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The Easiest Way To Disaster-Proof Your Cyber Security

Although no one would dispute the increasing prevalence of cyber-attacks on businesses in recent years, many small-business owners believe themselves and their businesses to be immune to such attacks. Broadly speaking, many small-business owners are likely to think that cybercriminals will go after the bigger fish. However, the fact of the matter is that cyber-attacks are crimes of opportunity, and small businesses often have access to a good amount of sensitive data without many major safeguards. In other words, they’re low-hanging fruit, ripe for the picking.

Back in 2019, two-thirds of respondents to a survey about cybersecurity didn’t believe that their small to mid-size business (SMB) would fall victim to a cyber-attack. Consequently, only 9% of respondents said cybersecurity was a top priority for their business, and 60% didn’t have any sort of plan for deterring a cyber-attack. All of this, despite the fact that, according to a report from CNBC, SMBs endured 43% of reported cyber-attacks, and according to data from the Ponemon Institute and Keeper Security, 76% of SMBs in the U.S. alone reportedly endured a cyber-attack within the previous year.

Every small-business owner should have some plan for deterring cyber-attacks, so they don’t end up as another statistic. Here are a few strategies for keeping cybercriminals at bay.

Boost Your Cloud Security

Storing data in the cloud is easy and cost-effective, but you should take care to find the most secure cloud storage platforms. Not all cloud platforms make security a priority, but some do. A few of the top-rated, most secure cloud platforms, according to Cloudwards.net, include Sync.com, pCloud and Icedrive.

Secure All Parts Of Your Network

Our computers and the many smart devices hooked up to our network can become weak spots for hackers to get in. Taking steps to safeguard each device in your network with strong passwords and robust authentication measures will go a long way toward keeping the hackers at bay. In fact, one of the most basic security measures you can take for your network is to restrict access to your WiFi with a strong password.

Invest In Extra Security Measures

Virtual private networks (VPNs) and firewalls are tools that are highly effective in protecting against cyber-attacks, even if they can’t prevent 100% of them.

Pay Attention To Updates And Upgrades

When you get notified that one of the technological tools that you use has a new update, it’s easy to ignore it. However, you should commit to regularly updating and upgrading these tools because developers will often add patches to their programs that make them more secure against attacks with each update. So, it behooves business owners to regularly install updates for their tech tools.

Back Up Your Data

With one of the most common forms of cyber-attacks being ransomware attacks, where hackers will hold your company data hostage until you pay them a ransom amount, having your company data stored on multiple backups can ensure that your business won’t crumble due to your data’s inaccessibility.

Limit Employee Access To Your Network

As much as we’d wish it were true, many cyber-attacks don’t come from outside of your company. Instead, they originate from within. If you want to limit the amount of damage that someone inside your company can do in a cyber-attack, the best course of action is to limit their access to different parts of your network.

Train Your Employees

At the same time, just as many cyber-attacks occur not because of an employee’s malicious intent, but because of their ignorance. They click on a link in a sketchy e-mail and fall for a phishing scheme, volunteer their password info without thinking about it, or choose a weak password for their computer. That’s why you need to dedicate time to training your employees on best practices when it comes to security.

Set Up A ‘Security Culture’ At Your Workplace

You need to make cybersecurity a top priority, not just for your IT department, but for every department at your business. When everyone works together to protect their workplace from a cyber-attack, you have a better chance of actually succeeding.

Will protecting your business from a cyber-attack require a good amount of time and money? Absolutely. Can you afford to ignore the prevalence of cyber-attacks any longer? Statistically, no. The sad truth is that 60% of SMBs that fall victim to a cyber-attack end up shuttering within six months. Don’t put yourself in that kind of position. Instead, take your business’s cyber security seriously.

Remote Work Can Offer More Benefits than You Might Expect

Remote work has been embraced over the past two years, in no small part due to the impact of the pandemic. However, some of the impacts of remote work have made it clear to many businesses that its advantages shouldn’t be sacrificed once it is no longer necessary. Let’s review how businesses can improve by continuing the practices of remote work, even after the need for remote work has passed.

Redundant Business Travel Can Be Eliminated

Business travel hit effectively unprecedented lows throughout the pandemic, as many people remained secluded in their homes as much as they could. However, it quickly became apparent that the activity that business travel revolved around didn’t actually require a physical presence to be fulfilled. With the solutions that enable remote work in tow, employees can do more than just virtually commute to the office… they can effectively “travel” anywhere they are needed in a matter of moments. This can save you and your team members a hefty chunk of change in fuel costs alone.

Remote Tools Actually Aid Communication and Collaboration

We’ve found that so many of our preconceptions about the best way to do things are, in fact, not the best way to do things. Meetings that involved people present as well as people calling in often found those calling in overlooked more often than not. However, when everyone is relying on remote communication, the playing field is leveled out.

Security is Better with Zero Trust

As companies hurriedly adopted remote work processes, it had the unfortunate side effect of greatly expanding the threat surface of their infrastructures. After all, it isn’t as though your home network is exclusively dealing with work processes. There are other users doing their own thing on the same network, making a zero-trust security approach a necessity. By demanding verification and authentication for every device, user, or application that tries to access resources, the zero-trust model helps to prevent unauthorized usage.

Remote Work Benefits the Environment

With the environment becoming a greater priority for many people as time passes, green technologies and business practices have been emphasized. Remote work, by virtue of the eliminated commute, is a very effective way for each employee to cut down on their carbon footprint.

Hybrid Work is the Best of Both Worlds

As remote solutions continue to improve, a rift has grown. Some employees are perfectly content to continue working from home, while others want the ability to work alongside their teammates once again. This will likely result in the adoption of a hybridized work environment, where employees combine remote operations with in-person processes.

Net Activity can ensure that your business is in the position to operate wherever your employees may be. Give us a call at 216-503-5150 to find out how we can help.