Small business cybersecurity is an important and often overlooked part of running a business. From employee security problems to information storage, you never want your small business to be vulnerable to information breaches. Unfortunately, small business owners and employees often overlook key security areas. If you want to improve your business’ security, check your weakest points.
Never Store Your Customers’ Private Information
Most credit card hacks come from small businesses. You should already know not to save CVV numbers or full credit card numbers. If you keep a customer list with any sensitive data, including names and phone numbers, store that information in a secure cloud server.
Because your customers trust you to keep their data safe when they visit your store, you must be sure your e-commerce vendors offer secure options. Even if your business keeps customer data safe, a vendor with bad security practices leaves your customers vulnerable. Compare your current e-commerce vendor with other options on the market and look for encryption levels and other safety measures.
Change Your BYOD Policy
Small businesses often assume that because only a few employees have file access, BYOD isn’t as big a concern. Accessing cloud files from home computers, tablets, or smartphones is certainly convenient for you and your employees, especially when telecommuting, but you need a good policy for security.
At the very least, require multifactor logins for all business cloud accounts, and don’t let employees download any files to personal devices. Install cloud-based software that allows them to telecommute within the cloud. Strongly suggest that any personal device used for work purposes has the same security measures your business enforces.
Watch Where You and Your Employees Visit
Malvertising is a prominent danger to small businesses that commonly use the internet. In the space where an advertisement should appear on a blog, someone posts malware instead. You don’t have to click the ad for the malware to spread to your computer, and it happens invisibly, so you don’t notice.
Having social media blocks on your work network won’t help because even major news sites like NY Times suffer from malvertising. Disable plug-ins and pop-ups on work computers and install effective ad blockers. Train your employees to use those ad blockers to maximize effectiveness.
Employ Cloud-Based Security
Your area of expertise isn’t IT protection, so go to a vendor for this service. Data security isn’t something you can skimp on. One security breach is expensive and possibly fatal to a small business.
Cloud security services give you the tools to create multifactor authentication on business data storage, admin privileges to grant or remove user access, and more. Set your employee accounts to ask for a new password every 90 days. Whenever you come upon an IT question you can’t answer, either call an IT professional or use the help services your security vendor provides.
Your business, your employees, and your customers depend on your company having good cybersecurity. Don’t expect yourself to have all the security answers. Instead, make the smart decision to find IT professionals and vendors who can lead you down a safer and more protected path.
