Six Security Lessons for Small Businesses in 2017
Small businesses are a constant target of cybercriminals and anyone working on internet security can confirm this claim. Small business owners are usually let by the thought that there is nothing worth stealing from them, but hackers are able to take any piece of information and profit from it while seriously compromising your business’ online security. Thankfully, you don’t have to learn to protect yourself the hard way and precautionary measures are the best solution.
Knowing how to keep the security of your small business in check will make all the difference, especially because too many business owners still don’t pay enough attention to this aspect. We will talk about six ways you should learn to fend off any cyber problems in 2017.
If you’re daily dealing with many online payments and regular confidential information manipulation, then you will need a security system that can match the security requirements. The first thing to do is get a strong antivirus program and you will have to pay for it, seeing that you’re aiming to protect all the devices in your office in one swoop. This expense won’t be too terrible, but it is necessary even though you don’t feel like spending any money on online security. Security software should include antivirus, anti-phishing tools, firewall, anti-spam and any other additional component that you may need.
It is paramount to keep both yourself and your employees educated on the subject of internet security, otherwise you can’t really hold them accountable for putting your business in danger. Security and privacy policy should be a part of the contract that every one of your employees signs and you should formulate those rules clearly and concisely. What’s more, you should have someone from your IT staff do short educational seminars on how to keep at bay the most frequent forms of malware, viruses and other forms of scamming. The most important thing is to trust your employees, because sometimes security problems can come from within the company, and you really don’t want to deal with intruders that can sell sensitive information to the highest hacker bidder. Choose your staff wisely.
It’s important to note that online security and privacy aren’t the same, though they are closely intertwined. Small businesses are not just a good target for security issues, but are also constantly in danger of being under surveillance. Though tracking on the internet has become pretty much omnipresent, you still want to do all in your power to stay under the radar. Sometimes spyware will get into your business’ system and track all the activities of your staff and yourself only to send the information back to ad companies so that they can target you with ads, but sometimes hackers go for the big kill and manage to pull off identity theft or steal your bank account details, or the details of your customers, which is far worse. Using a VPN aka virtual private network to maintain your privacy is a good solution. Protecting small business privacy is much easier when you’ve got a tool that encrypts your entire internet connection, enables you to bypass geo-blocking and allows your employees to safely work remotely.
This is a failsafe well worth thinking about, though not too many business owners are ready to get insurance for data breach that might never happen. Fortunately, there are companies that offer quite affordable policies and you get some peace of mind by obtaining them. Just think about the fact that these policies will cover the expenses for the recovery of any security you’ve insured yourself against and if you end up in court, they will cover those fees too. Small businesses can suffer terrible financial losses from security issues, and having data breach insurance certainly softens the blow.
AUTHOR BIO
Though Adam really loves his job of web developer, he’s also quite passionate about his writing, which is always gladly accepted at wefollowtech.com. As every Texan, he loves spending time outside playing sports with his friends. He may have graduated from college a couple of years ago, but he’s already working on his dream job and couldn’t be happier about it, as well as his new life in Dallas.
Knowing how to keep the security of your small business in check will make all the difference, especially because too many business owners still don’t pay enough attention to this aspect. We will talk about six ways you should learn to fend off any cyber problems in 2017.
Six Security Lessons for Small Businesses in 2017
Prevention Is the Key
First rule of internet security is that you shouldn’t wait for anything bad to happen to take action, but you should secure yourself beforehand. For this, you need to be informed first on what needs to be done, and for this cause it would be wise to consult IT experts. You should have a skilled IT employee who is able to take care of every cyber situation and that goes for anything from problems with connectivity to serious security threats. The level of protection you’ll need depends heavily on what sort of business you’re running and how connected it is to internet.If you’re daily dealing with many online payments and regular confidential information manipulation, then you will need a security system that can match the security requirements. The first thing to do is get a strong antivirus program and you will have to pay for it, seeing that you’re aiming to protect all the devices in your office in one swoop. This expense won’t be too terrible, but it is necessary even though you don’t feel like spending any money on online security. Security software should include antivirus, anti-phishing tools, firewall, anti-spam and any other additional component that you may need.
Educate Your Employees on Time
The biggest reason for hackers getting what they want is the element of human error. If you don’t know what you’re up against, how can you know how to stop it?It is paramount to keep both yourself and your employees educated on the subject of internet security, otherwise you can’t really hold them accountable for putting your business in danger. Security and privacy policy should be a part of the contract that every one of your employees signs and you should formulate those rules clearly and concisely. What’s more, you should have someone from your IT staff do short educational seminars on how to keep at bay the most frequent forms of malware, viruses and other forms of scamming. The most important thing is to trust your employees, because sometimes security problems can come from within the company, and you really don’t want to deal with intruders that can sell sensitive information to the highest hacker bidder. Choose your staff wisely.
Privacy and Tracking
It’s important to note that online security and privacy aren’t the same, though they are closely intertwined. Small businesses are not just a good target for security issues, but are also constantly in danger of being under surveillance. Though tracking on the internet has become pretty much omnipresent, you still want to do all in your power to stay under the radar. Sometimes spyware will get into your business’ system and track all the activities of your staff and yourself only to send the information back to ad companies so that they can target you with ads, but sometimes hackers go for the big kill and manage to pull off identity theft or steal your bank account details, or the details of your customers, which is far worse. Using a VPN aka virtual private network to maintain your privacy is a good solution. Protecting small business privacy is much easier when you’ve got a tool that encrypts your entire internet connection, enables you to bypass geo-blocking and allows your employees to safely work remotely.
BYOD Policy
Each one of your employees, including yourself will bring their mobile devices to work with them and if they all connect to your business’ official Wi-Fi, security hell could break loose very easily. All you need is one unprotected device to let some malware or virus run rampant and the consequences could be severe. The best course of action is to set a separate internet network that will be used by all the guest devices in the office, so that the business network can remain safe and isolated. BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy should clearly specify the terms and conditions about employees using their devices at work, so that they’re aware of what is expected from them.Data Breach Insurance
This is a failsafe well worth thinking about, though not too many business owners are ready to get insurance for data breach that might never happen. Fortunately, there are companies that offer quite affordable policies and you get some peace of mind by obtaining them. Just think about the fact that these policies will cover the expenses for the recovery of any security you’ve insured yourself against and if you end up in court, they will cover those fees too. Small businesses can suffer terrible financial losses from security issues, and having data breach insurance certainly softens the blow.
Do Regular Check Ups
With all the security tools you have to protect your business, it is very still important to do regular checkups of your system security. That is why we mentioned that it is vital to have an IT expert among your employees who can deal with these checks and keep you informed of any changes that might happen. Sometimes hackers are extremely resourceful and are able to hide malware very well so that even security software can’t find it, but human deduction and reasoning can. Do these checkups on top of everything else we talked about in this article and you will significantly diminish any chance of having to deal with security breaches in your small business.AUTHOR BIO
Though Adam really loves his job of web developer, he’s also quite passionate about his writing, which is always gladly accepted at wefollowtech.com. As every Texan, he loves spending time outside playing sports with his friends. He may have graduated from college a couple of years ago, but he’s already working on his dream job and couldn’t be happier about it, as well as his new life in Dallas.
0 comments:
Post a Comment
We love comments and questions, but please DON'T SPAM. Make sure your comment is related to this post.