The Internet is a great tool and resource for your business but viruses, identity theft and online fraud can place your business at risk. The best way to protect your business is through prevention. Multi-layered defenses, staff training, policies and business-class computers are what you need to be safe online.
Take a look at your IT security, including your hardware, software, staff, and policies. Think ahead and make a plan to prevent fraud, viruses, data loss, and identity theft. If you think that you can make some improvements, start making all of the necessary changes to ensure the utmost safety for your business. Consider what you most need to protect and what you need to ensure that your business operates.
Theft is more likely to occur than hacking. It’s a good idea to use cable locks to ensure that your PCs and laptops are secure when they aren’t in use. Make sure that office windows and doors have sturdy locks and install an alarm system if you don’t already have one. Consider storing a backup of data away from the office just in case. It may also be useful to write a list of serial numbers to recover any stolen hardware.
Protect your computers by installing security software, including firewall, anti-virus, anti-spyware, and anti-spam protection. Also ensure that all of your software is kept up-to-date. You should also protect your company’s information by encrypting any wireless networks by using strong passwords and erasing data on old computers before you send them to be recycled.
Ensure that your staff receives clear guidelines about what is acceptable to do online. You may want to restrict access to social networking sites and ban software piracy or other inappropriate content. Also, make sure that you train your staff so that they understand office policies and know who to contact if they have any questions or concerns.
It’s always worth it to get good advice as well. Call your local IT Specialist who understands small businesses and communicates in simple, jargon-free language. Your business and staff will thank you.
Great post about internet security. While having an online business, can make you wealthy, many people will try to hack into your site to steal all the hard work you put into it. By taking premature actions to keep updated security, and making sure your employees follow your guidelines, you more likely run the risk of not being attacked. With that in mind though, there is always a chance. So, I would still back up all your important documents, just to be safe.
I agree about backups. As David notes in his article, companies should consider storing their backup data away from the office.
I think companies should also backup data online. These days they have a choice of a variety of services so as to do this easily. The data is the lifeblood of the business, after all, and redundancy in backups is very important.
And, as the article points out, it’s important to secure the computer equipment in the office, to make it less vulnerable to theft. While we may be concerned understandably about hackers, we shouldn’t forget about old-fashioned burglary, for which we also need to take precautions,.
This is an amazing indepth guide when it comes to data security. I’ve seen businesses get duped into giving away vital information before, especially Apple. But social engineering is really effective when it comes to businesses, and employees should be trained on how to spot a social engineering scam. The only hard part is actually teaching how to tell the difference between a legitimate claim and a scam, because scammers can be very convincing if they do try to play the part.