Company owners are looking for practical solutions for protection from cyber threats. Small businesses have a growing concern over cyber threats. Perhaps some that you haven’t considered. The hybrid-remote workforce environment has created urgent data exposure challenges. Now is the time to do your homework and solidify your security infrastructure to protect your business. Every organization no matter the size must be prepared to deal with disruptive cyber threats.
According to a recent Small Business Administration study, 88% of small business owners felt concerns over their ability to handle a cyber attack. Many businesses don’t know where to begin, don’t have the time to devote to cybersecurity, and don’t have the IT support resources to protect their company.
1. Understand the most common cyber threats
Viruses
Harmful software spreads from computer to computer and related devices with the intent to give access to your data.
Malware
Malicious software can involve viruses and damage servers, clients’ workstations, or entire networks.
Ransomware
A type of malware controls access to a computer until a ransom is paid. Often these occur through unpatched vulnerabilities in computer software.
Phishing
This attack uses email or a website to infect your machine. The goal is to collect sensitive information by using emails that appear to have been sent from a legitimate company or individual. After the recipient clicks on the link, code is run, and your computer is infected with malware.
2. Do a business risk assessment for the best protection from cyber threats
(click on the links for assessment plans)
An assessment can identify the vulnerabilities of your business systems. You’ll be able to determine a plan of action. Here are a few assessment tools.
The Department of Homeland Security provides a non-technical evaluation of your operational resilience and practices. You can do this assessment by your team. You can also get Cyber Essentials which gives leaders an understanding of where to start to understand cybersecurity best practices.
This toolkit is a practical guide that includes cybersecurity tips for small business owners.
Generate your plan based upon your selections from a customized environment checklist.
3. Educate your staff on solutions to protect your small business from cyber-threats
Emails are the leading cause of data breaches for small businesses. Training your staff on internet best practices can help protect your data.
Topics that could be included in staff training for increased protection from cyber threats
- How to spot phishing emails
- Good browsing practices
- Identifying dangerous downloads
- Developing strong passwords and ways to recall that data
- Securing sensitive customer and vendor data
- Adding multi-factor authentication
- Keeping antivirus tools updated
Other tips for cyber threat prevention
Secure your network environment
Protect the internet connection by the use of a firewall and encrypting information.
Secure your Wi-Fi by not broadcasting your network name and keeping it hidden.
Have an emergency plan. Make sure you have a robust backup strategy. Create an automated system of backups. If your system gets infected by a cyber-attack, having access to great backups can save the day. Be sure you have copies of backups stored offsite or on the cloud.
Give Administrative system access to trusted IT staff and key personnel only. Be sure every employee has a separate user account created and that strong passwords are required.
If you think you’ve received an email that contains malware – Do this four-point verification:
- Check the company name to see if it’s really from a company.
- Check the “from” field in the email to see if you recognize the sender’s address. If you have doubts whether the email is authentic, send a new email—but not a reply—to the contact to be certain they are the person that emailed you.
- Put your mouse over the hyperlink in the body of the email to see the actual URL—be sure not to click on the link!
- If the URL doesn’t look valid, examine the signature at the bottom of the email for any clues, for example, several misspellings and links that don’t work. You can do these checks in a minute or so, and if the email is fake, you’ll see indicators that don’t make sense.