Triple Shield Security Best Practices Checklist

Towner & Intermedia’s security experts have put together security best practices to help protect businesses from the most common attacks they might experience. This guide aims to break down security into key categories that are easy to understand and easy to implement.

Use this security checklist to ensure the highest levels of protection from all potential threats. Frequently check to enforce practices, update passwords, and prioritize security.

• Set password requirements to prevent users from choosing easily guessable passwords
  • We recommend looooong vs complex passwords/passphrases
  • Choose a password expiration policy that is long enough that users don’t resort to writing
    down or reusing similar passwords frequently
  • Discourage users from using unsafe passwords by enforcing the “compromised password” policy
• Implement account lockouts when the wrong password is entered too many times.
• Purchase licenses for a password manager (like LastPass) for your employees
• Enable and customize Suspicious Login Alerts to users and admins
• Turn on 2 Factor Authentication (2FA) everywhere possible and implement a hardware token where possible
• Restrict access to your company resources based on IP’s (for example, limit it to ranges and countries you know your users will connect from)

ENDPOINT SECURITY

• Encourage or enforce the use of VPN for remote users (with 2FA)
  Invest in Mobile Device Management (MDM)
• Encourage users to enable automatic updates of apps and mobile OS
• Encourage the use of secure file sharing and backup that can be monitored by an administrator and that includes additional protection against ransomware attacks
• Remove Admin rights from standard user accounts
• Limit use of rooted phones or installation of applications from non-standard App stores

EMAIL SECURITY

• Review your email security settings and options on a regular basis
• Enable tagging or identification of external emails to help employees focus on potential external threats
• Enable ActiveSync or other mobile synchronization policies to better protect data stored on mobile devices and consider further full Mobile Device Management (MDM)

HUMAN SECURITY

• Encourage employees to call their personal mobile phone providers, and turn-on extra security verification steps, like a PIN
• Encourage employees to NEVER re-use the same password to their email with any other systems or applications they use
• Discourage users from storing passwords in their browser
• Mandate all employees take security training (ex:https://www.knowbe4.com/products/
  enterprise-security-awareness-training/)
• Begin once a month/quarter live phishing exercises 

TRIPLE SHIELD SECURITY™ – FROM Towner & INTERMEDIA Is your business data secure? As cyberattacks become more sophisticated and hackers more aggressive, business communications such as telephone calls, voicemails, text messages, video meetings and file sharing are increasingly under attack. Triple Shield Security eliminates the complexity of securing your communications while giving you peace of mind that your business data is protected. When it comes to security, not all cloud communications solutions are created equal. As a service provider with over 25 years of experience, Towner places the highest priority on security and has invested heavily in our certified information security staff and security technologies to stay ahead of increasingly sophisticated cybercriminals. Our Triple Shield Security takes a multipronged approach to protecting your business data with technologies that address three potential points of vulnerability – protecting user access, securing
applications, and defending the cloud infrastructure. Intermedia cloud communications tools give small and medium-sized businesses the kind of reliability and security enjoyed by the biggest Fortune 500 companies.