With more and more business being carried out online, businesses need to be aware of the threats to their business when been active online. A cyber-attack could potentially put a small to medium sized company out of business as it doesn’t have as many means to fight back.
The earlier a small business is responsive to a cyber-attack, the better. They can reduce financial loss, inform customers and work on preventing any further attacks. In some cases, a business may receive a bad reputation following a cyber-attack, a business needs to react quickly and effectively to ensure the cyber-attack causes minimal damages to all involved.
Some steps a small business should follow to protect themselves from a potential cyber-attack:
- Businesses should be up to date with the cyber threats that are currently trending. If businesses have an idea of what could potentially happen, they can work on ensuring they are protecting themselves as best they can.
- Businesses should use strong usernames and passwords. These details should never be sent to anyone via email, as emails could have been assessed by unauthorised users. Another option is to limit the number of times a person can try logging in.
- Passwords should be changed often, employees should never have passwords written down, especially written somewhere that others can find them easily. Businesses should set up on computers that logins will expire after a certain time of inactivity.
- It is important to update software that the business trust regularly. If one hacker figures out how to access a network, chances are a hundred others will too. Ensure anti-virus software is up to date and carry out regular scans on computers to ensure there are no threats on them.
- Businesses should look into installing a firewall. A firewall is a strong tool to use to protect your business against hackers. If you contact your tech help, they will be able to advise you with this.
- Businesses should backup their files a few times a day. If a business is a victim of a cyber-attack or if there is an issue with a business’s server, at least the business will have their files backed up.
- It is important to educate employees on the risks involved with cyber-attacks. The businesses data can be at risk from an employee opening a spam email, opening an untrustworthy website, clicking on something on Facebook or any social media platform. Therefore, everyone in the business need to be made aware of risks involved with cyber-attacks. The owner of the business should provide guidelines to employees on using computers connected to the network server.
- Hire a tech company to ensure that your businesses network server is protected the very best it can be from cyber-attacks.