Ever since the pandemic of 2019 the digital space has been erupting with business. Traditional businesses have had no option but to transition to the internet to stay afloat and those that were already digital saw a big surge of consumers as buyers only had the digital marketplace to go to. While this has been great for both businesses and consumers, it has also been a fruitful time for cybercriminals as they had more people than ever to exploit. This included consumers as well as businesses, but the latter are always better targets. Here are a few things that every business owner can do and significantly improve security without breaking the bank.
1. Educate The Team
It’s great if you have a good infrastructure and your employees are using dedicated systems for work and personal systems for play, but if they don’t know how to use your digital business assets, they will get in trouble. We often underestimate how easy it is even for seasoned users to fall into simple attacks and lose track of protocols while they are immersed in their work. Make it a point to regularly educate your team about cybersecurity best practices and you will see more secure usage over time.
2. Implement Compliance
Governments across the globe are recognizing the big shift towards digital, and they are also aware of the security concerns that accompany this change. In order to streamline processes and better protect both businesses and consumers, they are introducing data compliance protocols such as NIST in the USA and MCSS in the UK. These frameworks help homogenize the way data is collected, processed, and stored, enhancing the security for consumers and also making it more secure for businesses to exchange data between themselves.
3. Work With Experts
When your business operations are small it might be convenient to have one IT person look after everything or even do it yourself. But as things expand, even basic things like local network security which seemed simple for a team of 10 systems can get incredibly complex when you are dealing with dozens of devices. The internet affords you the luxury to work with people from all over the world. You could be a business founded in California, using managed IT services available in Houston, Texas, and selling to clients in Europe. That’s the power of the internet and the great thing is that it can be considerably cheaper to outsource operations rather than having someone do it in-house.
4. Take Things To The Cloud
It might give you some sort of mental satisfaction that all your data is on a local server, but the fact of the matter is that a local solution is not the most secure solution, especially if you are relying on factory configurations. A few years ago clouds were expensive but today they are cheap and incredibly secure considering the multiple encryption protocols you can taint your data with. There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to cloud storage so it’s best to weigh out your options, but they are all very good options in terms of security.
5. Double-Down On The Basics
Being in the twenty-first century and using smart devices we often forget and undermine the significance of the good old security solutions like anti-viruses and multi-factor authentications. We also forget that as engineers have been churning out new devices, security experts have been beefing up their security platforms and what we have today is far heftier than what we had just five years ago. However, don’t rely on the freeware, consider it a business investment and get a solid paid service to better the protection of all the devices in your fleet.
6. Clean Your Network
There is a reason computer viruses are called viruses, just like biological viruses these things are contagious. While they don’t infect humans, one bad system on your network could compromise the security of all other devices. What’s worse is that a weak spot on one device can also act as an attack window to other devices on your network. Plus you are also at threat from foreign systems that interact with your network, like a client’s mobile when they need Wi-Fi to quickly send you a file. Be careful with who is in your network, you want to keep as much unknown traffic out as possible and routinely check those who are regulars.
Getting better digital security for your business isn’t difficult or expensive, it’s just cumbersome. There are quite a few things that you are protecting yourself against, and depending on the infrastructure you are working with, there might be quite a few fronts that you will need to secure. However, it’s something that will change over time so don’t be too worried about getting it right the first time around. It’s going to evolve, it’s going to change but the important thing is to take steps and start making changes today.
