Fact: 60% of small businesses have closed down six months after falling victim to cybersecurity attacks.
Imagine building a business from scratch — with all the blood, sweat, and tears you put into it — only to have it paralyzed by cybercriminals with a barrage of dangerous cyber attacks.
Studies show that small and medium-sized businesses are more at risk from threats of cybercrime compared to larger companies and establishments. Hackers zoom in on them because they hold a considerable amount of significant data yet lack the resources to finance proper security measures against cybercriminals.
If you want to protect your investment, you need to work on improving your network security management. Beef up your cybersecurity to minimize the risk of intrusion from cyber felons.
5 Simple Steps to Enhance Your Cybersecurity
1. Take time to assess your cybersecurity.
Given the gravity of cybercrime, you should take some time to honestly assess your cybersecurity measures and how effective and efficient it is against hackers.
You can utilize assessment tools, such as the Cybersecurity Framework tool from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Reputable tools like this evaluate your system and will give you an honest assessment of your cybersecurity system’s effectiveness.
Get your senior leadership team, the board of directors, and investors on board and decide collectively how you want to go about the process of improving your network security.
2. Bring everyone up to speed.
Once you have made the decision, make everyone in your company aware of the changes that will take place.
Educate and train them with the new changes and enforce strict compliance with the new policies. This includes using stronger passwords, using their internet access appropriately, and handling sensitive data like customer and account information with more care.
3. Enhance and enforce your cybersecurity policies, procedures, and processes.
There are a lot of ways you can enhance your cybersecurity policies. For instance, giving your employees different levels of access to certain information and data according to their function and role within the organization.
Identify certain individuals that can be in charge of regularly checking different logs such as anti-malware logs, antivirus logs, and firewall logs.
Perform test runs and simulate cybersecurity intrusions to make sure you don’t miss any blind spots. If points of concern come up, then start addressing them by drawing out contingency plans.
4. Make the right technological choices.
As effective as antivirus software are, they can only do so much to protect your system. Most companies go beyond that and employ the use of firewalls, endpoint security systems, encryption software, two-step identity authentication, data back-up solutions, and password security.
Uninstalling trial and free versions of programs on your computers are also helpful as these free versions serve as hackers’ toeholds to get into your system and access your data. Invest in the paid versions instead. They may cost you more now but it is worth it in the long run.
5. Get help from professionals and experts.
Even if you already have an IT team in place, it is still best to reach out to experts and professionals who are used to dealing with cybercrime. This ensures that you have only the best procedures, protocols, and systems in place.
Protecting your investment and livelihood should be one of your top priorities as a businessman and entrepreneur. Don’t let all your hard work and money go to waste just because you neglected safety measures and protocols in place.
