With increased societal reliance on technology, the rollout of 5G networks, and the trend of businesses moving more toward remote and hybrid work environments, the cyber landscape is primed for crime to continue its recent rise. Hackers attack every 39 seconds, averaging an estimated 2,244 incidents per day. While healthcare and financial industries seem to be the primary targets for the theft of sensitive personal information, small businesses are often frequent victims because of their perceived lack of security.
Organisations with fewer than 250 employees are targeted through email at a rate of 1 in 323. The truth is, all businesses are potential victims. Regardless of the nature of your business, you can take steps to mitigate your risk by focusing on a few critical areas.
Reduce Chances for Human Error
Your people are both your greatest resource and your greatest liability. 95% of cyber breaches are caused by human error, so it’s crucial to reduce the risk in this area.
Create an incident response plan. Currently, more than 77% of organisations do not have cybercrime response procedures in place. A cyber insurance broker can help you with the assistance of a panel of experts to ensure a comprehensive plan to avoid a cyberattack, recognize one when it occurs, and efficiently handle recovery.
Secure your passwords. About 60% of companies have hundreds of accounts with passwords that do not expire. Ensure that you delete passwords and accounts from former employees immediately after they exit the company.
Protect against malicious sites and content. 94% of malware is delivered by email. Use filters on emails and web browsers to discourage hackers and prevent spam. Downloadable “blacklist” services can block users from accessing problem websites that contain risks of malware exposure.
Provide Training
You can have great safeguards in place to avoid human error, but your best defence is to train your staff.
Train employees to protect valuable information. Every employee should know proper email use, appropriate handling of business information, and best practice for responding to a cybersecurity breach.
Establish policies that discourage employees from visiting sites that are considered high-risk, such as pornographic websites or social media sites. While this may seem common sense, one out of every 13 web searches leads to malware. It just takes one wrong click to cause malicious software to infiltrate your organisational networks.
Ensure Integrity of Hardware and Software
Out-of-date software and a lack of adequate blocking systems create additional risks to businesses that are already vulnerable. Make sure to check the integrity of hardware and software systems with the following tips.
- Install patches and update software regularly. Ensure all software receives support
- Install and activate firewalls on all computers, smartphones and networked devices accessed by employees, including those that work off-site.
- Secure all wireless access and networks by changing administrative passwords, using encryption for wifi access, setting wireless access points. The service set identifier is not broadcast and avoiding using wired-equivalent privacy.
Secure Sensitive Information
Every business is responsible for sensitive data, whether it’s financial files, private customer information, or company secrets; ensuring the integrity of this information is critical, so steps must be taken to protect it from cybercrime.
Limit employee access to sensitive information. Studies show that 17% of sensitive files in every company are accessible to all employees, and 15% of companies studied had over a million files available for every employee to access.
Use full-disk encryption for computers, tablets and smartphones, with a saved copy of the password in a separate secured location from backups.
Delete sensitive information on old flash drives, disks, CDs, and other media, and destroy physical copies by shredding or incinerating. Wipe all hard-drive information before disposing of outdated computer equipment.
Technology is helpful to businesses in many ways; be sure to take the necessary steps to safeguard your company against the risks that come with it.
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