Making Your Business More Secure

– Contributed content –

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5 Feb. 2019. It seems that almost half of all business have become victims of cybercrimes at some point, with the average cost of the damage they cause around $2,000. This makes disturbing reading, especially as the impact on a small to medium-sized business can be devastating.

There is also the reputation of the business to consider. Some consumers will no longer deal with businesses that have been successfully targeted, as they fear for the safety of their own data. They lose trust in the businesses but in spite of all this, there are still many companies that do not take the matter seriously.

There are some simple ways you can lower the risk of this happening to you.

Manage your passwords

Passwords are at the center of any security policy. They should be as complicated as possible, and should never be written down anywhere. There is software that can help you to generate and manage your passwords, and this can be very useful if you are prone to forget to make the changes.

Education

Every employee should be in no doubt what the security protocols of your business are. This should start when they join your business, and then there should be regular updates and meetings to discuss the matter, maybe every six months or so.

It does not take long to explain how security affects the job that they do or the consequences of not following the rules. For this to be effective, it has to include all employees including the top management.

Although not everything thing will apply to all the workers, there are some things, such as not clicking in links in emails from unknown sources, that will.

Encryption

You should ask the provider of your cloud services about encrypting your data. It is one of the most valuable tools in fighting cybercriminals, and technology has made it much easier to put in place. There are many options available and you need to find out which will best suit your business’s needs.

Be ready

Many small businesses assume that a security policy is something only large companies need. They could not be more wrong. You need to be ready in the event of the worst happening, and this should all be part of your security policy. Once it details how people have to deal with the security relating to their job, it should then have the facts of how your business will deal with being attacked by cybercriminals.

Being prepared for this could reduce the impact of an attack, and will help your business to recover much sooner.

Don’t forget updates

When updates are released for your software, antivirus or malware protection always make sure they are implemented as soon as possible. Often the releases are to fix a security problem the developers have found, and the update could be the thing that stops you becoming a victim of a cyber attack.

Don’t delay

Making sure your systems are as secure as possible is not something you should leave till next week as that could be too late. You need to deal with this matter without delay so that you can run your business with less likelihood of being hacked.

Editor’s note: the opinions in this post are the contributor’s and not those of Science & Enterprise.

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