Beyond antivirus: five cyber security products charities should consider

Antivirus software alone can’t keep you safe from all cyber security threats. A multi-layered approach using these cyber security products - in addition to antivirus software - provides more effective protection.  

Endpoint security products, which include anti-virus software, provide a good basic level of cyber security. That’s why all charity workers’ computers should be protected with a product like Avast Business Antivirus, Bitdefender GravityZone Business Security or Norton LifeLock.   

But no endpoint protection product by itself can guarantee 100% protection against cyber criminals. Here are five cyber security products and services which you can use to ratchet up your cyber security significantly and make life much harder for hackers.

Software updaters 

Whenever a vulnerability is discovered in a piece of software, cyber criminals attempt to exploit it to hack into any computers they find running the software. The software is usually updated by the software’s authors shortly afterwards to remove the vulnerability and make the software safe to run again.  

That means that hackers can only exploit the vulnerability until the software is updated, and that’s why it is so important to update any software running on your computers as promptly as possible.  

In practice it is easy to overlook software updates, but a software updater program can do the job for you. It does this by scanning your computer to build an inventory of the software you have installed, and then checking for updates and installing them automatically.  

Good software updaters include:

• • Avast Patch Management in CloudCare
  • Heimdal Free
  • PatchMyPC
  • SUMo 

Dedicated ransomware protection 

Ransomware can slip undetected onto your computer, where it silently goes about encrypting valuable data without you knowing it. Suddenly you will be unable to access your data, and a message will pop up on you screen demanding a ransom in return for the key needed to decrypt the data.  

Many endpoint protection products include some degree of anti-ransomware protection, but standalone ransomware protection products can offer a valuable extra level of protection both in terms of preventing ransomware attacks and also retrieving data after an attack has happened.  

Good dedicated ransomware protection products include:

• • Included in Avast Antivirus
  • Checkpoint ZoneAlarm Anti Ransomware 
  • NeuShield Data Sentinel 
  • Trend Micro Ransom Buster 

Since ransomware attacks (as well as phishing attacks) are often initiated by getting users to click links in malicious emails, a more general way to protect against these threats is to use content filtering software such as Avast’s, which is available at a discount on the Charity Digital Exchange. It’s also worth checking out the National Centre for Cyber Security’s Mail Check tool to protect your email address for being spoofed and prevent any phishing attacks.