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Firewalls and web filters sound like fancy services for big businesses because these entities often hold private information that could harm thousands if accessed by an outside threat; but the truth is every business needs to protect their computers and the contents they hold and firewalls and filters are the obvious solution. With internet use vital to daily business and personal life, we are all one click away from opening the door and sharing our info with uninvited hackers pushing viruses and spam into our network. If your business is using the internet to be productive- let’s be honest who isn’t – it’s worth investing in an ounce of prevention.

Top 5 ways Firewalls and Filters can Prevent Viruses and Spam

  1. Block viruses and phishing attempts. Many Americans take vitamins and eat healthy because they think it will keep the common cold at bay. Doesn’t it make sense to take the same proactive approach with your technology? Endpoint protection (formally Anti-Virus) can detect a virus once it has infected your machine. Firewalls screen out threats that try to reach your computer over the Internet. With proactive coding, you can block websites and servers that are known to infect technology – stopping the infection before it happens.
  2. Social media and remote use regulations – People certainly love their access to social media, online games and random cat videos but can we truly be confident that Garfield doesn’t come with hidden fleas crawling into our system? Customized controls can allow for secure remote access by staff and wi-fi access to visitors as well as give employees access to social media for business use but block game playing.
  3. Email SPAM filtering and incoming file protection – Incoming viruses embedded in files is a threat no one can afford but hackers are getting creative and sometimes we open emails that look safe before we realize a trojan horse just rode in (see tip #4). Firewall and web filters can be set up to search for and stop content sharing of secure information in outgoing messages as well. Installing web filters will screen incoming web pages for harmful and objectionable content blocking messages and removing attachments before they even reach the user.
  4. Have an email address strategy – A spoof by definition is a humorous imitation of something, but when it comes to emails spoofing is anything but funny. When someone sends out harmful emails masked to look like it came from your business, your credibility is at stake so take action! Most businesses have a standard format for their email and recent trends have become less formal using just a first name (ie Jake@companyname.com). Hackers love this trend because it makes it extremely easy to find emails or create fakes that others believe are real and are willing to open. Changing corporate emails can be daunting, but that ounce of prevention is worth every minute – considering adding a dot between first and last names, underscores or even numbers on the front end to make it more challenging to spoof.
  5. Ease of installation and network integration by outsourced management – Regardless the size or scope of your business, having a UTM to manage your security and web filtering to block hazards is well worth the investment.

At Future Link IT, we take on a layered approach that involves the use of different solutions to defend the business against potential attacks on your network.

  • The firewall’s role limits access to the network preventing intrusion.
  • Web filtering role means security for inbound and outbound traffic.

We use a unified threat management device for security management that allows us, the administrator, to monitor and manage a wide variety of security-related applications and components through a single management console; while the web filtering portion offers spam blocking and spyware protection capabilities.

Disaster prevention is much cheaper and less stressful than disaster recovery! Future Link IT has been offering firewall and web filtering services to its clients for years – isn’t it time you talked to an expert about securing your data? Our experts will make your choice simple and affordable with a customized program that keeps your business performing with being attacked.