The increasing number of hacking attempts, security breaches, and data theft incidents, is a matter of concern for small businesses. Compared to big corporate firms and brands, startups and new businesses don’t spend as much on cybersecurity, but their threats and immediate risks are similar. What’s important for every small business is a mix of proactive and reactive approaches towards cybersecurity. In this post, we are sharing the basics that every small and growing brand can easily follow, to prevent a hack and protect IT & network resources.
- Create cyber security awareness workshops. Hackers are constantly updating their ways and means to attack businesses, and therefore, your teams, especially those handling IT resources, must be made aware of these risks. Consider cyber security awareness training programs and workshops, so that there is a clear forward approach for mitigating risks.
- Focus on testing and scans. Network scanning and penetrative testing are great for finding and fixing vulnerabilities. This allows your business to fix issues, long before someone misuses the same.
- Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is essential. Besides creating strong and unique passwords, Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is something that businesses must consider for most accounts, networked devices, and other resources. This just ensures that even if a hacker manages to get a password, they cannot exploit the resource.
- Establish password security measures. This is again something that businesses need to think about. Firstly, default details should be changed immediately, and this applies to all software, firmware, and other products. Next, all passwords must be at least 12 characters long, must have special characters, uppercase and lowercase numbers. Thirdly, ask your employees to use a password manager.
- Use antimalware software. It is also important to have a proactive approach towards handling malware threats. Ask employees to keep an eye on phishing attacks, ensure that you are using antimalware software, and get the best spam filter that is effective for business use.
In addition to all of that, ensure that old and unwanted software are removed from devices, and all available software and firmware are updated towards latest patch. Check if your employees know the basic rules of safe browsing and create a simplified set of rules for reporting a cybersecurity incident, or data theft. All it takes is a collaborative approach towards cybersecurity, and when the entire team is working together, there isn’t much to worry about, especially in the long run.
