Running a small business involves a lot of work, and you have to accomplish everything on a tight budget. Cybersecurity can easily take a backseat as you pay more attention to customers, sales, revenues, and profits. But keeping your business safe from cyber risks and threats is as crucial as any other aspect.
The worst mistake you can make is to think that the risk runs low for small companies. Remember that you are as vulnerable as a big corporation, so you must do your bit to ensure cybersecurity.
The daunting concern here is budget, as you cannot expect to hire a big team to manage IT safety like the biggies. Likewise, you may be pressed for time to do your research. Fortunately, you can achieve the objective without spending a lot of time, money, and effort.
Following some basic measures can take you a long way, despite your resource constraints. Here are some actionable measures to help small businesses prioritize cybersecurity.
Ways Small Businesses Can Prioritize Cybersecurity
1. Begin with the basics
Most small business owners lose their way because they fail to start with cybersecurity. The best way is to begin somewhere, even with the basics. Establish a simple security policy for your employees so that they know the expectations. The idea is to ensure that everyone follows good cybersecurity practices.
These include the use of strong passwords, safe data storage and handling, and avoidance of phishing and scamming attempts. Your staff needs to understand that you are serious about security, and they have to do their bit to prevent data breaches.
2. Hold regular training sessions
You may have a robust policy to secure the data and assets of your small business, but it is seldom enough. People tend to forget things, and they may end up missing out on best practices. Holding regular training sessions on cybersecurity keeps the measures on top of their minds.
With regular training, you can eliminate the chances of breaches caused by human error or negligence. Training may cost a bit for your small business, but it is worthwhile. You can save your business revenues, customers, and reputation by avoiding hacking attacks in the long run.
3. Invest in penetration testing
Having a dedicated cybersecurity team in your budget can be challenging. It does not make sense to pay thousands of dollars every month to a team, just to counter attacks that may or may not happen. Hiring experts for penetration testing is a better option as it saves you tons of money.
For example, you can explore the option of ethical hackers for hire to check your systems for vulnerabilities and recommend solutions. Once you have robust defenses in place, you may not have to deal with an attack at all. Not to mention, you get the confidence and peace of mind to focus on running your company.
4. Create an incident response plan
You may have the best security policies and practices in place, but breaches and attacks may still happen. An incident response plan keeps you ready for such contingencies. It is a standardized document detailing the action for employees when they face such a situation.
For example, they may come across a criminal attempting to impersonate another employee or client to get confidential information. A response plan enables your team to safeguard themselves from such malicious criminals. Share the plan with your staff members and update it often to ensure safety at a personal level.
5. Optimize device-level security
Small businesses rely heavily on employees using personal devices in the workplace. It becomes even more common in pandemic times when a part of your team is likely to work from home at all times. Optimizing for device-level security becomes imperative to keep your confidential data and networks safe from hacking attacks. You must have a robust BYOD policy with stringent regulations and requirements for device users.
Employees must know what they can and cannot do on personal devices when accessing work-related data and apps. You can seek guidance from an expert before implementing this policy and review it from time to time.
At the End
Cybersecurity should be a priority for all businesses, regardless of their size and scale. The good thing is that even small businesses with tight budgets can run safely with these simple measures. You only need to have them in place and ensure that every employee follows them diligently.
Even if you cannot afford a dedicated team of experts, keep track of your risk factors by hiring experts. Never overlook flaws and vulnerabilities, and address them at the earliest.
Author Bio: Barry Brown is a marketing specialist and writer at Outreachmonks for the past 5 years. His expertise includes IoT and internet devices along with industrial technologies.
