Nearly 90% of small business owners falsely believe that they are immune from cyber-attack. The fact is, that over half of those same businesses will fall victim to a malicious ransomware, malware or intrusion, and it is not a question of if it could happen. Business owners must assume that a potential attack will happen at some point in the future, and act on that knowledge to defend their business networks, systems and data.
The bright light in all of this is that businesses have an option to effectively deal with cybercriminals and become a hardened target. Taking preventative action now will significantly reduce the chances of your business being targeted for cyberattack. However, the consequences for not taking any action could potentially result in a deviating financial loss or even worse.
Estimates report that nearly half of all companies attacked completely fail and close their doors within six months of a data breach.
Here are a few tips that could save your business should you become a target for a cybersecurity attack:
- Implement updates: Updates aren’t meant to be an inconvenience, but it can sure seem like it at times. Properly maintaining your organization’s software network, data and systems will greatly reduce the chances of attack.
- Involve your employees: Employees are one of the biggest entry points for cyberthreats, so it’s natural that you should involve them in the conversation surrounding security. Making the investment of training them on best cybersecurity practices will ensure the long-term health of your IT systems.
- Limit user access: If an employee has access to more data than they need to do their job properly, then your organization is potentially exposing more information than necessary to danger. Even if you trust your employees, there’s no reason anyone should have access to financial records or personal information unless they need it for their job, like human resources or accounting. Furthermore, you should have a separate Wi-Fi account made exclusively for your visitors. This keeps your network separate from others who have no business accessing it.
- Maintain data backups: In a worst-case scenario, you’ll be glad to have data backups to help you get back in action following a data loss incident. Whether your data is stolen, destroyed, or corrupted, a data backup is critical to the success of any preventative security strategy. Be sure that your data backup solution is cloud-based, encrypted, and password-protected.
Keeping your networks, systems and data secure is absolutely critical in today’s high-threat environment. If you want to know more about how to secure your business IT, we are ready to show you options and reduce your risk.
IT Support Guys has the tools you need, and we stand ready to have a conversation to best enable you. Give us a call at (855) 448-4897 or fill out our contact form, and we will be in contact with you shortly.
