This way, you can hide your wireless network making your network more private. Once you’ve set your SSID, you can change your router settings to isolate your wireless network and make it “invisible.”

10. Access lists

In addition to the password on your network, the computers of all users must be listed in the access list because it provides higher level of security to the network. They would be identified by the MAC code of the computer (as a fixed address) through the router. Once you’ve defined your security, you can be sure that no one else is using broadband in your office or hacking your files.

Final thoughts

Here are some vital benefits of a secured office network:

1. It is more reliable, has fewer problems, and consequently costs less to maintain.
2. It improves the productivity of all your stakeholders: customers, partners and employees.
3. It protects your investment in bandwidth by controlling misuse and inadvertent hosting.
4. This reduces your risk for legal and regulatory action.

If you’re working remotely from home, don’t forget to secure also your home office network! Liked our article? Great! Please comment below and feel free to share this article around! 🙂