-Today we're going to talk about
7 small business network security tips, on The Journey.
- Now on today's episode, we have a special guest,
Alycia from Sucuri, she is the security expert
to talk to us about these 7 tips.
Now I'm just going to let you dive in.
What's tip number one?
- Tip number one will be to
make sure that you're using
really good hard to guess passwords for your Wifi,
at home or at your work.
- Okay - Any way that you're connecting
to the internet, you want to make sure that
nobody else can get onto your network,
and then start to sniff the traffic
- So password1 is not a good password to use?
- Password1 is a really bad password.
Like "password" makes the list every year,
for like the most compromised passwords.
Essentially you want to look at
three things with a password.
They should be very complex,
so that means a mix of upper and lowercase,
symbols and numbers.
You also want to make sure that they're
long, so the longer the better.
- Okay.
- More numbers, more characters, means more
permutations for the passwords for a computer to guess.
And unique. You want to make sure that you're not
reusing passwords for a lot of different things.
- So I need to be right back.
I have to go home and change my WiFi
password really quick, after those tips.
So what's tip number two?
- Tip number two, also related to WiFi,
is to change your SSID.
That's the little name of your WiFi
that you connect to when you're
trying to pick the signal.
You know, prettyflyforawifi.
Probably my favorite SSID. - billwyethewifiguy.
That's billnyethewifiguy.
- tellmywifiloveher.
- Yes.
- That's a good one.
- FBI_van#7
- For sure. So not only are they fun,
you can have a little bit of fun with it,
but it also sends a message to hackers that this person
most likely has changed their WiFi password,
maybe I'll move on to the next target.
Another really great tip is to make sure
that you're changing the login for your router.
So, most of the time when you sign up for internet,
your ISP will send you a router,
and it comes with you know,
the pre-installed SSID, the pre-installed one.
- Right on the box, right?
- Yeah. - Okay.
- If you look on that box,
there's usually some information
about how to log into the gateway,
and change the settings for your router.
So, it's a little local website
that only you can access from within range of your router.
- Right. - And it has a lot of settings
in there, including your user name and password,
which if you leave that default,
you're basically asking to get hacked at that point.
The fourth tip, is to also make sure
that you're not broadcasting your SSID, so.
- What does that mean?
- Yeah, so like, it basically
won't show up in the list
of the WiFi that you can choose.
- Okay. - So it means
it's just harder and harder
for the hacker to try and find your
internet access and then break in.
- You can't see me.
- Yeah. I mean obviously you need to make sure
that you've set it up and if you have guests come over
to the house, it may take a little bit longer
to make sure you're typing in the SSID
and the password for them.
But you can do all that stuff
from the router access panel we were talking about.
- All right, now I know many of us entrepreneurs
like to get out of the house,
or get out of the office every now and then,
and go to a coffee shop, or a restaurant,
or just literally anywhere else.
And there are sometimes those public WiFi spots.
How should we really be protecting ourself there.
- Definitely. Public WiFi is definitely
something you want to be aware of.
- Right. - Your device will
automatically connect to the closest WiFi
signal, so you definitely want to disable that
on your mobile phone, your laptop.
- Okay. - Because the closest
signal maybe coming from a hacker
who has a fake wireless access point. These are actually
not that expensive or difficult to set up.
- Mm-hmm. - And they could
still be getting internet access,
but they're also looking at everything
that you're looking at on the internet,
and can steal the passwords and that kind of stuff
for your website. Not ideal.
In the same vein,
you also want to make sure you're using a VPN.
- Okay. What's that, what's a VPN?
- Yeah, a Virtual Private Network is
usually a paid service that you can use
to connect to a proxy server,
so that all of your traffic is going through there
instead of the wireless network,
and it just makes it encrypted,
so that nobody can sniff on your traffic.
So my tip number six would be to make sure
that your antivirus is updated.
Just make sure that you have the latest
virus definitions, to catch any, you know,
emerging malware, or attacks as they're out there.
- Okay.
- Not just for your computer, also for your mobile device.
Make sure that you're protected and you have a way to block
any attackers from getting in.
- Now I know with the computers,
there's usually a default antivirus.
Are we just okay with that, or we should pay for antivirus?
What does that look like?
- Um, you know, go with the reputable ones
and see what's out there.
I'm partial to Malwarebytes,
there's also some really good ones out there.
Some of them are better at catching like
newer variants of malware,
but they're getting rid of older stuff in the database.
- Mm-hmm.
- Kaspersky's another really good one,
Bitdefender.
But definitely go out there and look at your options,
and you know, if you stick with the one
that's default installed, that's okay too.
It's not a terrible idea to have a couple different options,
although you only want active protection on one antivirus.
- So what that's - Okay.
doing, is it's scanning
everything incoming to your computer,
kind of like a firewall.
- Mm-hmm. - And if you have
two of them doing that,
they're kind of scanning over top of each other,
and it can really slow down your computer.
But, you can have as many antiviruses as you want,
as long as they're just for scanning
every once in awhile.
- Right. - And you have
one that's actively protecting you.
- And now we're on the final tip, tip number seven.
What's tip number seven?
- Tip number seven is backups, backups,
backups of your backups.
You want, basically
you want them to be redundant,
you want to have multiple copies in different locations.
- Mm-hmm. - You want to make sure
that they're automatic if you can,
because let's face it, we don't all remember.
- We, we forget.
- Totally, right? - I forgot what
I had for breakfast.
- I know. I'm terrible with my photos,
my photos are not backed up properly right now.
- What? - I know, I know.
But you know, there's cloud storage,
- so it is easy to do - True.
- for a lot of this stuff.
But you want to make sure it's in
a reliable location.
And you want to make sure that
you've tested your backups.
So ideally, you know how to restore them,
and you've tested that it actually works.
- Trust, but verify, right?
- Exactly. Preach.
- So at the end of the day,
all of that hard work,
all those cute, cute photos of your kids, your dogs,
of you on a beach, all gone, plus your hard work.
You don't want that to happen.
Have those backups.
- Doubly important for your business, right?
- Yes. - Totally.
- So there you have it,
you've learned seven tips
for your small business network security.
We have again our special guest, Alycia from Sucuri.
Thanks for coming on the show today.
- Thanks, Justin.
- And if you've learned anything,
go ahead and add that comment below on what you've learned.
Smash that like button, and subscribe to this channel
if you want to see these videos first.
This is The Journey.
We'll see you next time.