We used to live in a world where the security threats to any business were limited to physical damage or theft. Now, the possibilities have expanded to malware, phishing, data breaches, and all the other possibilities you face living in a technological age. No business is 100% safe, but there are some measures you can take to prevent common forms of damage from occurring in your business.
1. A Plan of Action
Chances are, you’re dealing with a lot of valuable and vulnerable data every day in your business. Customer data needs to be protected at all costs – not only does it help your business make important decisions, but information theft via your business could lose you some valuable customers. That’s why you need to have a plan of action already in place in case of security breaches. All data should be regularly backed up to secure servers, preferably in a separate location. Ideally, this data should be encrypted for maximum security. Adding as many layers of defense as possible is your best insurance against data theft, so it’s a good idea to ensure your firewall is secure and you have network signaling security in place. Once any hardware that holds data becomes too old to use or breaks, it should be effectively destroyed, and any paper documents should be shredded to avoid theft.
2. Secure Systems
Once you have your backups in place, the best thing you can do is prevent security breaches as thoroughly as possible. This means having fireproof passwords in place that are regularly changed (and never used more than once). Two-factor authentication is also a must, ensuring that everyone using a certain account or device will need two forms of ID in order to gain access. In addition, employees should be given training to help spot phishing or attempts at installing malware. All it takes is one person clicking one link to put your business’s security at risk.
3. Antivirus Software
If the person in tip #2 does click on that sketchy link, having good antivirus software installed could prevent that malware from spiraling out of control. Make no mistake – antivirus software can’t protect you from every form of malware out there, and malware creators are always finding new ways of getting onto devices and stealing information. Your best line of defense here is to ensure everyone in the business can identify malware and knows how to avoid it.
4. Backup Generator
Natural disasters can also pose a big threat to your technological security. All it takes is one power outage for your office to lose a lot of work and valuable data. That’s why many businesses have backup generators on-site to take over in case of power outages. If you want employees to be able to come to work and continue business as usual, you’ll need a generator that can handle that level of power. It’s always a good idea to know what possible natural disasters you could face in your area over the course of a year.
5. Mitigate Human Error
When you hire human employees, you’re guaranteed to face some issues as a result of human error over time. Whether employees are intentionally causing issues through theft or are simply making mistakes in the course of a workday, there are ways to keep your tech secure from these possible issues. Screening employees before they’re hired is one way to make sure you’re hiring someone without a past history of malicious behavior. But you can also keep employees safe from themselves by having layers of access to certain information. Employees should really only have access to the information they need to do their jobs properly. Otherwise, they shouldn’t be able to accidentally cause issues with valuable information outside their purview.
Having some safeguards and training in place to protect your business’s tech from external or internal threats will prevent you from facing devastating losses and setbacks down the road.
