More and more small business owners are turning to tech. This makes sense! Consumers are spending more and more time online and we need to reach out to them and cater to their preferences if we want them to hand over their hard earned cash in exchange for our goods. However, it’s important to remember that when you run your business online, you need to familiarise yourself with the various risks that exist out there on the web and that you protect yourself and your business from them as best possible. This will help to ensure that your business is up and running at all times and that you don’t come into any serious trouble down the line.
Acknowledging the Potential of Cyber Threats
Cyber threats are a huge problems for you as a business owner. Scams could see your money stolen. Hackers could access your data and either steal it (many will then attempt to sell it back to you) or leak it (which would breach all sorts of data protection laws). So, this really is a topic that you need to take seriously!
Avoiding Cyber Crime
The good news is that there are ways to falling victim to cybercrime or hacking. Here are a few steps that you can easily incorporate into your business’ process.
Be Aware of Potential Threats
If you don’t know what threats you should be looking out for, you’re never going to be able to identify them. So, you need to spend a little time raising your own awareness of the different problems out there and how to combat them. Some areas to focus on should include:
- Security Awareness
- How to Avoid Accidental Data Breaches
- Recognising Phishing or Email Scams through phishing prevention
- Avoiding Virus Filled Apps, Software, or Web Programs
- Refusing to Share of Login Credentials
- Avoiding Use of Weak Passwords
Train Staff
While you may be well aware of the threats that are out there, any employees that you have might not be. You never know – they could fall for tricks and end up leaking all sorts of confidential and sensitive information outside of your business, or they could fall for a scam and lose a large proportion of your business’ money. So, make sure to train your employees effectively and regularly. Threats constantly change and you can’t just assume that employees will be up to date with potential problems.
Update Your Software
Almost all of us click ignore when our devices request software updates. We want to use our laptops, tablets, and computers. We don’t want to have to wait around for an hour or so while our system goes through a whole update. But the newer your software is, the less time hackers have had to infiltrate it. By updating you are really improving your security.
As you can see, cyber security is an essential area of focus for any small business owner operating online. So, take it seriously and implement the recommended steps into your professional process sooner rather than later!
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