Using the internet for business means you must protect your business data, computers, and network from cybercriminals. I have developed a list of things you should avoid doing and things you must do to use the internet safely. You can pay attention or pay the price for not paying attention. The choice is yours.

Every minute of every hour of every day, tens of thousands of newly-minted domains are introduced to the internet. Not surprisingly, many of them are created and controlled by people wanting to cause you harm. No one wants to intentionally allow cybercriminals into their network, but not running a “protective” DNS firewall can open you to attack.

Creating backups of your computers and data is good, but how versatile is your current backup software? How does your backup software compare with Macrium Reflect? Time for a reality check.

I asked the Large Language Model (LLM), known as ChatGPT, a two-part question about cyber insurance. It gave me a reply that looked accurate but somewhat “impersonal” in tone. The “chatbot” has been used on websites for many years, but it seems to be moving in a new direction, providing answers to almost any question.

Will feeling lucky prevent you from becoming a victim of cybercriminal activity that now targets 43 percent of SMBs? If you are not actively protecting your data, computers, and network, you have to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky?

Keep your computers and network more resistant to cyber-criminals by doing these eight things. It may sound like a lot but consider that your small business is not immune to being attacked. You need to be proactive and protect yourself from those who would cause you harm.

Effective August 22nd, 2022, all two hundred and fifty-five towns and cities in the State of New Hampshire must report known or suspected cybersecurity incidents to the New Hampshire Cyber Integration Center of the Department of Information Technology. When it comes to cybersecurity, every small town can do three basic things to avoid becoming a victim of cybercrime.

Cyber insurance doesn’t stop cybercrime. But it is useful. There are three areas that every business, especially small businesses, needs to pay attention to protect themselves from exposure to cybercrime. None is “rocket science,” and the cost is reasonable compared to the benefit.

One good answer to combatting ransomware is using the 3-2-1 backup principle. But if you do not have a backup, your choice may come down to paying the ransom and hoping you will be able to decrypt your data or re-create the data from your paper business records, which could take a long time to complete. Neither of these is an attractive outcome, and you need to avoid considering using them.

Computer backups have become targets in some ransomware attacks. The reason is that if you cannot restore your data from a backup, the cybercriminals believe they have you over a barrel. Some backup software can prevent file-based ransomware from accessing backup files. If your backup software cannot protect ifs backups from ransomware, I recommend using Macrium Site Manager.

DNS is essential to resolving domain names to IP addresses for everyone who uses the internet. Everyone includes bad people who intend you harm if you don’t stop them. Over 95 percent of all cyberattacks make use of DNS. Deny them access to your network by using a Protective DNS “firewall” to block them and protect you from their criminal exploits.

The way to run Windows Update reliably on all your computers is not to leave computer users in control of the process. To figure out how to do this, I searched for an inexpensive and easy-to-use tool that would allow me to run Windows Update on any number of computers simultaneously. I found several alternatives for patching Windows computers, but one product, in particular, stood out for me.