Cyberattacks are a bigger problem today than they have ever been. This might come as a surprise to many business owners who may well have assumed that, because we have so much more technology today than in the past, at least some of that technology will be used to prevent cyberattacks. Although this is true, and there is a lot that can be done to prevent cybercriminals from gaining access to your company’s computer network, it’s also true that many more attacks are happening. Therefore, a business owner needs to understand the threat of cyberattacks and protect their company from them where possible. Read on to find out how to do it.
Train Your Staff in Cybersecurity and Incident Response
Although you might be very aware of the dangers that cybercriminals can pose to your business, that doesn’t mean that everyone working in your business will have the same knowledge. In fact, many employees won’t know much about cybercrime at all, as they have never had to deal with it. They won’t know, for example, that a small mistake on their behalf can have far-reaching consequences for the business and its customers.
The problem is that cybercriminals will need to find a weak entry point into the business in order to steal information or plant viruses. One such weak spot is an employee who has not had sufficient cybercrime and cybersecurity training. They might have a weak password (or the same password for everything they need to log into), or they might click on a suspicious link or open an attachment from someone they don’t know. Although it’s not possible to make everyone on your team an IT expert, it is certainly possible to give them a good basic understanding of cybercrime and what they can do to prevent it.
If you are computer savvy, perhaps because you yourself have invested in an MCS online from Worcester Polytechnic Institute to help your business when it comes to IT issues, then you can train your staff yourself. If you are less confident, don’t have the knowledge, or simply prefer outside training, there are many different training courses you can enroll your team on.
Assess Your Current Security Measures
If you want to protect your company from cyberattacks, you need to know your current security measures and whether they are working. This assessment of your own security measures shouldn’t be a one-off task either; it’s something you’ll need to do regularly, at least every six months, as technology improves and changes all the time, and it might be that at some point, your infrastructure becomes out of date.
Again, if you have the right level of computing knowledge, this is a task you can carry out yourself. Otherwise, there are experts who can check over your security measures and then compile a report as to their efficacy and efficiency. It’s best to be as objective as possible when looking at your security measures. You need to think like a cybercriminal and look for weaknesses. This could be out of date software, easy to guess passwords, or even ex-staff members whose log-in details you have not changed or deleted, for example.
Once you know how secure or otherwise your network is, you can also think about your incident response plan. If something were to go wrong, what would the next steps be? There are a number of different options depending on your business, what kind of information is stored and where, and what the damage could be. Create an incident response system and ensure your team is aware of what they need to do if there is a security breach. You’ll hope never to have to use this protocol, but it’s far better to have it in place just in case all the same.
Allocate Resources
If you don’t pay attention to the fact that cybercrime is a real problem that could certainly affect your business, and if you don’t prepare anything in the way of protection, then it is highly likely, you’ll come across a problem. A cybercriminal won’t just try one or two networks and then give up; they will set their software working and try to gain access to many thousands of networks all at once. You might not think a hacker could specifically target you because you have nothing they would want, but the thing to remember is you’re not being specifically targeted; you just happen to be one of many businesses being attacked on the off chance that the cybercriminal can gain access.
Therefore, it’s best to always assume that you are in danger and allocate resources accordingly. Ensure that there is always room in your business budget for any new software updates you might need, for example. Out of date software is the perfect entry point for a cybercriminal since there will have been more time to work out how to access it. It’s also useful to have an IT consultant or managed IT company on hand to assist with security measures, and again – unless you have the skills yourself, as mentioned above – this is something that must be budgeted for.
Monitor All the Threats
It’s highly beneficial to your business to be aware of what possible cybersecurity issues you might come across, but it’s just as important to monitor your network for these threats at all times. If you are monitoring 24/7, then any suspicious behavior that falls outside the normal parameters can be noted and dealt with quickly. Working in real-time – as far as possible – is what will prevent too much damage from being done, assuming there is a cybersecurity breach.
You don’t have to have someone sitting at a screen and monitoring your business at all times, however. There is plenty of technology that will allow this to happen that will send out an alert should something untoward happen. Who receives that alert is down to you. Perhaps you’ll choose to have a security team on call, or maybe you’ll outsource the work, or you might simply want to do it all yourself. You could even have a combination of these elements in place. As long as someone is aware that there is a problem, you will have a chance to prevent the attack from happening.
