These 5 New Year Resolutions Can Make Your I.T. More Secure

Technology makes our lives and jobs a lot easier. We have come a long way since the industrial revolution, and almost everyday marks new innovations that disrupt our world.

But as we get more dependent on technology, we tend to overlook that it needs time, attention and due consideration. 

Let’s start 2020 with a difference. While you set some ivory-tower resolutions for yourself, you can be more achievable with your I.T.

In this blog, we’ve listed some practical recommendations for your IT environment — so, you can begin the year by being more productive, reliable and secure.

Take these 5 New Year Resolutions to Make Your Technology Environment Safer

Turn on Cloud Backups

I.T. specialists continuously tell us to back up our data — emphasizing how critical it’s for business continuity. However, many companies and employees find excuses to avoid it.

As a result, when a disaster strikes, you lose valuable data. If no backup took place, information gets completely inaccessible. If you did backup months back, you’d not recover missing current data.

In this scenario, the cloud could be a lifesaver. It’s relatively easy to sync and back up your sensitive files and documents on your smartphone, laptop, desktop computer to the cloud. Whether Microsoft OneDrive, Apple’s iCloud or DropBox, make sure to back up data to the cloud this new year regularly.

You can open the settings, check for automatic backup options and follow the instructions for the same. This means as you save files on your Desktop, Documents or Pictures folders, they’ll be backed up automatically.

Use Different Passwords

One thing to remember in 2020 is that bad, easy-to-guess passwords can turn your life upside down. If you never had your email account compromised, meet someone who lost life savings from their bank account.

Even reusing a strong password, again and again, is terrible. Any sloppy website at any point of time can allow your credentials to be stolen. If so, happens a determined hacker will try it on other sites, and you can face a bigger loss.

We know it isn’t very easy to generate a strong, unique password for every account and keep track of them all. For this, we recommend using a password manager. Make it a new year resolution to never use the same password again. You can store your heavily encrypted password file in the cloud using a password manager.

Multi-factor Authentication

Despite the best precautions, cybercriminals can steal your credentials. But you can add another dimension in your cybersecurity with multi-factor authentication (also called two-factor authentication, or 2FA).

2FA should be added to every important online account, especially to any banking or payment service, as well as social media accounts. In fact, if any critical app or software service does not have it as a security option, you should question them why they do not have a 2FA.

Google and Microsoft both offer elegant and straightforward authenticator apps. Review different apps and see which one works best for you — 2FA is a great security feature to add in 2020.

Updates Are Important

There’s debate arguably that on whether you should install updates or avoid them sometimes. For you, the best version of the O.S. was the one released three years back, and everything since then has been an unmitigated disaster — but not installing updates is not an entirely great idea.

Every major software platform updates itself continuously, and problems with them are relatively rare. Even if some update faces some issues, these are generally resolved within days or maximum a week or two.

However, if you still prefer the conservative approach, avoid updates for up to a month. Wait for people to report and identify issues and update accordingly. However, we suggest that it’s worthless spending your time and energy trying to override built-in code.

Uninstall Antivirus

Third-party antivirus software on a Windows P.C. was quite popular a decade or two ago. But today, Windows Defender, which is a built-in part of every Windows 10 installation, takes good care against viruses and malicious attacks.

In fact, third-party software can likely get in the way of an update or accidentally quarantine a crucial system file. We recommend getting rid of any third-party antivirus or security program that came pre-installed with your system if they’re providing any use.

Is your firm tech-ready to take advantage of new opportunities in 2020, or are you still planning for it? Get in touch with our team at GRIP I.T. to head start new year with the agile managed I.T. services.