Protect Your Business Against Hackers

Locking up at the end of the workday makes sense—you want to protect your business. But what if locking your doors is not enough? How can you protect your business against hackers who can gain wide-open access to your back door?

Your financial data, intellectual property and network information are all just as valuable as the goods on your shelves, or the clients in your books. For the same reasons you lock up at the end of the workday, having the best IT security is common sense. Here are five steps you can take to protect your valuables, even when the front doors are locked:

1. Know how hackers hack your business, and why
2. Covering your assets—budgeting for data security
3. What business owners need-to-know about IT regulations
4. Getting your employees on board with cyber security
5. Making data security part of your business strategy

Know how hackers hack your business, and why

Breaking the front lock is not the way hackers get into your business. They phish, sending emails with tantalizing bits of bait that people nibble on. With persistence, hackers can usually trick someone into biting, creating a backdoor to install viruses or malware on your network.

Recognize hackers by their suspicious correspondence. Anyone who suggests you download mysterious antivirus software is up to something phishy. That is especially true for anyone who requests sensitive information or passwords. If your business is experiencing suspicious network activity, or receiving ransomware notices, knowing where to find more information is your best step forward.

But if you’re like anyone else trying to run a business, you probably don’t have a team of security professionals to monitor for threats, or the incredible resources needed to recover from data breaches. That’s why you need the best data security, working around the clock to protect your data, so your private information never falls into the wrong hands.

Covering your assets—budgeting for data security

Hackers have developed so many creative and innovative tricks that 2019 is shaping up to be a banner year for fighting back. A record eighty-six percent of business plan to cover their assets by increasing their spending on cybersecurity.

The most proactive thing you can do to prioritize a budget for data security is to understand how the safeguards that have traditionally been considered extra, or proactive are now recognized as an essential component of a savvy IT budget.

When you are focusing on growing your business, it is important to allocate adequate funds for your unique resilience strategy—that is, the necessary safeguards to protect you and your team from an attack and, if an attack were to occur, how to minimize disruptions and quickly recover data afterwards. As your competitors are beefing up on cyber security, developing a budget that includes robust spending on data security, means a bigger return on investment as the long-term benefits to data security can add to your bottom line.

What business owners need to know about IT regulations

No matter what kind of data you encounter, it is your responsibility to ensure it is properly protected. But keeping compliant with GDPR, SOX law and PCI data security standards can be incredibly difficult.

Not all information is the same. Securing a patient’s sensitive medical information is regulated much differently than securing biometrics data for our mobile cash apps. But proper compliance is good for business. Customers are far more likely to take their business to companies who can demonstrate proper data compliance. Some insurance companies even offer discounts to businesses who can prove they meet certain data security criteria.

Having proper IT support ensures your business is not only compliant, and can give you a profitable advantage.

Getting employees on board with data security

A business is only as strong as its weakest link. You don’t have to wait until National Cybersecurity Month to get your team on board with your business’ data security. You can get started today. Make it a holiday—Change Your Password Day, or Update Your Software Day. Here are some more steps you can take now to get everybody up to speed.

Take a top-down approach to cybersecurity, from the CEO to the mailroom, to help employees understand why cybersecurity matters, why being alert to phishing emails, and suspicious events can be the difference in saving your business, and their jobs.

Your employees are the eyes and ears of your business. Why is it, employees who notice something amis often don’t take action? They presume anything suspicious was probably noticed and reported by someone else. When you empower and encourage your employees to report suspicious activity, you are safeguarding your business from the most clever hackers wishing to gain access to your network.

Make data security part of your business strategy

Making sure you are not only compliant, but competitive with data security can be both tricky and immensely profitable for your business. That is why it is essential to ensure you have the very best in data protection.

Remember: the best IT is more than just securing your client’s and your sensitive information. It is about helping you to assess the real risks and the value in establishing company-wide standards to prevent data breaches and a plan for responding to an incident with data security.