These days technology is used by everybody from kids to elders, housewives to business owners. As the number of business owners using mobile technology like the mobile devices, apps and cloud computing are increasing, so are the number of hackers accessing your accounts, money and other important financial data. Those who are falling prey to the hackers more are small business owners, as they generally have lesser resources to fight cyber threats, hence easily fall prey to cyber criminals. The cyber security for small companies is equally important as it is for the larger business companies. The following are security tips to increase the cyber security for small business owners.
1. Security policy for employees
When the question is about cyber security, the biggest issue is lack of cyber knowledge among the small business owners and their employees. It is very important that the information technology department of your business remains up to date with problems regarding the internet security threats. The company or business owners should make it mandatory for their employees to sign a security policy. This policy should include terms like whether the employees should have the access to personal data on business services, if business data can be permitted on their personal devices and what should be done in case these devices are stolen or lost. The document must be shared with employees and make sure they d what understand what needs to be done and explain the importance of cyber security.
2. Strong passwords
Smart passwords are important foe business owners. If a passwords is a simple 8 letter word which is quite common then it can be guesses easily by your 10 year old kid let alone hackers. So, if your password is a vulnerable 8 letter common word that can be guesses easily, then change it to something more complicated and one that cannot be easily cracked by anybody. Never set passwords which are complete words and can easily be recognized. Create a strong password that would be a minimum of 12 characters randomly chosen containing letters of upper and lower cases and number and symbols included too. Make sure that you regularly change your password and do not repeat the same password two times. It is also strictly advised against using the same password for all the accounts, because if one account is hacked all the other accounts can be hacked too.
3. Data encryption
You cannot keep the hackers entirely away from breaching your system with just a strong password. So take measures to protect the data on your computing devices at least. Data encryption is the solution to the hacking problem. Most of the operating systems have disk encryption tools for example the Windows PC has Bitlocker and for MAC it is filevault. These in built programs convert the data on your computing devices into a unreadable code that cannot be easily uncoded by hackers. Hence, your data stays safe.
4. Educate your employees
The most common ways hackers use to access a network is via phishing emails. Hackers use email messages to tail your business . When you click on a link which contains a malicious code they mail you, your system will be hacked. So as the business owner you need to educate your employees about the threat of opening such phishing emails or clicking on any suspicious links. Educating your employees on the cyber security will help you prevent cyber attacks. Apart from that employees should also be aware that apps should not be downloaded on their smart phones from untrustworthy sources.
Follow these simple security tips to prevent hacker attacks from small businesses.
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