A Guide for Business Owners: Protecting Your Company from Cyber Threats

When you’ve spent time building and expanding your business, it can be easy to find yourself taking your foot off the gas. However, there are many areas you still have to think about, and although cybersecurity may not be at the top of your priority list, it needs to be. You may believe that your established business doesn’t face the same risk as new and small businesses, but all businesses — no matter how large or small — face the same threat when it comes to cyber-attacks.

This is why being continually aware of safety and protection methods when running your business will help you to implement them straight away.

What Kind of Cyber Threats Can Your Business Expect to Face?

Even if you employ a dedicated IT team, you may not be personally aware of the threats your business may be exposed to. Here are the most common cyber threats any business can expect.

• Phishing. This type of attack leaves businesses extremely vulnerable and entails an individual posing as a secure organization in order to gain sensitive data from you. It can be very easy to misinterpret a phishing attempt and surrender personal data.
• Ransomware. This is where criminals will lock down business information in order to then demand a ransom from the business to unlock it again. This is particularly problematic for businesses because being unable to access data can mean a loss of service or ability to do business until the ransom is paid.
• Malware. The most common example of malware is a virus. Your business system may become infected or risk having its data corrupted or hacked.
• Human error through employees. The threat of cyber-attacks increases when you take your staff into account. This is because the more employees you have, the more risk there is that each individual could make a mistake in regard to responding to phishing attempts, downloading information containing a virus, or even posing a risk to your company themselves.

How to Protect Your Business

Below are some of the ways you can incorporate a defense against these types of threats.

Increase Your Web Security as Much as Possible

Do everything you can to increase web security in any capacity. Even as an established business, this should be setting up dependable anti-virus and firewall software as priority. As well as this, be sure to look into the extra security options the services you already use may provide. For those businesses providing a network service for others, you can improve web security by using packages such as Allot’s Network Secure.

Use Strong Passwords

Always use strong passwords for anything you do within business, and be sure to change and update regularly. Try to avoid using the same password for everything within your business. Strong passwords should include a mix of lower case characters, upper case characters, numbers, and symbols.

Always Update Your Systems

It’s easy to let regular system updates slip under the radar when you’re trying to concentrate on running and expanding a business. However, regular system updates for your devices will make sure that the latest operating systems can be optimized and lower the risk of vulnerabilities.

Train Your Staff

Organize training for any new staff, or have a meeting in regard to safe web practices, so that your employees can learn to recognize potential threats, what not to download, and how to best avoid phishing scams.