Securing your company’s network can be a daunting job, especially if you don’t have regular IT support and maintenance. Here are 6 easy ways to secure your company network from intruders, malware and viruses.

1. Use strong encryption on your wireless routers and access points
Too many companies leave their wireless access points and routers open to the public. Unsecured wireless networks can expose your devices and files to intruders. Enabling some sort of encryption (WPA2) with a strong wireless key such as a number string can easily add more protection to your network. If you are in a medical facility you are required by the HIPAA security rule to have your wireless network encrypted.

2. Install Anti Virus and Anti – Malware software
Exposing your company network to viruses, malware, and spyware can be a huge security risk. Employee activities are the number one contributor to network exposures. Viruses can do a wide variety of damage from corrupting and deleting files to secretly transmitting keystrokes and confidential information off site. This is a huge security risk especially if your company stores and transmits sensitive information. There are a ton of free antivirus and anti-malware tools that can be easily installed on your company computers.

3. Perform Regular Onsite and Off-Site Backups
Data loss is common after a security breach or exposure to a nasty virus. Many files can be come corrupt or altered after an exposure. Having current and regular backups of your data will ensure that your company can get back up and running quickly after a disaster. Not only should you be backing up files to a local device on your network but also to the cloud. There are many cloud backup companies that can provide cloud backup services fairly inexpensively. Your IT support company can help you with creating a regular backup schedule.

4. Physical Safeguards
Your fancy firewalls and antivirus programs are useless if you don’t have physical safeguards in place. Your servers and network equipment should be housed in a room or small closet that can be locked. This will prevent your equipment from theft and or tampering. If a physical room isn’t available you can also purchase lockable computer cabinets to enclose network equipment. Most servers also come with a built in lock to prevent anyone from opening up the unit and doing damage to its internal components. Lastly disable all front USB ports on any servers to prevent someone introducing a virus onto the server via USB stick.

5. Ban Non Company Devices
If your company has not developed a BYOD (Bring your own device) program it would be in your best interest to ban all non company devices from connecting to the corporate network. It is become more and more common for employees to introduce their own devices such as laptops, tablets, and cellphones on to the company network. Unfortunately you do not know what type of sneaky little viruses that could be hiding on their devices. Implementing a policy against this can help tremendously or creating a guest network that is segmented off from your corporate network is also a solution.

6. Hire A managed service provider
As a business owner you simply do not have the time and expertise to watch your computer network like a hawk. Most managed service companies safeguard your network first and then proactively manage and monitor it to prevent bad things from happening. Most managed service providers will do this along with a slue of other things on a fixed price rate. Your current IT support consultant typically will only address things that need immediate attention. Chances are if you aren’t paying him to monitor these things on an on going basis it is not being done.

Clientfit Technology Consulting is a Managed IT Service Provider located in Los Angeles California that serves the HealthCare and Small Business Markets.