It is a fear every business owner should take seriously. Whether you run a small startup or a huge multinational, your business is susceptible to cyber attack and, without certain basic security measures and controls in place, your data may be subjected to a breach. These can happen in a wide variety of ways, from spear phishing to identity theft. The threat is more real than ever.
To help you combat this threat, however, we have come up with a list of basic security measures you should take to better protect your business.
- Passwords
Make sure everyone in your company – whether full-time employee or part-time contractor – knows the importance of strong passwords, and make sure they know how to create a secure password by encouraging them to use a combination of words, symbols, numbers, and both lower-case and capital letters. Also, make sure all passwords are between 8-14 characters long. Once this is done, another step you can take is having employees use a password checker, to see how secure their password is.
- Professionals
To ensure your systems and staff are securely protected, employ an expert to work alongside your company and install a security data platform. This will not only save you internal resources and lessen your risk of being caught out, a professional company will also give you peace of mind; something that is invaluable to a business owner.
- Devices
Laptops and phones are portable, which means they are at a much greater risk of being lost or stolen. As such, additional security measures should be taken to ensure any data held remotely is protected from an attack. The best way of doing this is by installing encryption software onto the hardware. This will change the way information looks.
- Firewalls
There is no safer way to protect a company’s network than to install a firewall. These are simply a must-have for all businesses. A firewall works by controlling all internet traffic coming in and out of your business, thus protecting your network. We recommend you invest in any anti-virus software that is manufactured and developed by one of the major brands.
- Backup
Make sure your data is regularly backed-up to an external hard drive, or even the Cloud. Complete backups should be done at regular intervals, and at least once a week, while an incremental backup should be done a daily basis, usually at night to ensure any data collated that day is saved as soona s possible. This will prevent any data being lost should anything go wrong.
- Educate
Educate your entire workforce on the importance of information security. Make sure there is an information security module all new starters have to complete upon their introduction to the company. Hold regular seminars on the issue. Employ a digital learning company with experience on this front to make learning engaging and attractive as a means of combating any learner fatigue that may have arisen. This will allow you to plug any gaps from the ground up.