The internet is considered the greatest fishpond to fish some fish. However, it’s also a dangerous place to set up a platform for the business if cybersecurity is not part of a business owners’ priorities.
According to Manta, 87% of small businesses aren’t aware that they’re at risk of a data breach. On the other hand, Continuum reported that small businesses’ cybersecurity still needs improvement as of 2019.
The “out of sight, out of mind” mentality won’t save small businesses money. Cybersecurity is a serious matter, and hackers are not choosy. They target both big and small businesses.
Protect the business online. Check out this online and cybersecurity checklist for small businesses.
Before investing money on experts and technology, the first step is performing a cybersecurity audit. Doing so allows owners to have an idea of how strong or weak the business’ protection from online threats and hacks is.
It also determines if the small business needs to hire a professional or learn more about cybersecurity through classes or training. Cybersecurity involves technical matters and policies. It’s best to let knowledgeable people in the field handle the integration of safety measures to ensure protection.
Taking passwords for granted will not help owners, the team, and the business in the long run. Passwords are there for a reason; it’s required for people to have access to their account. Unfortunately, hackers are smart. They can hack passwords of their targets, especially if it’s as easy as 1234567.
Passwords should contain upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, symbols to enhance its security. Basically, make the passwords as complicated as possible. But, make sure to remember the password or use third-party software that remembers passwords.
Account authentication is crucial as it provides another layer of security to accounts. Businesses will need this to keep unwanted hands from their accounts.
Some accounts offer two-step verification, which is the process of notifying the account owner and giving them the liberty to approve or decline access to their account. With this, business owners can monitor who’s logging in to their accounts and can immediately report suspicious activities to the authorities.
Another strategy for account authentication is waiting for the merchant/vendor/website to send a verification code through email or text and input the code to the website to access the account.
One of the fastest ways to increase protection is training employees about cybersecurity. If employees are not knowledgeable about hacking strategies that hackers perform to get credentials, there’s a high chance of them entering details on phishing sites or emails.
Small businesses, whether opened from the start or newly bought from listings posted on National Brokers Network, should not maintain the mentality that hackers only target huge corporations or popular businesses. In fact, hackers also target small businesses because of their lack of concern about cybersecurity.
Step up your countermeasures against breach of data and unauthorised access by training your employees about cybersecurity and measures going against it, strengthening account passwords, turning on account authentication, and doing a cybersecurity audit to evaluate how reliable the current protection is from hacking and breach of data.
