{"id":155246,"date":"2017-03-01T05:10:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-01T10:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ntegrait.com\/wisdom-wednesday-how-to-avoid-computer-system-infection\/"},"modified":"2017-03-01T05:10:00","modified_gmt":"2017-03-01T10:10:00","slug":"wisdom-wednesday-how-to-avoid-computer-system-infection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ntegrait.com\/wisdom-wednesday-how-to-avoid-computer-system-infection\/","title":{"rendered":"Wisdom Wednesday: How to Avoid Computer System Infection"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Criminals want your company&rsquo;s financial data, customer lists including credit card information, intellectual property, and anything else they can sell.<\/h2>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-17433\" src=\"https:\/\/blogfeed.ulistic-projects.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Wisdom-Wednesday-Computer-System-Infection.jpg\" alt=\"Computer System Infection\" width=\"509\" height=\"266\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Cyber crime is a huge endeavor with <a href=\"http:\/\/smallbusiness.chron.com\/consequences-companies-not-having-virus-protection-59157.html\">severe consequences<\/a> for organizations that are victimized. Criminals want your company&rsquo;s financial data, customer lists including credit card information, intellectual property, and anything else they can sell.<\/p>\n<p>Besides the immediate impact on your business&rsquo; ability to operate (for example ransomware can shut you down), there are significant costs associated with a data breach. These costs include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Potential fines from regulatory agencies for failure to protect personal identification data (PI) or personal financial information (for example a credit card number). Some fines have been in million dollar multiples.<\/li>\n<li>The cost of notifying all persons and businesses that had their data breached.<\/li>\n<li>Costs of providing credit monitoring and identity theft protection for all involved.<\/li>\n<li>The potential cost of defending a class action lawsuit against your company for failure to adequately protect sensitive information.<\/li>\n<li>Loss of customers<\/li>\n<li>Loss of business reputation<\/li>\n<li>Inability to attract new customers or clients<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Following are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.adp.com\/who-we-are\/data-security-and-privacy\/safeguard-your-data\/minimize-the-risk-of-computer-viruses-and-malware.aspx\">Best Practices<\/a> for securing your computer system and company data.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Best Practices for Computer System Protection<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The following list is the Best Practices for keeping your business&rsquo; computer system, programs, and data, safe from prying eyes.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Make sure your firewall is on so that intruders cannot access your system from the internet.<\/li>\n<li>Install security software and keep it updated.<\/li>\n<li>Filter all email for computer viruses.<\/li>\n<li>The more popular a program used by your business is, the more appealing it is a target for cyber criminals. Criminals know that many users do not regularly patch their programs against malware infections, so popular programs give them a wider pool for targeting. Make sure that your computer programs are updated as soon as a security patch is released.<\/li>\n<li>Exercise caution when using free 3<sup>rd<\/sup> party software claiming they check for software updates. Free software may be bundled with malicious software.<\/li>\n<li>Instruct employees that they should never open emails from unknown senders since they might be a source of infection to your company&rsquo;s computer system. Attached malware might be anything from a virus to ransomware.<\/li>\n<li>Tell your employees they should check with senders they know if an email has a suspicious attachment. A phone call to the sender can help avoid the consequences of a data breach.<\/li>\n<li>Inform employees they should not open websites they are not familiar with and they should make sure the address bar is the site they want to visit. A random click could take them to a website that is just waiting to download malware onto your company computer system.<\/li>\n<li>Buy your software from a reputable buyer and never use pirated software as it may be infected with malware.<\/li>\n<li>Before using thumb drives and other portable media, scan them with security software to ensure they are virus free.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Computer security may surpass your company&rsquo;s IT capabilities. Accordingly, consider a computer managed services provider with a strong background in computer security. For more information about managed services and how an MSP can help your company contact {company} in {city}. {phone} or contact us by {email}.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Criminals want your company&rsquo;s financial data, customer lists including credit card information, intellectual property, and anything else they can sell. Cyber crime is a huge endeavor with severe consequences for organizations that are victimized. Criminals want your company&rsquo;s financial data, customer lists including credit card information, intellectual property, and anything else they can sell. Besides&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":155248,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Wisdom Wednesday: How to Avoid Computer System Infection - IT Services in Virginia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ntegrait.com\/wisdom-wednesday-how-to-avoid-computer-system-infection\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wisdom Wednesday: How to Avoid Computer System Infection - IT Services in Virginia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Criminals want your company&rsquo;s financial data, customer lists including credit card information, intellectual property, and anything else they can sell. Cyber crime is a huge endeavor with severe consequences for organizations that are victimized. Criminals want your company&rsquo;s financial data, customer lists including credit card information, intellectual property, and anything else they can sell. 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We deliver custom designed Network Services that better map to your business, so you can stop worrying about your technology and get back to achieving your business goals.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/ntegrait.com\/author\/swestntegrait-com\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Wisdom Wednesday: How to Avoid Computer System Infection - IT Services in Virginia","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.ntegrait.com\/wisdom-wednesday-how-to-avoid-computer-system-infection\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Wisdom Wednesday: How to Avoid Computer System Infection - IT Services in Virginia","og_description":"Criminals want your company&rsquo;s financial data, customer lists including credit card information, intellectual property, and anything else they can sell. 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