Your 3 Weakest Network Security Links

"You are the weakest link, goodbye." Determining who the weakest employee is on your staff, and then firing them, will eliminate a lot of issues. Eliminating the weakest security link of your network infrastructure will only make your security problem worse, because now you will be 100% exposed to online threats. A better idea is to strengthen your weakest security links, one link at a time.

Weak Wi-Fi Security Welcomes Hackers
Your Wi-Fi signal allows users wireless access to your company's network, but if your Wi-Fi security is using WEP protocol, then you might as well have no security at all. Using the right software, WEP security only takes a few minutes for even the most novice hacker to crack. WEP security may keep out the casual user from logging on to your network and surfing the internet, but a hacker with bad intentions will read WEP as, "Welcome, Enter Playground."

Changing your Wi-Fi security protocol to WPA will be a significant security boost to protect your network's sensitive information. WPA is more complex and therefore tougher to hack, making it the stronger option. With WPA, a would-be hacker will read, "Warning, Pain Awaits."

Weak Passwords Will Let Anybody Pass Through
Having a strong password is important, using several different strong passwords is even more important. A common misstep of internet users is to use one password across multiple accounts. While a single password does make it easy for you to log into all of your different accounts, it also makes it easy for one hacker to access everything if they ever got their grimy hands on your password.

As a best practice, it is important use different and complex passwords for each account. This may seem like a lot of passwords to keep track of, but to help you out, there are some easy-to-use password management tools like RoboForm, LastPass, and KeePass. These password tools will encrypt your password data for an added layer of security, and they will automatically insert your password into the proper forms so that you don't have to remember and type complex passwords. Another recommended best practice is to cycle out your old passwords every few months for new ones. Password Safe is a great password tool that will automatically create strong passwords for you.

Old Software Weakens Security
It is vital to network security that you keep all of your software applications up-to-date. After you perform an update, you may not notice any changes and wonder, "What was the point of updating?" While many of these updates do not change the application interface, they do close unseen backdoors that hackers like to use to gain access to your network. Software manufactures are constantly improving the security to the application they have released. Be sure to take advantage of these updates.

It is a best practice to routinely go through your PC and check the update status for all of your applications, especially the applications not made by Microsoft. This is because Windows Updates will only update applications made by Microsoft. Most software has a setting that you can enable that will allow it to automatically update itself; this is an easy way to make sure that all of your software is updated as soon as a patch is released.

Computerware can offer your business several security solutions to protect your company's network. Call us at (703) 821-8200 and we will perform a free security screening for your network that will identify its weakest links. This will allow us to recommend valuable security solutions customized to fit your unique security needs. Because when it comes to network security, you are only as strong as your weakest link, goodbye.