Cybercrimes are on the rise and criminals are finding new and innovative ways of committing such nefarious actions. Forbes reports that as per Accenture’s Cost of Cybercrime Study, 43% of cyber-attacks are targeted at small businesses. The sad part is that only 14% of the businesses have preparations for defending themselves.
Cyber Security for Business – What is at Risk?
Have you thought about things that are at risk if you don’t follow cyber security best practices for business? Consider these possibilities:
- Your intellectual properties
- Personal information of your employees
- Financial information about the business
- Payment information of customers
- Passwords or links that you have shared with anyone
- Business plans of the company
- Social media accounts of the business
- Business Reputation
- Security of cyber systems with whom the company does business
Alarming, isn’t it? Precisely, full business is at stake on not following proper cyber security measures.
To avoid security breaches, it is important to implement and follow cyber security practices strictly. We will discuss such practices here.
Cybersecurity Best Practices for Employees and Small Businesses
Small and medium-sized businesses are more at risk from cyber-attacks because they have limited resources. This is the reason such companies must follow cybersecurity best practices NIST to safeguard the business as much as possible.
NIST is a voluntary cybersecurity framework consisting of guidelines, standards, and best practices for managing cybersecurity risks. You will get complete details on information security best practices standards and guidelines from NIST official website.
Here are some best practices for cybersecurity of small businesses, which you must follow:
- Continuous backup of data – You never know when cyber-attacks will take place. It is always better to be safe than sorry because we cannot prevent 100% of all problems.
You must have a system in place so that you have a regular backup of all your data. The data includes all kinds of databases, documents, financial information, sensitive business information, and everything essential for running your business.
Even if there is an attack and your data is wiped off, you can fall back to the backup for quick restoration. One of the best ways to secure your files and data is by leveraging cloud storage.
2. Employee education on cybersecurity measures – This is a fundamental step for ensuring cyber security in your organization. You have to educate the employees on security best practices. Many people understand that such security is important but they don’t understand how the security is compromised online.
Employee education will begin by informing them about setting passwords, securely storing files, and telling them about company policies on cybersecurity. Next, you can inform them of how security breaches will impact the business and the employee directly.
3. Creating clear cybersecurity policies – Whether you have a small business or large, you have to make usable and transparent cybersecurity policies. You will find the cyber security policy for small businesses pdf online. If you think, the policy is in complicated language, simplify it and create a policy for your business.
Make sure that new employees have proper cybersecurity training, document all the protocols, and think of joining a security training program as a company. If you are confused as to where to begin, consult a security consultant for guidance. Working with clear cybersecurity policies is easier and more effective at the same time.
4. Multi-factor identification – This is an excellent cybersecurity measure that all organizations must follow. In multi-factor identification, you need two kinds of identification or passwords for accessing a system. It is two-layer protection for systems.
Social media is implementing these measures as it is easy to log into a system remotely. You can add this security measure to your software and email accounts or payment gateways to make them full-proof. It takes a few steps to implement such a security system.
5. Mobile-first security – Businesses are shifting their activity to mobile devices rapidly. Therefore, it is not enough to protect your servers and desktop computers only. You will have to follow precautions to protect the mobile devices as well.
Today everyone has a smartphone, which has made working easier on the go. At the same time, it has become a channel for data leakage too. You must educate your employees on how they can stay safe and secure on their smartphones and prevent cybersecurity attacks.
6. Creating strong passwords recommended – To you, updating and changing passwords constantly might seem to be a pain point. But this is the best cybersecurity proactive. You might not know that 63% of security breaches took place due to weak, stolen, or lost passwords.
You must check that your employees are changing and updating their passwords once every 75-90 days. The password should be an uncommon one and contain credentials like a capital letter, small letter, special characters, and numerical digits.
7. Practicing safe email protocols – Emails are one of the most common pathways through which cyberattacks take place. Generally, email attachments are the main source of the attack. There are many employees’ email accounts that are not safe and secure.
You have to teach your employees to set a secure password. They also have to learn ways to understand and navigate emails that look suspicious. Start creating a system for reporting these suspicious emails. This is the only way that you can stop the spread of such emails.
8. Securing wireless connections – Many employees now work remotely. In such a situation, the employees must be well educated on using a secured wireless connection. This is all the more important when you are working with some confidential or sensitive data.
Employees must never work on public Wi-Fi. This will give an open opportunity to hackers to hack your and your client’s data. Use strong passwords for safeguarding the wireless connection and don’t share the password with anyone.
9. Installing anti-malware software – One of the best practices for preventing cyberattacks in small organizations is installing anti-malware software. Your employees might follow all cyber security measures and online safety steps, but things might slip through the cracks.
With anti-malware software installed in your system, you will be secured against the most common phishing attacks. The software will also help in debugging a computer after the malware is downloaded. The software will need updates from time to time; ensure that you do that.
10. Not neglecting regular updates and patching – Many small businesses face vulnerabilities due to negligence in regular updating and patching. Small businesses usually have budget constraints and therefore fail to keep their infrastructure and applications up-to-date.
But neglecting these security updates and patching leaves the business vulnerable to security risks. Use various security tools for protecting your system against malicious cyber attacks.
Conclusion
As an employer, you can send a cyber security best practices pdf to all the employees of your company. Make sure that the employees follow these practices for their security and for safeguarding sensitive information of the business organization.
You can also ask your employees to take up a course All in One Cyber Security Program to know more about cyber security and related issues. This is a great program for both professionals and beginners.
Also Read: Internal and External Cybersecurity
