Digital businesses have become one of the favorite targets for cybercriminals. It looks like the financial incentive for attacking a small or medium-sized digital business is well worth the work for cybercriminals. There are a couple of reasons why this particular type of business has become such a popular target. Small to medium-sized digital businesses usually have limited capacity for their cyber security. In addition to that, some companies don’t even have a dedicated employee for this issue. In other cases, even if these businesses do have optimal security systems in place, it is always easier to target small to medium-sized businesses than to go after huge corporations. But small digital businesses don’t have to put up with all that. Here’s what you can do as a small business owner to protect your company from cyber threats.
Prioritize defense
If there are any vulnerabilities in your system, it’s better to be ahead of the game. You can either bring in an independent evaluator to take a look at your digital presence or have your own IT team or a person take a look at it instead. When it comes to staying safe online, the offensive approach is rarely effective. Instead, doing your due diligence and checking your system for flaws is the best way to ensure that you won’t have to deal with a cyberattack in the future.
Strong Passwords everywhere
You would think that after years of hearing about the cyber horror stories that occurred because of simple, easy-to-guess passwords, people and companies alike would start prioritizing their password safety. Sadly, reality paints a different picture. Even in 2022, some of the most popular passwords include “123456”, “password,” or “qwerty,” to name a few. If you want to steer clear of cyberattacks, especially as a business owner, you have to put effort into your company passwords. The best password-safety practices include making the passwords on all your accounts differ and ensuring that they are difficult to guess. If the task of keeping track of so many long and hard-to-remember passwords seems daunting, use a password manager. Password managers generate safe passwords and keep track of all your existing ones. When using this tool, you never have to worry about forgetting one of your impossibly long and difficult passwords ever again!
Use VPN when going online
Use a VPN on all work computers or any devices where people may be logging into work-related online spaces. VPNs secure your internet connection by rerouting it through a secure tunnel. This way, even if there is an attempt to access the browsing history of the company, the intruder won’t be able to gather any data about your company, therefore, won’t be able to use it to attack your small business. Apart from the security perks, this will also allow you to access any sort of geo-blocked content. For example, suppose you are traveling and want to access a certain website or content that is not available in your current location. In that case, VPN can take care of that. All you have to do is connect to the VPN Canada server, and you will instantly gain access to that content. This opens new doors for small businesses to get information that the competing business may not have. Depending on what you are doing with your small business, this could give you a massive advantage over others.
Consider having a cyber security training
We know that not all small digital businesses can afford cyber security training, but it should definitely be on your to-do list. The majority of cyber attacks occur because of human errors, not because the hacker managed to infiltrate the complicated system all alone. Common human errors include sending over classified information to a mysterious sender or to a sender who is posing as one of the employees under a fake email. It may also happen that your employee logs into your work system remotely, using an unsecured network. This list is pretty much endless. The most effective way to prevent that from happening is to ensure that your employees have a solid understanding of existing cyber threats and won’t be fooled by a simple phishing scam. While the cyber security training is definitely going to help, it will not eliminate human errors completely. For the best results, use all of these tips combined with one another.
As said, most hackers won’t infiltrate your company system or get hold of sensitive information through the weakness of the system itself. Most of the time, they exploit human errors. To minimize such errors, it would be advisable to learn some basic cybersecurity tips and become a white-hat-hacker. Or as they say, learn how to use a purple team platform to arrest and keep off black-hat-hackers.