Did you know that 60 percent of small businesses close down within 6 months of a cyber attack? It's scary but true. Businesses aren't taking cybersecurity as seriously as they're meant to and it's extremely disturbing.
Small businesses are unfortunately the main targets and it's not surprising why. Their cybersecurity measures are either lax or non-existent and their staff doesn't even have a clue that some of the things they do on the internet are literally offering the business' sensitive data on a platter of gold for hackers to devour.
Since you're reading this article we can safely assume that you want to make a change and be more involved in ensuring that you, your business and your staff do not end up as victims of cyberattacks. The good news is that it's a lot easier to protect your business from cyberattacks than you think.
Here are 5 tips you can implement right away that will drastically reduce the chances of ever being preyed on by nasty hackers.
1. Educate your employees on the effects of cybersecurity and measures to fight them
Preventing a cyber attack can be as easy as creating awareness about the potential threat of hackers. You might be concerned about the cybersecurity but are your employees as concerned as you are? Are they aware of the dangers they are likely to face by being careless with their personal data and how it will affect the business in the long run?
The fight against cyberattacks is something that has to be dealt with as a team - it's so much easier to deal with hackers that way. To get to your business, hackers more often than not do that by getting to your employees. So, educating your employees about cybersecurity will help reduce the chances of an attack.
Periodic cybersecurity awareness training should be conducted to expose your employees to the activities of cybercriminals and equip them with the tools and the know-how to prevent a cyber attack.
2. Get the right cybersecurity tools
The best way to prevent any infiltration from hackers is to get the right tools to keep them off your system. Tools like antivirus software, firewall, and other privacy tools that can automatically scan, detect and neutralize any virus, malware or scheme are the best way to get started. And there are so many great ones out there.
The best part is that they're extremely easy to install and set up. Most hackers inflict a cyber attack through the use of malware. So, once your cybersecurity tool is set up, you just start the scan and it'll take down the pesky malware and all other hidden threats in your system.
3.Update your cybersecurity software
This is probably the simplest of them all. All software goes through regular updates by software developers. One of the reasons why developers have updates to their software is because they identified a potential vulnerability that hackers can exploit to gain access to your system. To prevent that they develop updates to "patch up" those vulnerable spots.
When you fail to update your software, you're keeping those vulnerable spots open and thus creating an avenue for a hacker to gain access to your system.
Simply updating your software (especially your antivirus software) whenever there's a new update is an easy way to protect yourself from cyber-attacks.
4. Make use of a strong password combination
We all want our passwords to be easy to remember. But guess what? So do the hackers. Simple passwords are easy for hackers to hack. In fact, 81 percent of company data breaches were because of poor passwords. However, with a strong password, you can slow down the hacker's efforts.
A strong password is made of a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols. With a combination of those characters, you will be able to construct a strong enough password that will keep a hacker struggling with it for days. And only takes seconds to replace the old password with the new one.
In addition to developing a strong password, it is advisable to change your password every month. Take note that switching to a stronger password is not just for you and your business accounts alone. Your employees, so long they are using your business' device or connected to your business' WiFi, they should also get stronger passwords too. This will prevent a hacker from gaining access to your system through one of your employees.
5. Subject your cybersecurity to regular audits
How confident are you with the cybersecurity of your business? Assuming a hacker planned a cyber attack against your business, would your business be able to successfully combat the attack?
If you couldn't give a confident "YES", then that means you need to do something about your cybersecurity. To make sure that you get your business to the state where you're sure that no hacker can penetrate your system, you need to first subject the cybersecurity of your business to regular audit.
A cybersecurity audit or assessment will help you detect the vulnerable spots in your business on time before a hacker gets to it. It will also give you a clear perspective of what you need to do to prevent a cyber attack.
Such an audit should be something that you should conduct regularly to keep up-to-date with the cybersecurity situation of your business.
Are you ready to take action?
In this article, you were given 5 simple tips to help you protect your business from cyber-attacks. And as promised the tips are extremely easy to apply. You're probably applying some of them right now!
If not, then you should take steps towards it. Hackers are getting smarter by the day. Knowing the dangers involved it would be wise to do something to protect your business from the pesky cyber criminals.
Ready to get started?
