Hey, we know you’re busy.
Between marketing, managing, and actually doing the thing you’re paid to do, there’s not a whole lot of time to focus on other aspects of running a business. Especially things that are easily overlooked…like cyber security.
But given that November is national cyber security month, we felt like taking this opportunity to remind you that reputation is everything, and if you don’t have the trust of your customers then everything else is kinda pointless.
We’ve all seen the headlines when a major company has a data breach; it’s not a good look.
You might not be as big as, say, Verizon (yet, but we believe in you!) but your digital integrity is still an integral part of your interactions with your consumers. Think you’re too small to be a target? Think again. A consumer report revealed that in 2021 more than half of small businesses were victims of cyber attacks- either attempted or successful. Yikes.
So what’s a small business to do in the face of faceless, nefarious tech wizards who seek to silently strike and wipe out the business you’ve spent your life building?
Lucky for you, we have a handy list of tips to keep your business secure:
- Train your people – Your team is your first line of defense against a cyber attack. Make sure their passwords are as strong as their work ethic, keep up to date with the latest phishing and phone scams so they know not to fall for it when that random guy who claims to be from TMobile asks for their SSN, and communicate. We’ve also got a few website resources for ya to ensure you and your team are safe at work.
- Update your virus software – First of all, if you are reading this and you don’t have virus software, go get some. It’s 2022, please, what are you even doing? Once you have it, however, you gotta keep it updated. Those tech goblins are out there constantly combating your virus protection to find ways around it, and guess what your virus software does in response to these attempts? Produces new ways to keep you safe, but only if you update it. Bonus, it’ll stop visually screaming at you from the corner of your computer every time you turn it on.
- Only use a private network, and hide that behind a firewall – You can get really fancy and control how and where your wifi availability broadcasts with something called a Service Set Identifier, but a strong and devilishly tricky password works just as well.
- Back it up – Listen, the bad guys are out there and they’re ruthless, so even with all these stopgaps, they sometimes still get your data. This is why making sure valuable info isn’t just hanging out on your computer forever is crucial. Enter, backing up; if something is especially important/private, storing it on the cloud or in another secure digital space not readily accessible is important in making sure that info doesn’t end up in the wrong digital hands.