Why Businesses Must Teach Their Employees About Basic Cybersecurity

2024-11-23 11:34:20 Computer

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Content marketing, social media ads, brand storytelling.

As a well-informed entrepreneur, you probably swear by the dozens of similar business growth hacks. They are all effective, of course, with enough potential to help you optimize your efforts, drive more sales, and improve your bottom line.

But can they help you protect the assets you?ve earned?

In this digital age, no business is safe from cybercriminals. While attacks on leading corporations receive the most publicity, it?s actually small businesses that suffer from data loss and ransomware far more often. 58% of malware attacks are on SMBs.

For an average hacker, your small business is an ideal target.

Here?s why and what you must teach your employees about cybersecurity.

What Are the Common Cybersecurity Risks to Your Business?

Ransomware is no longer the only threat.

By 2019, cybercriminals have found new ways to monetize on your lack of awareness. To make things even easier for them, businesses, big and small, are already fully digitalized. They rely on technology to automate their processes and drive them forward.

Try as you might, but you won?t be able to name a single aspect of your business operations that isn?t assisted by some kind of hackable technology. If you?re still competitive in 2019, it means that a big portion of your business is conducted online.

So here?s what you?re (probably) exposed to:

● Mobile malware
● Cross-site scripting
● Geopolitical risks
● IoT device threats
● Cryptojacking

If you have a smart security camera on your entrance door, you can be hacked. If you store data on the third-party server, you can be hacked. If you have a website, you can be hacked. If your employees are using their phones, you already know it, you can be hacked.

How Can You Protect Your Business Against Cyberattacks?

A lot can be done on this front. Even basic cybersecurity protocols can keep your business protected against common attacks, so here?s a beginner?s checklist to get you started:

● Understand How Data Security Works

Online risks vary across sectors and industries. It may be a good idea to reach out to a cybersecurity expert to help you understand the common threats to your specific model and niche.

If you cannot invest in long-term cybersecurity services, use that information to study the solutions to common pain points. You can develop a pretty good security protocol on your own.

● Encrypt Your Data with a Business VPN

Employing a business VPN may be the best thing you can do for your sensitive information and customer data. Virtual private networks create a safe environment for online businesses.

By keeping your data encrypted, a VPN allows you to collaborate with remote workers and share sensitive information without any risk of data breaches and cyber attacks.

● Secure Your Online Store Using SSL

SSL stands for secure socket layer,which is the standard security tech for establishing encrypted links. It is one of the most important components of an online business.

Not only will your online store remain vulnerable to attacks without any SSL in place, but it will also fail to provide a trusted environment for your customers to make purchases.

● Teach Your Employees the Best Practices

Teach your employees to recognize phishing scams and set up complex passwords. Other than that, they should also know better than to use company computers for private use.

Vice versa, connecting private computers to a company WiFi can make the entire network vulnerable to attacks. The same goes for phones, tablets, and other smart devices.

● Protect Your Brand from IoT Risks

Speaking of which, every connected device in your company is a potential entry point that hackers can exploit and use to gain access to your sensitive data.

Smart cameras can be hacked, as well as smart bulbs and other IoT tech. Update them regularly and learn how to keep your business network secured.

● Reevaluate Security Measures Every Year

Don?t wait long before you go back to your security protocols and reevaluate how effective they are. Experts recommend doing that at least once a year.

In the race with cybersecurity experts, measures, and patches, cybercrime evolves at the speed of light. You may be safe for now, but you cannot be sure about that in a few months.

Conclusion

As an SMB entrepreneur, you need to stay fully focused on scaling your business.

That?s one more reason to have a reliable cybersecurity system in place - without a solid foundation to protect your assets your growth can be hampered when you least expect it.

Follow these guidelines and steer forward with cybersecurity in mind.