Businesses today are increasingly employing a mobile workforce, where people are logging in from locations that may not be in the same city, state or even country as their employer’s office. The rise of remote work has driven an exponential increase in the use of mobile devices for work purposes.

But this development has also greatly elevated businesses’ threat exposure, with some reports indicating that 20% of organizations traced cyber breaches to remote workers. When employees can work from anywhere, their productivity can rise significantly. However, the ability to work from anywhere also means that an employer may lose control over access to their devices. Are employees sharing the office device with family members or other individuals? Are they keeping a close eye on the devices so they are not lost or stolen?

All of this means it is vital to know how to protect your organization from bad actors’ mobile security threats that target your laptops, tablets, smartphones and other devices. An experienced cybersecurity partner can offer advice and help you to take the necessary steps to protect your organization from a wide variety of threats by establishing a layered defense.

Are you or your employees using short, common terms for your password, like the name of a sports team or a dog, or a wedding or birth date? And is the same password being used for multiple applications? Short, simple passwords are all easy to remember, but they are also easy to guess — hackers can easily get clues by scouring social media and other sources. And if you are using the same password across multiple apps, then you are making it easier for a hacker – if they crack one password it opens up multiple doors for them.

As a general rule, longer, complex passwords are safer. For example, if your password is 11 characters long, and made up of only lowercase letters, a hacker will be able to crack it in one day. In contrast, an 11-character password with at least one uppercase letter, a number and a symbol will foil a hacker for an estimated 34,000 years. Do not use the same password across multiple programs or applications. Instead, create a long, complex password for each one.

I can see you are already shaking your head, asking, “Who can remember multiple, complex passwords? It will be a nightmare, and in the meantime, I have a business to run.”

Password manager

There is a solution. We all know how difficult it can be to remember multiple passwords, and it is challenging to create strong passwords that hackers cannot crack. A password manager may be able to help you overcome these problems and protect your business from mobile security threats.

A password manager allows users to create a strong password for every program they use and will store all your passwords in one place. It. Additionally, a password manager will place all this information behind a single, master password. So even if a mobile device gets into the wrong hands, a hacker will need to know the master password to get into your program or app.

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Passwords alone, though, are not sufficient. To further protect your business’s mobile devices, consider establishing, and enforcing, a rule requiring all devices to be secured with multifactor authentication. This digital defense denies entry to a user unless they enter a password and at least one other separate level of authentication. Examples of additional elements may include text verification, a PIN number, or biometric authentication, such as facial recognition or a fingerprint.

Hackers also get company data by exploiting vulnerabilities that are associated with outdated software. Some companies try to address this by implementing a mobile device management policy that requires users to regularly update programs. The challenge is enforcing the policy. To address this issue and secure your business from mobile cyber threats, your IT department can schedule regular automatic updates. This way, all devices will receive and install updates, or patches, in a timely manner.

So far, I have focused on digital security protocols that can help to defend your systems and sensitive information. But there is another element: the humans who are using your company’s devices. Every employee represents a possible entry point for bad actors – who may target them with phishing and other social engineering schemes designed to get them to reveal passwords or other sensitive information.

Education is the best way to safeguard the human element. Train your employees on best practices, like why it is important to keep software up to date, and why they should avoid using public Wi-Fi or clicking on suspect links that could load malware onto your network. The more your employees understand security best practices, the safer they and your company will be.

Nation-states and other bad actors are constantly trying to improve their attack strategies. But mobile security experts from an experienced cybersecurity provider can help protect your business against evolving mobile and other security threats.

Carl Mazzanti is president of eMazzanti Technologies in Hoboken, providing IT consulting and cybersecurity services for businesses ranging from home offices to multinational corporations.