The beginning of a new year marks a time of reflection and planning, and for making New Year’s Resolutions. Unfortunately, many resolutions are quickly forgotten once post-holiday life gets busy. At WatchGuard, we’d like to help you make and keep five important cybersecurity resolutions that you can complete today, so you can focus on the rest of your resolutions. Doesn’t it feel great to cross some resolutions off your list right away.

Cheers,
Corey Nachreiner

Five cybersecurity resolutions you can cross off your list today!

1. Close firewall management interfaces to the internet. It is very common to want to manage your Firebox remotely, and you can do this securely. However, exposing your Firebox management interfaces to the internet is not an industry best practice, and is not recommended by WatchGuard either. Use this Knowledge Base article for three recommendations for enabling secure remote management.
2. Update to the latest version of Fireware. Start the new year right, with the latest version of Fireware (12.7.2, or the latest of whichever branch your Firebox uses) to ensure your WatchGuard deployment is leveraging the best power, speed, reliability, and security available today. Release notes can be found here.
3. Change your passwords (now and regularly). Another easy-to-implement industry best practice is to change your passwords regularly. On Secplicity.org, we all too frequently cover breaking news regarding data breaches involving stolen credentials, and how those stolen credentials are utilized by adversaries. Using strong credentials, and changing them often, helps prevent lost or stolen credentials from being useful to the bad guys. You should equally follow this advice on your hardware appliances, for example regularly changing your Firebox credentials.
4. Implement Multi-factor Authentication (MFA). Using strong passwords, and changing them regularly, is a vital step, but you should also consider adding MFA, too! Implementing MFA to verify identities renders lost or stolen user credentials worthless to adversaries.
5. Read our 2022 Predictions! In this year’s Cybersecurity Predictions, the WatchGuard Threat Lab suits up at the news desk to update you on the top security-related headlines that we could see in 2022. Watch to learn how hackers might target space, what will happen with cyber insurance, Zero Trust, and more! You can find them here.