We all know that cyber security is a thing in the business world—but not for our businesses, we’re too small to have to worry about it, right? WRONG!
Simple Cyber Security Tips
Cyber security is important for businesses of all sizes. You never know what’s lurking around the deep, dark corners of cyberspace so you need to constantly working to improve your cyber security.
Breeches can, and often are devastating—so don’t become a victim! Here are X tips and tricks so you can start working on your cyber security today.
Improve Your Password
Public service announcement: keys like Password1 or 1234Password are not secure—you heard it here first!
Strong passwords are important when it comes to small business cyber security. You’ve got a lot of accounts, devices and the like, and you need to make sure they’re all secure.
Choose strong passwords that you regularly change—and make sure this is the regular process for you and all of your team members.
Educate Yourself and Employees
Prevention starts with education, and when it comes to cyber security there are a ton of things you and your team simply don’t know. You can fix that through education.
How can you get educated? Take a course or two, or even hire an expert to educate your team!
Factor in Personal Devices
Many cyber security experts recommend monitoring the activity on employee devices via monitoring software so you can be alerted to any breaches. However, in a lot of small business cases, you probably can’t provide devices to employees and require them to use their own. This will make your security a slight bit more challenging.
When it comes to monitoring personal devices, you do need to ask permission as they are not your devices. I personally won’t work with any organization that wants to monitor my personal devices—among other reasons, I have other client business information (and my own) on my computer that is not for the eyes of other companies.
So, if you hire contractors or freelancers, monitoring and designing regulations around devices that are not your own might not be the best course of action.
Conduct Regular Back-ups
A cyber security breach isn’t the only place you might run into a tech issue like losing important documents, sometimes it’s simply user error. With that in mind, it’s important to conduct regular back-ups of EVERYTHING.
Install Anti-Malware Software
There’s software for that! Seriously, one of the easiest things you can do RIGHT NOW to improve your small business’ social security is to install anti-malware software on your devices.
Sure, you might educate yourself and your employees about tricky emails, websites and other security breaches, but studies have shown that many of us still fall victim to email scams and the like. Be safe, not sorry!
Document Your Cyber Security Policies
When it comes to a cyber security plan of action for your business, make sure to document all of your policies and protocols, and to update them as they change. Not only is this simply good practice, but it makes it easier to train and onboard new employees.
What are your best cyber security tips? Share them in the comments below!
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Tae started out as a journalist before following the money into the corporate world. But it turns out that the grass isn’t always greener and now you can find her spending most of her time writing about all the things she loves. Namely, money, travel and business with a hefty dose of self-deprecating humor. She is a podcast fanatic, blogging aficionado and loves to find new ways to turn passions into cold hard cash!