Cybersecurity for small businesses is more than just a trending topic now; it is a bare necessity for business enterprises. With so many different ways for attackers to breach businesses and steal their confidential data, the need of the hour is a security mechanism that is proactive, scalable and cost-effective. Finding the perfect solution for your business is a tricky challenge that needs to be handled correctly. Even a minor security loophole can have wide reaching consequences that can compromise the state of your machines and your data completely. So in addition to deploying the best SMB security solutions, the following precautions also need to be undertaken.
Educating Your Employees
In spite of all the security mechanisms that are put in place, it usually takes only one misdirected click on malicious attachments or pages to compromise the integrity of networks. The weakest link is an unsuspecting staff member who does not know the difference between a genuine link and a malicious one. With that in mind, it is highly essential for employees to be aware of the latest dangers and what to do in such instances. Educating employees about what cybercriminals are up to is the best prevention measure to adopt.
High grade training and real-life simulations are crucial to this end and the organization that invests in adequate training will almost always stay secure against unverified threats. Hiring a third-party for such training and for carrying out real-life scenarios is also an important investment.
Using a secure e-commerce platform
If your business is running an online marketplace and you intend to get people shopping on your site, then you need to provide a secure e-commerce platform. This involves a securely hosted shopping cart, and proper SSL encryption for all transactions that take place on your site. Hiring professionals to do this job correctly for you will ensure that in case there are any hiccups or security issues along the way, there are specialized and dedicated experts who can immediately respond and rectify the issue. Moreover, you can also ensure that your entire site, and not just the payment gateway, is SSL/HTTPS encrypted and secured. This will also help your rankings on Google, and will build credibility for your brand in the minds of customers when they make such transactions on your website.
How to keep your small business safe from data breaches and hacks, by @JenniferLSchiff – https://t.co/4802Jt5CyP
— Network World (@NetworkWorld) April 28, 2016
Updating and Backing Up Data Regularly
Many websites over the Internet are built on WordPress, but since it is an open-source platform, there are several security risks associated with it as well. It is absolutely essential for businesses to regularly update all their services and applications as security vulnerabilities can easily be compromised by even amateur attackers. This means you should regularly update your programs, operating systems, security solutions and other cloud-based services as well. One of the biggest challenges for SMBs is to ensure that they have a proactive team in place that updates all services and plugins as soon as they become available. Being proactive with regards to such updates is what can ultimately make all the difference between a costly penetrative attack, and a prevented one. Security patches of other services such as Magento, Adobe, Java and more are also recommended for installation as soon as they become available.
With the right precautions and adequate security mechanisms in place, SMBs and e-commerce platforms can create enough barriers that keep attackers at bay. Stay tuned to the Seqrite blog for more updates on how to protect your SMB against unverified threats and attacks.
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