According to a report from Cisco, 70% of cyberattackers deliberately target small businesses. The threat is real and happening every day. Small businesses often underestimate their cybersecurity risks and leave their systems vulnerable to potential attacks, making cybersecurity awareness essential. Indeed, such attacks can be fatal to a small company. Some small-business owners assume hackers are unlikely to target them and fail to take precautions to strengthen their systems. This kind of faulty thinking leads to vulnerable systems that easily fall prey to hackers.
Common Reasons Data Breaches Occur
To take corrective action, you first need to understand why small businesses fall victim to data breaches in the first place. Small businesses lack security measures and trained personnel, maintain data that is useful to hackers (e.g., credit card information), or fail to back up data with a third-party security system, which are some ways they may be vulnerable to a breach. Fortunately, there are effective steps that small businesses can take to ward off cyberattacks. Here is a selection of best practices for securing your data:
- The first line of defense — The leading cause of small-business data breaches is through employee internet communication. Training your staff on best internet practices is an important way to help protect company data. Identifying phishing emails, avoiding suspicious downloads and utilizing authentication tools can all help prevent cyberattacks.
- Safeguard your network — You need to protect the internet connection by encrypting information or having a firewall. You should password-protect your router, and remote employees should use a virtual private network to connect to your network. Zero-trust security has become the industry standard.
- Install antivirus software — To further protect your data, install antivirus software on all computers. Software vendors are available online, each offering features to meet your needs. All vendors will provide regular automatic updates to protect your system.
- Require multifactor authentication — Before accessing your data, require the user to authenticate their identity in two or more ways beyond username and password. Monitor access by removing former employees from your system.
- Back it up — Data should be backed up on all computers on a regular basis. Cloud storage audits should be done on a weekly basis to protect sensitive financial, human resources and accounting files. Make sure to destroy sensitive data, including paper documents, once it is no longer needed.
- Control access — You should not leave business computers unattended where unauthorized individuals can access them. All laptops and mobile devices should be locked up in a secure location. Each employee needs to have an individual user account protected with a strong password.
Cybersecurity Response Steps After a Breach
Proactively put a plan in place in the unfortunate event that your system is compromised. You will need to alert law enforcement and any businesses or individuals affected. Isolate the affected systems and disconnect them from the internet to prevent further damage. Disable access to the system and change all credentials.
Implementing a multitiered security plan reduces the risk of a cyberattack on your company.
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