How to Protect Your Business From Cyber Attacks
50% of all small businesses (have reported) that they have been the victim of a cyber attack according to the National Small Business Association. Other findings from the report show that:
- Small businesses cyber-attacks is up 44% from the previous 2 years.
- 68% of businesses report being a cyber-victim more than just once.
- In 2013, cyber-attacks cost small businesses on average $8,699 per attack. Today, that number is up to $20,752 per attack.
These numbers are staggering, and any small business needs to seriously look at protecting themselves from such attacks and threats. Cyber-attacks are growing in sophistication and businesses need to equip themselves with safeguards to protect their data, security and privacy.
How do you protect your business?
- Educate employees: From the beginning of their employment, employees should be aware of best practices when it comes to security. For example, not opening suspicious URLs or email attachments. Many companies lockdown certain web sites so that employees don’t have the opportunity to visit potential threatening web sites that could pose a security risk. Making sure that employees are well versed and are on-board with best practices will go a long way in protecting the business from outside threats.
- Install firewalls: Firewalls need to be updated regularly to maintain effectiveness as they protect your business from outside threats like malware. An IT provider can help you decide which anti-virus program will best suit your business needs.
- Protect Wi-fi: It’s very important to make sure that the business wi-fi is not accessible to outsiders, only to employees. Not only that, encrypting it and make sure to have a password in place along with updating that password on a regular basis is good security practice.
As the saying goes a stitch in time saves 9. Many businesses may be afraid of the potential spend on setting up a more secure IT system, but the costs of an attack can be devastating to the business. Not only a comprised system, loss of client and business data along with the potential loss of reputation can severely put a business back. By implementing security protocols, your company has a greater chance of bouncing back much more quickly than one that doesn’t.
By working with an IT company and partner like us, businesses have access to enterprise grade technology to help keep your company out of the dark. Contact us today so we can talk to you about security best practices and how we can help protect your company.