As a business owner, there is a lot you have to worry about every single day. This includes supervising employees, completing accounting functions, pleasing customers and much more. However, there are certain things that could go wrong at any given time without warning. Some of these threats will be unseen until it’s too late. This is certainly the case with digital threats to businesses like hackers, cyber criminals, malware, ransomware, viruses and more.
Statistics show that cyber attacks cost US businesses a terrifying $1.3 million on average in 2017. As such, cyber security is extremely important. However, due to its technical nature, maintaining good cyber security presents unique challenges to small business owners. Below are five strategies you can use for identifying cyber security threats to your business.
Hire a Third Party to Perform a Cyber Security Audit
Most small business owners are not IT professionals. Understanding computer systems on a high level requires years of schooling and practical experience. You’re not going to be able to spot every security flaw and vulnerability in your company‘s computer network on your own. You’re going to need the eye of a professional. Consider contacting a cyber security company and contracting them to perform a cyber security audit. You’ll get a better understanding of where you stand now in terms of cyber security and what you can do to close gaps before bad actors take advantage of them.
Train Your Employees to Spot Cyber Security Threats
Cyber security shouldn’t only be the responsibility of the IT department. Instead, it should be the responsibility of every single employee in the company. Make maintaining good cyber security part of your company culture and train your employees on how to spot threats when using company computers. If they don’t know how to do something as simple as scan email attachments, you will eventually get attacked. You should be aware of the fact that 52 percent of security breaches are the result of human error.
Get Direct Insight into Your Network
If you want to stave off digital threats to your company, you’re going to need the ability to monitor all the activity on your network. To do so, you should invest in network visibility tools. This kind of software can monitor all the traffic entering your network and all the activity occurring on your servers. You’ll know exactly what is happening in your computer system in real time and have records to review for later analysis. If there is a breach of your network by a malicious entity, you will know about it.
Continually Scan for Malware and Viruses
Not all attacks occur immediately. Sometimes, a Trojan, virus or form of malware is downloaded. It could take days, weeks or even months for it to become active and pose a real threat to your company. This is why you need software installed on all your machines that continually monitor and scan for items on your systems that could create vulnerabilities. Recently, ransomware, a kind of malware that takes a company’s data hostage and holds it for ransom, has been a huge issue. In 2017, companies were attacked by ransomware every 40 seconds.
Encrypt Your Data
Sometimes the best offence against hackers and cyber criminals is a good defence. This is the case with encryption. Encryption transforms data into a form that makes it completely unusable without an encryption key. Make sure important data is encrypted while in storage or in transit. If hackers or other digital evil doers get a hold of that data while it’s in an encrypted form, it will be completely useless to them.
Overall, cyber security is extremely important to survive as a business in the modern era. If you don’t attempt to spot vulnerabilities and protect your company from cyber security threats, the damage done could be in the thousands or even the millions of dollars. It could be the end of your business.