Partner Article

Small Business Cyber Security: How To Prevent A Cyber Attack

An increasing number of businesses are falling victim of cyber attacks, and the unfortunate reality is that, in many instances, it is small businesses who are being affected.

It may be large multinationals who you are led to believe by the press that are most commonly affected, however that is typically only a result of the personal data breeches involved which lead to such great interest from newspapers and the like.

Nothing can hide the fact that small businesses are at risk from cyber crime and, according to Hiscox’s Cyber Preparedness Report 2017, the average small businesses loses somewhere in the region of $41,000 per cyber security incident.

Can your business afford to put yourself at risk? Most likely not!

According to one of the experts from constructaquote.com, one of the UK’s leading providers of cyber insurance, “All businesses which use IT are at risk to cyber events. The risks are not limited to the size of a business either. If you are an SME the risks can actually be even greater as you may not have the ability or capacity to deal with the loss of hardware as well as data.”

Preventing a cyber attack as a small business doesn’t need to be difficult and it doesn’t need a huge bugter. In many cases, it simply needs a plan of action.

Here’s 4 top tips for preventing a cyber attack.

1. Know The Risks

The first step to preventing a cyber attack is to educate yourself on the risks. There’s a good chance that you’re aware of the general threat of cyber attacks to small businesses, however can you truly say that you could name the main risks? How much could it cost your business? How long could you see your IT systems down for?

The more you understand about the risks of cyber crime, the more you’ll appreciate why prevention of such attacks is an important use of budget and just how high a priority a thorough process and prevention plan needs to be.

Reading this guide from FSB will help to educate you a little more and further outline the risks.

2. Develop Security Processes

With the correct security processes in place, it is possible to prevent the majority of cyber attacks. Processes must be fully engrained in company culture and it’s important that every employee is on-board.

From ensuring complex passwords through to limiting the use of freely-downloaded applications on company hardware, take the time to understand the ways in which your business could be affected and work out the most suitable processes across all of these.

Don’t forget to include training as to your businesses cyber security processes during any new employee inductions and offer regular refresher training for existing employees.

If you have your team on board, you’re already one step ahead of, and more secure than, many of your competitors.

3. Use Only Business-Class Storage

It may be tempting to go for the cheaper cloud-storage option to save a small sum each month, however lower cost services ultimately mean a compromise in something and, in many cases, that means security.

Under no circumstances should your business be opting for budget storage solutions, even for data which you may not regard as sensitive. Always be sure to go with business-class storage solutions and remain comforted knowing that the extra costings are justified.

Cloudwards can help you to make an educated decision.

4. Keep Software Updated

If you’re not lucky enough to have an in-house IT team whose responsibility it is to ensure that software is regularly updated to the latest versions, it’s important that employees take charge of keeping their own devices up to date.

Everything from new operating system versions through to anti-virus and application software updates should be run on a weekly basis, giving you the peace of mind that every device within the business is as a secure as possible.

Where possible, always use automatic updates, however in some cases this may not be possible for annually licensed software. In cases such as this, always know when software expires and discuss renewing when needed.

At the end of the day, there’s no denying how expensive a cyber attack can be, especially for a small business but with a little forward thinking and a thorough procedure, there’s a strong chance you’ll be able to prevent the majority of attacks fired your way.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by James Brockbank .