Best Practices

Cybersecurity is everyone’s responsibility. All Texans need to remain vigilant and practice good cyber hygiene. The following are strong cyber practices everyone should consider:

Do not open suspicious or unexpected links or attachments in emails.
Hover over hyperlinks in emails to verify they are going to the anticipated site.
Be aware of malicious actors attempting to impersonate legitimate staff, and check the email sender name against the sender's email address.
Use unique strong passwords or pass-phrases for all accounts.
Do not provide personal or organizational information unless you are certain of the requestor's authority, identity, and legitimacy.
Alert your IT staff or supervisor if you have any concerns about the legitimacy of any email, attachment, or link.
Take advantage of available cybersecurity awareness training.

The following recommendations for IT professionals and providers can also reduce overall vulnerability:

Disable all unnecessary ports and protocols. Review network security device logs and determine whether to shut off unnecessary ports and protocols. Monitor common ports and protocols for command and control activity.
Enhance monitoring of network and email traffic. Review network signatures and indicators for focused operations activities, monitor for new phishing themes and adjust email rules accordingly, and follow best practices of restricting attachments via email or other mechanisms.
Patch externally facing equipment. Focus on patching critical and high vulnerabilities that allow for remote code execution or denial of service on externally facing equipment.
Log and limit usage of PowerShell. Limit the usage of PowerShell to only users and accounts that need it, enable code signing of PowerShell scripts, and enable logging of all PowerShell commands.
Ensure backups are up to date and stored in an easily retrievable location that is air-gapped from the organizational network.

For more information and cybersecurity tips please see the attached guides below: