6 Cybersecurity Tips for Small Businesses
published 12/2/2021Some people have barely heard about cybercrime, but that is unfortunately unlikely to remain unchanged. Studies have found that cyber attacks are growing at an incredible rate every year! As cybercriminals become more and more capable, it is important that we all learn to put up a better defense against cybercrime.
But what exactly can you do to improve your cyber security in a world where cybercrime is on the rise? Read on to learn all about the most effective cybersecurity tips that can help keep you and your data safe from bad actors!
1. Improve Company Security With Strong Passwords
In many cases, breaking into your system is a simple as brute force guessing many common passwords. Unfortunately, many employees do not understand how to create strong passwords. The result is they use some of the most common passwords in the world, which any competent cybercriminal can easily guess with a simple password guessing program.
On the other side of the equation, many people have exactly the wrong idea about how to create strong passwords. They recommend using a complicated mix of upper and lower case letters, combined with special characters and numbers.
The problem with this strategy is that it adds a minimum of added password strength. On top of that, it actually makes the problem worse. Password requirements like this make it more likely that people will reuse the same password over and over again.
After all, it is next to impossible to remember many passwords when they have such complicated rules.
The correct way to make passwords as strong as possible is to simply make them longer. If you really want a strong password, then you should require everybody to have long passwords composed of nothing but lowercase letters.
It can be easy to remember a password that is 20 characters long if the password is a phrase from an employee's favorite song. On top of that, passwords like that are exponentially more difficult for cybercriminals to figure out.
2. Protect Data With Modern Firewalls
Over the years, firewalls have gotten stronger and stronger. These days, the right firewall can be an extremely effective preventative measure against viruses.
Unfortunately, not everybody is making the most of these powerful tools. There are two mistakes that people commonly make when it comes to firewalls.
First, many people simply fail to get a powerful firewall. It is important to get a modern firewall and to make sure that it is working on all of your systems. If it is not functioning on a few of your systems, they become a weak point that cybercriminals can target.
The other mistake that people often make with firewalls is that they turn them off. Although it is occasionally important to turn off a firewall, it is important to always remember to turn them back on.
You never know which person in a company might need to turn off the firewall for a brief moment. Therefore, it is important that every single person in the company understands how essential it is that they turn the firewall back on after they turn it off.
3. Train Everyone in Small Business Cybersecurity Measures
That brings us to the next important part of cyber security. In many cases, cybercriminals find it easier to gain access to systems by hacking people rather than machines.
If even a single one of your employees or company leaders falls for a scam email, a cybercriminal can gain access to your business data.
As a result, it is important that everybody at your company is on the same page about how to keep company data safe. They need to know not to send sensitive information on email, no matter how persuasive the message they have received is.
4. Enjoy Business Protection Through Software Updates
As long as you are using software that is completely up-to-date, it will generally have anti-cybercrime measures built into it. However, if your software is not updated, it is probably vulnerable.
Make sure that all of your software is updated. Additionally, you might want to make sure that all of your software updates automatically in the future.
5. Improve Business Security With Backup Data
Ransomware is one of the most common kinds of cybercrime. Criminals take control of your data, at which point it is almost impossible to continue with normal business functioning. Businesses often have to pay ransoms in order to get access to their data again.
You can skip all of that if you have backup data. In that case, you won't need anybody to return access to your data. That can save you a hefty ransom and keep you from being a target of cybercrime in the first place.
6. Be Prepared to Recover Your Data
Another way to handle the possibility of ransomware is by being prepared to recover your data if necessary. As long as you have some way of accessing your data, even when it is stolen, you will not be able to be targeted for ransomware.
Enjoy All of the Benefits of the Best Cybersecurity Tips
We hope that you were able to take away something helpful from this short article on some of the most important tips you can apply to protect yourself from electronic threats. Although it can take some time to learn and integrate the best cybersecurity tips out there, doing so is an investment in safety that will pay off for many years to come.
To learn more about how to improve your cybersecurity measures, feel free to reach out and get in touch with us here at any time!
